New Rig, biatches!

[Jarhead0331]

How are you finding Windows 10 on your new rig (of which I'm jealous!)? I have hung back on it after reading our tech talk section, but it's been out a while now.

I don't mind it all so far. I haven't done too much with it, but it seems intuitive and its running well.

[JudgeDredd]

Are you up and running yet with everything or still doing the installs?

It's always so sweet to load a game that you had to have tuned down a bit and see it in all it's glory with a new rig!

[Grim.Reaper]

So I installed my new 480GB hard drive and copied all my Steam library across to it (which was very easy actually)....and I've got 50GB left  :'(

I would be interested to see how this works out for you....I was always under the impression the biggest improvement you would see is by installing the operating system on the drive versus just the games/applications directly, especially since a lot of games rely on Windows libraries and components.  I have been hesitant to purchase a drive until I eventually rebuild my machine since I don't won't to go through an install of the O/S again, but if you see noticeable gain by just installing/moving apps to the new drive, I may reconsider.  Keep us posted!

I have my OS installed on a 120GB SSD and the speed of booting up is incredible. I switch my machine off every morning when I go to work and every night when I go to bed. The only time I leave it on is when I run anti-spam and anti-virus checks on a Saturday night.

As for whether this drive helps? From what little time I got today with DCS, loading of a mission was considerably faster...I have no idea whether that was purely down to the disk or whether it was down to me continually going in and out of the game (and so it was cached perhaps?)

Thanks JD...do you know if there is any speed performance (or other) benefit of having a separate SSD for the OS and another for the games?  If you were to combine the OS and games on the same SSD drive, would that perform any better?  Or does either configuration basically yield the same performance?  I like the idea of having separate SSDs, but just was curious if it had any disadvantages.

[Jarhead0331]

Are you up and running yet with everything or still doing the installs?

It's always so sweet to load a game that you had to have tuned down a bit and see it in all it's glory with a new rig!

The problem is my old rig was pretty powerful too. It could pretty much handle anything I threw at it. I'm not going to install everything onto the new system all at once. I don't want to pollute it. I'm really just installing the most graphics intensive games for now. The old system is set up on another desk in my office so it is still accessible.

[AchillesLastStand]

So I installed my new 480GB hard drive and copied all my Steam library across to it (which was very easy actually)....and I've got 50GB left  :'(

I would be interested to see how this works out for you....I was always under the impression the biggest improvement you would see is by installing the operating system on the drive versus just the games/applications directly, especially since a lot of games rely on Windows libraries and components.  I have been hesitant to purchase a drive until I eventually rebuild my machine since I don't won't to go through an install of the O/S again, but if you see noticeable gain by just installing/moving apps to the new drive, I may reconsider.  Keep us posted!

I have my OS installed on a 120GB SSD and the speed of booting up is incredible. I switch my machine off every morning when I go to work and every night when I go to bed. The only time I leave it on is when I run anti-spam and anti-virus checks on a Saturday night.

As for whether this drive helps? From what little time I got today with DCS, loading of a mission was considerably faster...I have no idea whether that was purely down to the disk or whether it was down to me continually going in and out of the game (and so it was cached perhaps?)

Thanks JD...do you know if there is any speed performance (or other) benefit of having a separate SSD for the OS and another for the games?  If you were to combine the OS and games on the same SSD drive, would that perform any better?  Or does either configuration basically yield the same performance?  I like the idea of having separate SSDs, but just was curious if it had any disadvantages.

Ive got a i7-4790K with the OS on a Samsung 850 EVO 500BG SSD, also got a few games on their as well. Everything else which includes most of the steam library goes on a 1TB WD black HDD. Boot times are well under 10 seconds and general computational tasks are ultra responsive. One of the games {men of war AS2} ive had installed on both drives and the load times were much faster on the SSD. Overall game performance however was about the same. As far as SSD's go I believe their main advantage as far as gaming goes is faster loading times, although ive heard games with huge worlds perform better on a SSD.
The Samsung 850 EVO is around 150 Amazon which is a steal.

[JudgeDredd]

So I installed my new 480GB hard drive and copied all my Steam library across to it (which was very easy actually)....and I've got 50GB left  :'(

I would be interested to see how this works out for you....I was always under the impression the biggest improvement you would see is by installing the operating system on the drive versus just the games/applications directly, especially since a lot of games rely on Windows libraries and components.  I have been hesitant to purchase a drive until I eventually rebuild my machine since I don't won't to go through an install of the O/S again, but if you see noticeable gain by just installing/moving apps to the new drive, I may reconsider.  Keep us posted!

I have my OS installed on a 120GB SSD and the speed of booting up is incredible. I switch my machine off every morning when I go to work and every night when I go to bed. The only time I leave it on is when I run anti-spam and anti-virus checks on a Saturday night.

As for whether this drive helps? From what little time I got today with DCS, loading of a mission was considerably faster...I have no idea whether that was purely down to the disk or whether it was down to me continually going in and out of the game (and so it was cached perhaps?)

