Long load times from SSD

[silkysmoothpro]

Often takes 30+ minutes to load to the main menu on startup. Then a further 10-15 minutes to load into a flight. This is from a new healthy SSD (not the C drive) on an i7 machine with 2x GTX 980TIs and 16GB ram. Dodgy install?

[Dumberoni TV]

For me it only takes about 3 - 5 minutes from I start the simulator, and until it's at the main menu.

[Surveyor]

引用自 BigTittyBabe：

For me it only takes about 3 - 5 minutes from I start the simulator, and until it's at the main menu.

Also off an SSD? I thought only my SSD loading times were bad (granted, not AS bad as those of the OP).

[tmaddox]

I have a standard hard drive. I just tested. 1 min 30 sec to the Press any key screen. Then 3 minutes after pressing any key to get to the main menu. So 4 minutes and 30 seconds on a non-SSD drive.

[pii]

引用自 Leather：

Are you sure it’s installed on the SSD? It definitely shouldn’t take that long, so yeah, something is going on. Mine takes maybe a minute tops.

It shouldn't take that long on a 20 year old HHD

[J4MESOX4D]

This may sound like a daft question but is your SSD actually real? I've been reading about some fakes in existence that do the job in storing data but are a bit of a shambles in terms of performance because they are knock-offs. Alternatively the drive may be dying or strained or the install itself is botched.

[silkysmoothpro]

Hi everyone, update here. I have checked the SSD health using Crystal Disk and it's 100% as expected with a new SSD. Read/write times check out for this type of sata SSD and other programs/files run fine. Uninstalled and re-installed Flight Sim and it's still taking about 20 minutes to load to the main menu. Task manager says disk utilisation is 100% during that time.

[Sorvete]

引用自 silkysmoothpro：

Hi everyone, update here. I have checked the SSD health using Crystal Disk and it's 100% as expected with a new SSD. Read/write times check out for this type of sata SSD and other programs/files run fine. Uninstalled and re-installed Flight Sim and it's still taking about 20 minutes to load to the main menu. Task manager says disk utilisation is 100% during that time.

Not sure if it would change anything, but is it full? SSDs are supposed to have some free space.

[J4MESOX4D]

引用自 silkysmoothpro：

Hi everyone, update here. I have checked the SSD health using Crystal Disk and it's 100% as expected with a new SSD. Read/write times check out for this type of sata SSD and other programs/files run fine. Uninstalled and re-installed Flight Sim and it's still taking about 20 minutes to load to the main menu. Task manager says disk utilisation is 100% during that time.

Is your Windows up to date and is there any programs that could interfere with the game?

[silkysmoothpro]

引用自 Kurohito：

引用自 silkysmoothpro：

Hi everyone, update here. I have checked the SSD health using Crystal Disk and it's 100% as expected with a new SSD. Read/write times check out for this type of sata SSD and other programs/files run fine. Uninstalled and re-installed Flight Sim and it's still taking about 20 minutes to load to the main menu. Task manager says disk utilisation is 100% during that time.

Not sure if it would change anything, but is it full? SSDs are supposed to have some free space.

25% full (most of this being Flight Sim)...

[HFM]

I have the MS Store version of the game, I expected due to way they deploy apps there with the encryption etc.. that MS Store versions of games had longer startup and load times. I have no real evidence of that on my system by having a game in the MS Store and Steam both to try this out.. but here's my specs and times..

Specs:
Win 10 20H2 Slow Ring w/ latest updates
i7 8565U (15W 4c/8t) (2018 LG Gram 17)
16GB DDR4 2400
WD Black SN750 NVMe 500GB (4x PCI) (WIn 10 install drive)
WD Black SN750 NVMe 1TB (2x PCI) FS 2020 is installed here)
Asus Strix RTX 2070 OC Edition in eGPU (Sonnet Breakaway Box 550)
2560x1600 resolution (16:10, using internal laptop panel)

I quit Steam since I don't run it unless I'm playing a Steam game or just checking forums/game updates. I quit it immediately after at all times. I know it doesn't use many BG resources but might as well use my typical scenario.

I ran this about 30 minutes after booting up, so windows store updates and windows update check had already run well before the time I tried to load the game.. (I forced them both about 10 minutes prior..)

Yes the 1TB WD Black I use for game installs is running in 2x PCIe, the 2018 LG Gram is only 2x in the secondary slot for NVMe, still faster than SATA... The latest version of Gram 17 has two 4x slots though.

Hit win Key and type "Flight" (I like a no icon desktop and use hotkeys to launch apps..)
Hit enter and start stopwatch at the same time

these times are total time from start not the time that section took

Run 1
Launch to "Press Any Key" : 1:32
To Main Menu: 5:01 !!!!

