HDD Bottleneck solution ?

[Twilight Sparkle]

Hello. I wanted to ask if anyone found solution to HDD bottleneck ?

What I mean is that when the game is installed on SSD not only loading are faster but you actually gain around 15 - 25 FPS (I tested this myself).

I heard that it is some kind of bug when the game is trying to store additional textures not on RAM of your PC or VRAM of your GPU but on HDD which is causing significant drop of fps when game tries to read textures from HDD.

Anyone found out anything about this ? Or our only solution is to move game to SSD ?

[[☥] - CJ -]

You dont gain FPS from using an SSD

The Only difference are the files are loaded quicker and map transitions are somewhat quicker.

FPS is only affected when the data is being loaded, after which FPS is normalized, but an SSD IN ITSELF does not increase FPS, only the rate at which the data can be loaded.

I use an SSHD with the game and have no such issues,

[Twilight Sparkle]

You are not fully right. My point is, standard 7200 HDD is too slow to provide smooth gameplay because of map transition as you said.

You propably didn't encounter this because in terms of data transfer SSHD is faster than normal HDD.

Real question here is - How can you increase performance using only standard HDD ?

[CatPerson]

My understanding is: faster loading can reduce stutter and reduce fps drops and thus gives people the impression their fps is "better" but it shouldn't increase average/max fps.

It's possible if storage transfer speed is a bottleneck to begin with, *and* if a game is coded to drag stuff back and forth from storage instead of vram it might affect it but this isn't exactly common.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Originally posted by Twilight Sparkle:

You are not fully right. My point is, standard 7200 HDD is too slow to provide smooth gameplay because of map transition as you said.

You propably didn't encounter this because in terms of data transfer SSHD is faster than normal HDD.

Real question here is - How can you increase performance using only standard HDD ?

Sorry but you would be incorrect

My 1TB 7200RPM SSHD has no issues loading the game and map transitions only take a few seconds.

And its really not faster, its the same/as good as any good SATA III HDD such as a WD Black/Blue and so on. im not even sure if the caching actually works because its not being used as the OS drive.

If you have a slow HDD then its only because it sucks, or its because it isnt configured correctly.
You cant make a sucky HDD perform better when the HDD itself is what sucks.
-

What it comes down to is
If the Read/Write of the HDD is in the area of 100MB/s or lower, then the drive itself is the problem.
If its in the area of 120-140MB/s or Higher then thats perfectly acceptable.

[Twilight Sparkle]

I do understand what you are writing. I am using pretty normal hdd - "Seagate 3.5'', 2TB, SATAIII, 7200RPM, 64MB cache" I wouldn't say it's sucks. It's average I think.

Still, noone can deny that when I play the game installed on hdd I get drops to ~25 fps and sometimes even lower and when I am playing the game installed on sSSD I don't have any drops and have smooth gameplay with ~45 FPS.

Also, I woudn't worry about it and woudn't post this thread if I had SSD with higher capacity than 128 GB. My problem is kinda funny. When the game is installed on HDD I get poor performance, when I install on SSD I have nice performance but then I cannot download additional 4k DLC :D

[[☥] - CJ -]

Download CrystalDiskMark and do a bench on your HDD
it'll tell you if its lacking in speed for that drive or not

[Twilight Sparkle]

I checked performance with HDTune few minutes ago. This soft should be similar I think

My HDD is over ~180 MB/s
My SSD is over ~410 MS/s

I will also add that FF XV is first game ever that I noticed boost in performance (not only in loading time) when installed on SSD

[[☥] - CJ -]

give crystaldiskmark a try

i cant say im impressed with HDTune

[Nerlyas]

WD Black 1TB, no stutter and fps drop

you should get a properly HDD, also i didn't notice any performance boost by installing it on my 850 samsung evo

[Twilight Sparkle]

Ok, I downloaded CrystalDiskMark and you are right. Results are worse, much worse. From the first test "Q32T1" it's 119 MB/s for Read and 104 MB/s for Write.

Is it possible that it's caused by fragmentation ? Defraggler is telling me that HDD has 34% of fragmentation. I will try to run defrag for the night, maybe this will help ?

[[☥] - CJ -]

Defragging is always a good idea after installing such a large game, access times can improve after defragging.

And yeah its as i suspected, those are a little on the low side
any number of things can cause low results though, amount of space on the drive and needing a defrag are 2 such causes, age of the drive is another, etc so on.

[ZedameX]

Unfortunately you are basically asking to give superpowers to hardware that doesn't have any.

I'd be more inclined to suggest saving for an SSD to dedicate the games you are currently playing on. (Either delete or move files to an HDD when you are not actively playing)

It sounds like the only way you can speed things up is to buy faster things.

Theoretically stuff installed nearer to the center of a spinning hdd, the head has less distance to move so should be faster. Defragging tries to move files physically closer together so the head doesn't have to bounce around the hdd so much so it would smoothen bit. But I wou'dn't say it would give you the performance boost you are after.

[SenMithrarin85]

an ssd will migitgate or remove any stutter and fps drops caused by the game seeking assets from the disc. it won't boost average fps (what fps you get once all loading is done)

I personally cannot abide stutter. I gave up gaming on hdds a long time ago, tried again after moving to desktop since desktop drives are faster than laptop ones, but the windows intel meltdown patch but the kibosh on that.

[Jean-Simon Chenard]

Originally posted by Twilight Sparkle:

Hello. I wanted to ask if anyone found solution to HDD bottleneck ?

What I mean is that when the game is installed on SSD not only loading are faster but you actually gain around 15 - 25 FPS (I tested this myself).

I heard that it is some kind of bug when the game is trying to store additional textures not on RAM of your PC or VRAM of your GPU but on HDD which is causing significant drop of fps when game tries to read textures from HDD.

Anyone found out anything about this ? Or our only solution is to move game to SSD ?

Hello

There is no bottleneck using an HDD and there is no actual gain using an SSD or M.2.

I have a M. 2 Samsung 960 and tried the game both on it and my WD Black 6To. If you use the spec viewer in game the loads are about 120 to 200 Mo/s for the SSD and HD.

This game loads everything in the Ram and vram and rarely use HDD to aggressively loads stuff. It is seamless. Unless you have very few Ram

[westraaros1]

hdd vs ssd fps "doesent get affected!" This is both old and terrible wrong in 2024 atleast..

Older games this was true...But these days n even some older games improve yhe fps.

No matter the reason i had about 50fps w my hdd and w my external ssd i get 100fps w drops down to 75 and even 60fps when at its worst..

But in some games ssd do improve fps(i have tried almost every aaa game the past few years n yes these days the old hdd vs ssd do not effect fps is still not correct these days(Things change i guess)