Thanks JD...do you know if there is any speed performance (or other) benefit of having a separate SSD for the OS and another for the games?  If you were to combine the OS and games on the same SSD drive, would that perform any better?  Or does either configuration basically yield the same performance?  I like the idea of having separate SSDs, but just was curious if it had any disadvantages.

Ive got a i7-4790K with the OS on a Samsung 850 EVO 500BG SSD, also got a few games on their as well. Everything else which includes most of the steam library goes on a 1TB WD black HDD. Boot times are well under 10 seconds and general computational tasks are ultra responsive. One of the games {men of war AS2} ive had installed on both drives and the load times were much faster on the SSD. Overall game performance however was about the same. As far as SSD's go I believe their main advantage as far as gaming goes is faster loading times, although ive heard games with huge worlds perform better on a SSD.
The Samsung 850 EVO is around 150 Amazon which is a steal.

^ this.

I'm not 100% sure, but it's my understanding that games on an SSD will have considerably shorter load times. Also, the graphics have to be loaded for the game into VRAM and also RAM (should there not be enough VRAM, so I would suspect games with either large textures or a large amount of textures (where VRAM is filled) would benefit from the faster access times of an SSD to swap them out/load them.

I'm just guessing here really. I mean - it sounds logical than anything loading from an SSD will load faster (why do we go for black editions of hard drives otherwise?) - however, they may not be as important nowadays given the VRAM and RAM we have.

I think - for the money (a 500GB SSD is around £100) - the benefits are substantial enough (even if it's just loading the game/level).

[Huw the Poo]

Since nobody has asked the important question yet: Jarhead, is it a sexy PC?  Come on, let's have a look at it!

[JudgeDredd]

It's got super cool blue LEDs apparently

[Huw the Poo]

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Nefaro]

I'm not 100% sure, but it's my understanding that games on an SSD will have considerably shorter load times. Also, the graphics have to be loaded for the game into VRAM and also RAM (should there not be enough VRAM, so I would suspect games with either large textures or a large amount of textures (where VRAM is filled) would benefit from the faster access times of an SSD to swap them out/load them.

I'm just guessing here really. I mean - it sounds logical than anything loading from an SSD will load faster (why do we go for black editions of hard drives otherwise?) - however, they may not be as important nowadays given the VRAM and RAM we have.

You are correct.  SSDs just increase loading times because they don't have to wait for the mechanical disks and reader arms to zip back & forth, to read data off the platters, before sending the info onward. 

Think of it more like having the installed programs on a separate set of RAM.  Accesses faster than mechanical HDDs.  It's by no means instant but a good deal faster.  It comes at the expense of being more expensive per GB, of course, and the comparable lifespan may be shorter with the same amount of use.

The load times on games will be faster.  Those with long initial asset load times and/or many "zoned" areas which require regular loading screens throughout gameplay benefit most.  Something like Pillars Of Eternity, with it's many zoned areas requiring a load screen each time you move to a new spot, lessens the time spent waiting on those load screens for example.  Or the flight sims that have a long load screen, before entering a mission, because it's loading up all the textures & scenery for a large area of virtual world.

Where it doesn't help is with purely processor intensive stuff, including GPU.  The time it takes for a big End Turn resolution, or cranking up graphics quality, isn't generally going to be improved.

[Grim.Reaper]

Thanks guys but I am good with the benefits of buying a ssd, those are well understood.  My last question was whether it was better to just buy one ssd and install operating system and games on the same drive, or install two ssd drives, one with the operating system and the other just games.  Will either configuration perform better than the other or will it be the same?

Thanks!

[bbmike]

I installed two 500GB SSDs in my Alienware.  8)

[WallysWorld]

I just installed a 120 GB SSD into my old i7-920 computer and just by moving a few games there, the load time of these games are vastly improved. For example Victoria 2, Cities Skylines, ARMA and ARMA 2 load super fast.

I still have Windows 7 installed on a HDD, but when I do get a new computer, I will definitely try to get a SSD for the OS and another SSD for games and other programs.

[AchillesLastStand]

Thanks guys but I am good with the benefits of buying a ssd, those are well understood.  My last question was whether it was better to just buy one ssd and install operating system and games on the same drive, or install two ssd drives, one with the operating system and the other just games.  Will either configuration perform better than the other or will it be the same?

Thanks!

It would be the same difference no matter. You can get a good 500 GB SSD like mine, http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E500B-AM/dp/B00OBRE5UE/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1450031379&sr=1-2&keywords=ssd for about 150$. If you do indeed choose to install a SSD and put the OS on it as well as some games there a bunch of good guides on tips you can do with the OS that help the SSD perform faster and add to its lifespan
Here are a few...
http://techotv.com/ssd-optimization-tips-tweaks-faster/

Since a SSD isn't mechanical but electrical it never needs defragmenting......ever. Disable it completely.
Disable indexing
Make sure its in AHCI mode.
Disable hibernate.
Enable Trim.

Personally I keep system restore disabled as well.