HDD vs SSD makes massive difference to FPS in Black Flag

[CalibreX]

I'm rocking an i7-4770k /z87 /780ti rig and initially had black flag installed on my WD red 2tb array but it ran terribly, like sub 20 fps @1080p. Moved my steam library back to the samsung evo 512gb and, with d3doverider, it's back up to 40+. I guess I'm just floating this as a surprise for discussion... Never realised how much of an fps difference the ssd made...

[InfamousAcidRain]

Raid 1 or 0 array? Or something more exotic? I'd be curious to know how it performs on just a single spindle drive; sometimes the RAID drivers may not be optimized. RAID 1 can perform like raid 0 on read requests (the data exists in 2 places, you can read half the data from each drive simultaneously, thus performing exactly as a raid 1, BUT THE DRIVER HAS TO BE WRITTEN FOR IT).

Under normal circumstances, your drive speed shouldn't affect game performance, except when it is loading. The game should play mostly from memory (system memory and GPU).

[Air]

Yeah, WD Red isn't the best choice for gaming, you probably should have went for a WD Black hard drive.

[CalibreX]

Didn't think of that - maybe it was a result of running RAID1 on the latest intel RST drivers. I have two blacks running RAID0 on my older PC and never noticed any difference in fraps

[Bad 💀 Motha]

WD Red is nothing more than a WD Blue but has longer warranty and supports a few internal features that make it better for 24/7 NAS purposes.

For most desktop internal drives; best is to use WD Black.
I've always had AC4 on my 2TB WD Black (OS on an SSD) and it runs @ 60 FPS at sea (35-45 FPS in large towns) no problems.

Also was your WD Red running off the Intel SATA or another brand? Like ASMedia or other. If it wasn't running off the Intel SATA, that's probably why the performance was bad.

[El Ladron De LAS]

WD caviar green 4 tb + ss2 hyperx 120 gb its very good

[CalibreX]

I'm running the Reds on the intel sata. It's an Asus Rog Impact z87. So no asmedia. I was getting the heavy frame drops in all areas of the game, at sea, forest, town.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

引用自 AGUSTIN ALMEIDA：

WD caviar green 4 tb + ss2 hyperx 120 gb its very good

What's your definition of good?

Kingston SSDs are complete junk, and WD Green drives are terrible performance for running games off of. Lower end Green drives are for cost-effective backup/storage drives; nothing more.

[CalibreX]

To clarify. I had the steam library on 2 x 2tb WD20EFRX

[Bad 💀 Motha]

引用自 CalibreX：

I'm running the Reds on the intel sata. It's an Asus Rog Impact z87. So no asmedia. I was getting the heavy frame drops in all areas of the game, at sea, forest, town.

Well it does help to have such a game that is constantly pre-fetching; on an SSD. But I don't know what to say about the overall performance difference. Game shouldn't have tanked/chugged like that just because the game was on a HDD. I could see a slightly longer load times for those areas that have em, but FPS increase really doesn't make any sense.

Did u redo your in-game config after loading it onto your SSD; maybe your visual settings were the problem when it was on the HDD. Or the HDD needed a good defrag.

Also helps to use latest GPU drivers with AC4. I'm using NVIDIA 340 BETA drivers and it's helped quite a bit.

[CalibreX]

Having said that I'm also surprised that neither Nvidia or Ubisoft have resolved the epic screen tearing resulting from the lack of proper variable frame rates. For a AAA title we shouldn't have to run something like d3doverrider to get decent performance... Made a huge difference on the single 780ti

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I'm running 144Hz screens; not an issue here.

What I noticed is Ubi (as we all know) is just very lazy. The gameprofile.xml is mostly setup for "Console" and u need to change this to "PC" settings pretty much in order to resolve some of those issues people see in-game. Watch_Dogs had the same issues; seriously lame and complete laziness on Ubi's part I must say.

[CalibreX]

Surprised me as well. I'm running the 337.88 drivers. Haven't tried the new beta yet. Seeing as running it from the ssd seemed to totally fix the issue. I ran through all the settings (think I had it set to optimised through Nvidia experience so a couple of things set lower than possible).

[CalibreX]

I long for a 1440p 120hz small bezel screen :(
How hard is it for someone to make one. I was eyeing up the new slim Bezel dell but then they had to go and screw up the connectivity compatibility with Nvidia cards by using displayport.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Get rid of Geforce Experience; it too is a complete joke.
Also no point in using PhysX in AC4; it only applies it to a very few things in-game and U will barely tell when it's on/off. But it can be a huge FPS hit in some areas.

Like when u are at sea; ship gun smoke; water; none of this is "PhysX"
Those types of physics are still handled by the game engine "Havok"
Pistol/Rifle shots (smoke), Chimney smoke; Sparks are "PhysX" so TBO, it was kinda pointless for them to add this for PC. And again, can be major performance hit when enabled beyond Low.

If you want a quality screen for high FPS and overall smoothness; wait for the ROG Swift Monitor that ASUS is coming out with. It will be IPS quality, with 1440p res, 144Hz refresh + NVIDIA G-Sync. Not cheap though.