Performance Improvements with an SSD?

[Themanthatisi]

I'm not really even sure what that means. It really is that simple.

 

Just about any computer out there will benefit greatly from an SSD, from a top of the line gaming rig to that piece of junk $200 laptop I have in my closet. SSD's aren't dependant on the rest of your computer. And games, regardless of the PC's power, will benefit in terms of load times with an SSD...even that $200 laptop. Unfortunately, ToR isn't most games and it benefits little to none from an SSD.

 

Ditto!

[Stoofa]

If you're going to go the SSD route - if possible make sure everything is running from SSD.

It's all well and good installing SWTOR on one, but if your OS is running on a mechanical drive or your swap file then you're still going to have a bottleneck.

 

SSD's only have a finite life. However indications at the moment are that by the time the drive is getting anywhere near the point where it would need replacing you will want to be upgrading anyway.

I personally have 2 SSD drives in my machine. 1 to run Windows, Swap File (which is very rarely touched as I'm running on 16GB) and my most used applications. The second runs all my games.

I then have a large mechanical drive for storage etc.

 

There is no doubt about it at all - load times will be quicker on an SSD.

[Aries_cz]

I have both OS (Win8 pro) and the game on SSDs (one for system, one for games), and I have noticed a significant decrease of loading times (maybe like a third of what they used to be on HDD or what they are on my laptop). However, It is on a entirely new and quite powerful computer (i7 quadcore, 8gb ram), so that may have something do to with it as well.

But in general, SSD helps the game a lot

[Malastare]

Wow thanks for all the replies. My hope was that the SSD would improve my load times, sounds like it might.

 

Yes, that is the ideal word: It might help.

 

The SSD won't make your framerate any higher or any smoother. It might reduce planet/zone load times, but only if the slowest piece of hardware in the chain at the moment is your hard drive. From some mild experience tuning hardware with SWTOR, the biggest benefit comes from RAM. If you don't have 8GB, then an SSD is not getting you anything huge in load times. SSDs might be fast, but they are dog slow compared to RAM. You want your system to be using RAM as often as possible. Having more than 8GB of RAM still helps, as it is more likely to be used as a disk cache for many of the files the game might be loading.

 

Beyond that, remember that the load process is a heavy read-process procedure. That means that you need processing power in able to make use of whatever read performance you add. If your CPU is already fully utilized during the load process, then speeding up the disk isn't going to have as much impact as you want, as it implies that the disk is not being fully utilized and is spending some time "waiting" for the CPU to finish its processing.

 

For the SSD to be a recommended upgrade, you really want to see your CPU having extra idle time during the load process. This means that the CPU is the one waiting for the disk to supply data and a faster disk would give you immediate improvements.

 

And even if that is the case, there are still a dozen minor/rare issues that might prevent you from getting the benefit of an SSD: weak controllers, other interference on the I/O subsystem, bad controller drivers, etc. Point here: SSDs are not a silver bullet. They don't fix problems. They are blazing fast devices, but if you have problems, they just make the problems happen faster. You need to make sure there aren't other issues before/after installing one.

 

At the same time: SSDs are probably the biggest raw improvement that most people can make to their PCs. For games they aren't terribly effective, but for the OS itself, they can be rather impressive. If you have the cash for one, its not a bad idea. Just don't get upset if it only speeds up your load times by 1 second.