Run bad of an HDD?

[Mr.Person]

I'm thinking of getting the game after I get Christmas Cash. I meed the minimum but not recommended system requirements, but the bigger deal is that I heard the game runs bad off of HDDs.

I don't have enough space on my SSD for the game, and the game itself would take up nearly 1/4 of the 500gb it has, and I can't/don't want to upgrade the SSD until I build a new PC next year.

I heard it runs bad off of HDDs, if its just long load time or some pop-in that's fine. But if its like Starfield where you get audio desync or glitches on an HDD then I'll have to wait til I build my new PC to play.

tl;dr
What are the major cons of playing the game installed on an HDD?

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

Run bad of an HDD?
I'm thinking of getting the game after I get Christmas Cash. I meed the minimum but not recommended system requirements, but the bigger deal is that I heard the game runs bad off of HDDs.

I don't have enough space on my SSD for the game, and the game itself would take up nearly 1/4 of the 500gb it has, and I can't/don't want to upgrade the SSD until I build a new PC next year.

I heard it runs bad off of HDDs, if its just long load time or some pop-in that's fine. But if its like Starfield where you get audio desync or glitches on an HDD then I'll have to wait til I build my new PC to play.

tl;dr
What are the major cons of playing the game installed on an HDD?

Like with any other game: anything related to loading times.

In your situation I do not recommend to get the game before you are able to upgrade your PC properly. That is unless you consider something like using Geforce Now subscription.

[Mr.Person]

if its just load times, that's not a big deal. Before I put Warhammer III on my SSD, it took almost 8-10 minutes to load the big campaign map from the main menu, so I can deal with that. As I said, I'm more worried about actual glitches, hitches, desyncs or crashes potentially caused by HDDs

As for specs I'm only a bit under the recommended, so I'm not to worried about performance. i can turn down a few settings to gain some FPS.

[Mormacil]

If you have 16gb of ram you can turn on slow HDD mode.

[Mr.Person]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

If you have 16gb of ram you can turn on slow HDD mode.

I have 32, so that may help, what does that do specifically? Keep a bunch of extra game data stored in the RAM?

Originally posted by Razorblade:

The game technically runs on HDDs, but "SSD required" being in the minimum specs is definitely justified.

In what way? any major issues with HDDs?

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

Originally posted by Mormacil:

If you have 16gb of ram you can turn on slow HDD mode.

I have 32, so that may help, what does that do specifically? Keep a bunch of extra game data stored in the RAM?

Originally posted by Razorblade:

The game technically runs on HDDs, but "SSD required" being in the minimum specs is definitely justified.

In what way? any major issues with HDDs?

Nope. Nothing major beyond the loading times.
There are in fact plenty of players who enjoy the game on HDD.

[Mr.Person]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Nope. Nothing major beyond the loading times.
There are in fact plenty of players who enjoy the game on HDD.

Good to know, I was told there were issues with HDD use with this game

[Mormacil]

I mean it doesn't play nice with being installed on external drives but I've seen no issues with internal drives.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Nope. Nothing major beyond the loading times.
There are in fact plenty of players who enjoy the game on HDD.

Good to know, I was told there were issues with HDD use with this game

I do a lot of troubleshooting, and HDD issues is nothing I know about. If people confuse HDD issues with other things, that is on them. But a HDD is not THAT slow, that it could cause too much of any issue. It is more likely a combination of things like: if loading times are slow with a bad OS, it can give the game hiccups and other issues.

[Mr.Person]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

I mean it doesn't play nice with being installed on external drives but I've seen no issues with internal drives.

Sounds good, all my drives are internal

Thanks for the answers all.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

I mean it doesn't play nice with being installed on external drives but I've seen no issues with internal drives.

I can run Baldur's Gate 3 from an external HDD without any issues. Problems are not caused by using a HDD. Problems would be there if you use an old USB port which is very slow.
With a good USB port you can run Baldur's Gate 3 even from a USB drive faster than from a HDD.

[CorwynCorey]

Welcome to gaming in the modern era. SSD is a requirement to run games these days because fast access of data and cache is common now. Move some stuff off of your SSD. Uninstall some stuff you aren't using a lot.

Hoarders are kinda gross, and not just because of overflowing cat litter boxes. Learn to let go, even if for only a while. If waiting isn't an issue, can always reinstall those things later. Focus on *now* and refocus when you need to. It will make *all* gameplay experiences better.

[Mr.Person]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

Good to know, I was told there were issues with HDD use with this game

I do a lot of troubleshooting, and HDD issues is nothing I know about. If people confuse HDD issues with other things, that is on them. But a HDD is not THAT slow, that it could cause too much of any issue. It is more likely a combination of things like: if loading times are slow with a bad OS, it can give the game hiccups and other issues.

Also good to know

I was just double checking since I had heard HDDs would cause problems, coupled with the store page saying SSD is required, I was getting concernet.

If I get desperate I may end up moving some stuff off the SSD to make room for this, even though this is about the size of 3 other games I keep there lol

[DigitalDasch]

yeah i run this with 8GB physical memory on setting custom but between high and ultra. and have ran into ONE bug or glitch that was fixed with just reloading a save before my characters turned so black they wouldnt pass a tint test. id say send er with how much more memory available you have.

[Daniel]

Wouldn’t recommend getting this game on bare minimum specs, fps will obviously suck, unless you put the graphics on PS2 levels, loading in will take forever, quickloads will take forever, you really just gonna set yourself up for some major suckage.

Get the game after you got a new rig and then have fun.

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by Daniel:

Wouldn’t recommend getting this game on bare minimum specs, fps will obviously suck, unless you put the graphics on PS2 levels, loading in will take forever, quickloads will take forever, you really just gonna set yourself up for some major suckage.

Get the game after you got a new rig and then have fun.

Of course it's far easier to spend 50 on a game than save for a single recommended new graphics card...