Quit to desktop in the main menu and run it again
Run 2
Launch to "Press Any Key": 1:27
To Main Menu: 3:03

I had not launched the game for around a day and a half before this, I suspect when that blue bar is going across the bottom between "Press any key" and the Main Menu that it might be redoing some shader compilation or something like that. I don't know how else to explain a 2 MINUTE gap difference between loads. I have a minimal amount of background stuff running, my typical idle CPU usage is 1-2% max.


Like others have suggested, a FULL SSD can greatly reduce it's performance. This is why I use a 1TB SSD for games and leave it around 75% max full and uninstall something when I get about that close to capacity. Previously when I had a 512GB game drive and it got close to capacity I could literally tell the difference.

Also, Intel RST software and drivers caused me all sorts of pain. Added DPC Latency, hitching and stuttering, even to the point of causing YT videos to freeze randomly for 3-5 seconds. I tried multiple versions clean installing them just to make sure it wasn't some bug they fixed along the way. I was trying things one at a time and uninstalling RST fixed everything. The microsoft provided AHCI driver is perfectly acceptable. If you have Intel RST installed, uninstall that garbage 99% of people using it don't need it.'

Third thing to check would be BIOS updates for your mainboard and also firmware updates for your SSD. Most SSD manufacturers have a software suite for their SSD products you can use to check for firmware updates. These tools can also tell you if there's some health problem with the drive.

[Surveyor]

引用自 HFM：

I have the MS Store version of the game, I expected due to way they deploy apps there with the encryption etc.. that MS Store versions of games had longer startup and load times. I have no real evidence of that on my system by having a game in the MS Store and Steam both to try this out.. but here's my specs and times..

Specs:
Win 10 20H2 Slow Ring w/ latest updates
i7 8565U (15W 4c/8t) (2018 LG Gram 17)
16GB DDR4 2400
WD Black SN750 NVMe 500GB (4x PCI) (WIn 10 install drive)
WD Black SN750 NVMe 1TB (2x PCI) FS 2020 is installed here)
Asus Strix RTX 2070 OC Edition in eGPU (Sonnet Breakaway Box 550)
2560x1600 resolution (16:10, using internal laptop panel)

I quit Steam since I don't run it unless I'm playing a Steam game or just checking forums/game updates. I quit it immediately after at all times. I know it doesn't use many BG resources but might as well use my typical scenario.

I ran this about 30 minutes after booting up, so windows store updates and windows update check had already run well before the time I tried to load the game.. (I forced them both about 10 minutes prior..)

Yes the 1TB WD Black I use for game installs is running in 2x PCIe, the 2018 LG Gram is only 2x in the secondary slot for NVMe, still faster than SATA... The latest version of Gram 17 has two 4x slots though.

Hit win Key and type "Flight" (I like a no icon desktop and use hotkeys to launch apps..)
Hit enter and start stopwatch at the same time

these times are total time from start not the time that section took

Run 1
Launch to "Press Any Key" : 1:32
To Main Menu: 5:01 !!!!

Quit to desktop in the main menu and run it again
Run 2
Launch to "Press Any Key": 1:27
To Main Menu: 3:03

I had not launched the game for around a day and a half before this, I suspect when that blue bar is going across the bottom between "Press any key" and the Main Menu that it might be redoing some shader compilation or something like that. I don't know how else to explain a 2 MINUTE gap difference between loads. I have a minimal amount of background stuff running, my typical idle CPU usage is 1-2% max.

I'd suspect it partially stays in the memory after the first launch. When I start DCS for the first time, for example, it takes forever to load everything (off an HDD though). But after quitting it, it loads up pretty fast. Probably quicker than MFS, which is on the SSD.

[Surveyor]

Also, I didn't notice any difference between my SSD being filled up almost to capacity and after I freed up enough space for the upcoming patch...

[silkysmoothpro]

The latest NVIDIA drivers have cut blue bar load times from the Press Any Key screen to the main menu to 10 - 15 minutes now, but by the sounds of it that's still far too high

[J4MESOX4D]

引用自 silkysmoothpro：

The latest NVIDIA drivers have cut blue bar load times from the Press Any Key screen to the main menu to 10 - 15 minutes now, but by the sounds of it that's still far too high

For the second time, is your Windows up to date?

[Tuold]

Would it make any difference which SATA port the OP has his drive plugged into? I think I've seen 6 port motherboards that only had one of them reserved for faster speeds.

I've got the sim installed on it's own Crucial 1TB NVME and loading time from start to menu is 2:12. The system drive is a Samsung 970 EVO and benchmarks faster than the Crucial but I was on a budget.