Question About Putting This Game on an SSD

[Starwind Amada]

Will that make it load faster? Right now I'm using an HDD. Also, can I use the SSD from my Series S instead of paying for a new one?

[Legendkiller165]

Of course you can't use the SSD from the console...

[space]

you mean you want to take out the internal nvme from your console and put it in your pc? no

[Bee Keeper]

How good at soldering and possibly welding are you?

[RoJo]

It will be integrated into the board/PCB of the Xbox. You'll do a lot more harm than good in trying to remove it.

NVME M.2 SSD drives are really cheap these days in the 1TB range.

[Starwind Amada]

Okay, I'll just buy one. I'm not good at installing though. I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the pins on a Ryzen 7 once (but they let me have a replacement by sending them the busted one). Maybe Geek Squad can do it. I couldn't even play the Dead Space remake because I don't have an SSD so I had to buy it a second time on PS5 (didn't have the Series S yet)

[Someone7272]

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

Will that make it load faster? Right now I'm using an HDD. Also, can I use the SSD from my Series S instead of paying for a new one?

How does it run on a HDD? Other than long loading times, do you notice any texture pop-in or areas not loading fully before you reach them? And does the game show any warning or error messages about this?

My SSD is nearly full, but got plenty of space on HDD. Assuming your HDD is a 7200 RPM desktop type?

I have TLOU Part 1 on a HDD. Initial loading times are around 3 minutes, but once in-game, I didn’t have any issues. I’m not bothered by initial loading times, so if I can get away with a HDD, then that’s what I’ll do.

[WhiteSnake76]

Youi can also just buy a SATA III SSD, should be good enough, just takes a little longer to load than a M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD

[Starwind Amada]

Originally posted by Someone7272:

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

Will that make it load faster? Right now I'm using an HDD. Also, can I use the SSD from my Series S instead of paying for a new one?

How does it run on a HDD? Other than long loading times, do you notice any texture pop-in or areas not loading fully before you reach them? And does the game show any warning or error messages about this?

My SSD is nearly full, but got plenty of space on HDD. Assuming your HDD is a 7200 RPM desktop type?

I have TLOU Part 1 on a HDD. Initial loading times are around 3 minutes, but once in-game, I didn’t have any issues. I’m not bothered by initial loading times, so if I can get away with a HDD, then that’s what I’ll do.

Yeah, it runs fine after the initial load.

My PC got infected (hah, because we're in a TLOU forum) and I stuck it in the closet and went back to consoles. I took it out a week ago and it was working fine so I started redownloading a bunch of stuff. The SSD will also be good because I sold my 1 TB HDD when the PC stopped working.

[Someone7272]

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

Yeah, it runs fine after the initial load.

My PC got infected (hah, because we're in a TLOU forum) and I stuck it in the closet and went back to consoles. I took it out a week ago and it was working fine so I started redownloading a bunch of stuff. The SSD will also be good because I sold my 1 TB HDD when the PC stopped working.

Lol, nice one 😂 hope your PC recovered okay!

Thanks for the insight. My SSD is only 480GB and it’s primarily for Windows OS and installed programs. My 2TB HDD was specifically purchased for games, so I will ignore Nixxes Software and install it to this anyway. And so begins a long 3 day wait… wish I had fast internet 😫

By the time this finishes downloading, Nixxes Software would have probably released the first update. Yay, even more downloading!

But in all seriousness, I do wonder if an SSD realistically makes any difference to the perceived framerate. In my case, I’m already gonna be CPU bottlenecked so bad, I’m not convinced that using an SSD would improve it at all. Hope Nixxes Software add a “pre-compile all shaders” option like TLOU Part 1 requires.

[Starwind Amada]

I picked up an internal SSD and 32GB of RAM

[Someone7272]

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

I picked up an internal SSD and 32GB of RAM

Please can you test and see whether it makes any noticeable difference to performance? Other than faster loading times.

[Not Mr Flıbble]

Originally posted by Someone7272:

But in all seriousness, I do wonder if an SSD realistically makes any difference to the perceived framerate. In my case, I’m already gonna be CPU bottlenecked so bad, I’m not convinced that using an SSD would improve it at all. Hope Nixxes Software add a “pre-compile all shaders” option like TLOU Part 1 requires.

I expect that initial loading will be faster, transition times will be shorter and there may be less stuttering. Otherwise, you probably won't notice.

(Running from spinning rust here, but I have access to a laptop with eMMC storage and I've seen the difference that that makes for certain system operations.)

[Someone7272]

Originally posted by Not Mr Flıbble:

I expect that initial loading will be faster, transition times will be shorter and there may be less stuttering. Otherwise, you probably won't notice.

(Running from spinning rust here, but I have access to a laptop with eMMC storage and I've seen the difference that that makes for certain system operations.)

I finally got in-game with a HDD and it’s horrific. Cutscenes have entire background textures missing, foreground props missing (these will pop-in after around 15-30 sec).

However I am unsure if this is due to slow HDD, or because shaders are not being compiled fast enough. If I quit to the menu and re-load the save, it does the “compiling shaders” step again, then everything seems normal. At least, until the next “new” area is loaded.

Considering that I didn’t have these issues with Part 1 (which has mandatory shader pre-compile), I’m leaning towards slow background shader compiling.

[Not Mr Flıbble]

Originally posted by Someone7272:

Originally posted by Not Mr Flıbble:

I expect that initial loading will be faster, transition times will be shorter and there may be less stuttering. Otherwise, you probably won't notice.

(Running from spinning rust here, but I have access to a laptop with eMMC storage and I've seen the difference that that makes for certain system operations.)

I finally got in-game with a HDD and it’s horrific. Cutscenes have entire background textures missing, foreground props missing (these will pop-in after around 15-30 sec).

I haven't noticed problems of those kinds, but I have seen some model glitching (wrong location or orientation). Cause is probably the same, though.

It can't help that Steam's system info reports spinning rust and optical drives as SSDs…

However I am unsure if this is due to slow HDD, or because shaders are not being compiled fast enough. If I quit to the menu and re-load the save, it does the “compiling shaders” step again, then everything seems normal. At least, until the next “new” area is loaded.

Shader compilation should, after the first run after installation/update, be little more than retrieval from cache.

Two questions come to mind:

• Maybe some texture- and LOD-related settings are too high? (I'm using mostly medium; 1080p display.)
• How much free RAM do you have? (More helps since it can be used as disk cache.)

[Someone7272]

Originally posted by Not Mr Flıbble:

Shader compilation should, after the first run after installation/update, be little more than retrieval from cache.

Two questions come to mind:

• Maybe some texture- and LOD-related settings are too high? (I'm using mostly medium; 1080p display.)
• How much free RAM do you have? (More helps since it can be used as disk cache.)

32GB RAM and 16 GB VRAM, it should be more than enough for high/very high detail at 1080p.

If I replay the affected areas, the problem doesn’t happen again in that area (and the loading screen will do another short compiling shaders step).

Have to do some more testing, but I’m almost certain the problem is caused by shaders not being compiled fast enough in the background.

Update: it’s definitely caused by slow background shader compiling. If I pause the game and select “Restart checkpoint/encounter” or “Replay cinematic” (during cutscenes), it goes to a loading screen and compiles all pending shaders immediately. This is good because it clears the shader compile queue for the current area.

After that, the game runs much smoother and anything that was missing in the environment appears as expected. At least until I reach the next shader compile trigger.