Does installing many games slow down your PC?

[Phobos]

I don't have a top-notch PC, it's what you could say mediocre. I got plenty of games though, and I'm wondering, if I install them all, will it have an impact in my PC's performance and speed?

Thanks in advance folks!

[Apostulator]

Try to leave, at least, about 33% of your hard-drive space empty; then the operating-system can juggle things around faster.
Defragment often; stay below 3%-fragmented for best performance; use the free Defraggler program; and learn and use the free CCleaner program too (both from Piriform).

[Phobos]

Originally posted by Apostulator:

Try to leave, at least, about 33% of your hard-drive space empty; then the operating-system can juggle things around faster.
Defragment often; stay below 3%-fragmented for best performance; use the free Defraggler program; and learn and use the free CCleaner program too (both from Piriform).

I'm already defraging and I have about 40% of my PC hard empty. So, I guess that's a "yes" do my question eh?

[ReBoot]

Installing games doesn't impact performance. Installing programs that run in the background does.

[Phobos]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Installing games doesn't impact performance. Installing programs that run in the background does.

So, I can e.g. install 20 games and my PC performance will not be affected?

[ReBoot]

That's what I said.

[Phobos]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

That's what I said.

Aight, thanks a lot mate! :D (sorry, it's the crack of dawn here and I still haven't drank that coffee yet)

[Lusus Symphonia]

Originally posted by Phobos:

I don't have a top-notch PC, it's what you could say mediocre. I got plenty of games though, and I'm wondering, if I install them all, will it have an impact in my PC's performance and speed?

Thanks in advance folks!

Install all operating programs on a seperate HDD or SATA to keep it's performance unaffected.

[Phobos]

Originally posted by Red Monk:

Originally posted by Phobos:

I don't have a top-notch PC, it's what you could say mediocre. I got plenty of games though, and I'm wondering, if I install them all, will it have an impact in my PC's performance and speed?

Thanks in advance folks!

Install all operating programs on a seperate HDD or SATA to keep it's performance unaffected.

Good point, will give it a shot.

[ReBoot]

Not really a good point. Unless you fill the system disk to the brim, there's no impact on performance whatsoever. Emphasis on "Whatsoever", there isn't even a gradual difference.

[Lusus Symphonia]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Not really a good point. Unless you fill the system disk to the brim, there's no impact on performance whatsoever. Emphasis on "Whatsoever", there isn't even a gradual difference.

Having your operating system on a seperate SATA drive will give your PC a massive speed boost in processing tasks that involve the OS such as boot up.

I have no idea why you wouldn't have your OS on a SATA.

[Sovietball]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Not really a good point. Unless you fill the system disk to the brim, there's no impact on performance whatsoever. Emphasis on "Whatsoever", there isn't even a gradual difference.

It's just better in case you forget :D

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Red Monk:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Not really a good point. Unless you fill the system disk to the brim, there's no impact on performance whatsoever. Emphasis on "Whatsoever", there isn't even a gradual difference.

Having your operating system on a seperate SATA drive will give your PC a massive speed boost in processing tasks that involve the OS such as boot up.

Almost. "Having your system on an SSD provides a performance boost, including SATA SSDs". That's the truth. Where you're wrong is the "separate" part. You don't have to separate the OS from the apps.

Originally posted by SAS Quacklordington:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Not really a good point. Unless you fill the system disk to the brim, there's no impact on performance whatsoever. Emphasis on "Whatsoever", there isn't even a gradual difference.

It's just better in case you forget :D

In case you forget what? That the disk is full? You can't, Windows warns you if you're about to fill it to the brim.

[Lusus Symphonia]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Red Monk:

Having your operating system on a seperate SATA drive will give your PC a massive speed boost in processing tasks that involve the OS such as boot up.

Almost. "Having your system on an SSD provides a performance boost, including SATA SSDs". That's the truth. Where you're wrong is the "separate" part. You don't have to separate the OS from the apps.

My mistake then, I tend not to fill up my SSD as I thought it would give negative performance.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Red Monk:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Almost. "Having your system on an SSD provides a performance boost, including SATA SSDs". That's the truth. Where you're wrong is the "separate" part. You don't have to separate the OS from the apps.

My mistake then, I tend not to fill up my SSD as I thought it would give negative performance.

That was true in the early days of SSDs. Nowadays this overprovisioning is built into the controller natively. In other words, the space that you see is already reduced by overprovisioning, adding additional overprovisioning doesn't do jack.

[Hanomaly]

Originally posted by Red Monk:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Not really a good point. Unless you fill the system disk to the brim, there's no impact on performance whatsoever. Emphasis on "Whatsoever", there isn't even a gradual difference.

Having your operating system on a seperate SATA drive will give your PC a massive speed boost in processing tasks that involve the OS such as boot up.

I have no idea why you wouldn't have your OS on a SATA.

SATA?? do you mean SSD?

Anyway.. having your OS on a SSD is indeed great for boot time, but having Steam games also installed on that same drive does *NOT* slow down boot time.

Having programs that "auto-start up" in the background can slow boot time, but Steam games don't do this (altho you can set Steam to launch, i think, on bootup, but dunno why someone would do that - and that doesn't cause any game-data to launch, just the Steam client)

i have 200-ish games installed on my computer, my favourites on my SSD (along with my OS), and the rest on a secondary HDD. The ones on my SSD do not slow boot time at all. AND.. the point of having some games on your SSD along with your OS is that it allows those games to properly benefit from the faster speeds of a SSD.

If you have your OS on a SSD and all your programs, like games, on a different non-SSD, then those games don't benefit at all from your speeds your SSD can give. Your OS and system files are bottlenecked by the slower drive. (or so is my understanding)

So for a real example. If you play a game like Sims 3 or 4 that can sometimes have loooooooong load times, having that game on your SSD along with your OS will *clearly* show improved load times in that game. But.. if you put Sims 3 or 4 on a separate HDD/data drive the game will not get any improvement in load time because it will be bottlenecked by the slower drive it's installed on.

~~
Altho i guess all that goes off topic for the OP.

Phobos, i have 200ish games installed on my computer with no performance hit to my system at all.

i also disagree you need to keep 33% of a SDD or HDD 'clear' for the OS to use. i think keeping 15% free is good enough.

i guess it also depends on the *size* of the drive. if you have a teeny tiny 128 SSD with your OS on it. It might be wise to install *nothing* else on that and keep 33% of it free. But for larger drives keeping 33% free seems pretty overkill.