Game-Computer Hardware Tech Talk

[Huntn]

What are they doing with Games that require them to run on a SSD? On my computer, I have. mix of HDD and SSD storage. On my HDD, I have a fairly recent game, Cyberpunk 2077 which runs smoothly on an HDD, but the Star Wars Outlaw game provides a warning, "crappy performance on a HDD" and it was crappy taking forever to launch, to such a point, I thought something was wrong with the game.

In general I understand as "games get more demanding" but there was another recent game, that ran unbelievable bad on a HDD, it was either Star Citizen or maybe Starfield, requiring me to move it to an SSD. Is it just the amount of info being processed? Or is there something to do with the way they are programming games today because there are SSDs available? 🤔

 

[Huntn]

Very Interesting:
I have a 2k Monitor. Using the Nvidia App, it recommends everything at 3840x2160. Ok, so I want it set to my monitor's resolution. What's interesting is that when it's set to 3840x2160, Performance is near the top. When I set it to 1920x1080, the Performance slides from "Performance" to "Quality" but it does not give my any performance numbers, like what's happening to my FPS which I chose the lower resolution, and "quality"? And quality will be worse at what I understand is the Higher resolution "oversampling" setting? Thanks!

 

[dmccloud]

The main reason games are starting to require the use of an SSD is bandwidth. As game assets have increased both in terms of size and quality, traditional HDDs are becoming more and more of a bottleneck because they simply can't transfer data fast enough to keep up with modern gameplay and the speed at which data needs to be loaded into the game. As far as the Nvidia app goes, have you tried changing the game settings in each title instead of letting Nvidia manage them?

 

[maflynn]

SSDs = fast, spinning platters = slow. That's it, while hard drives in 2025 are technical marvel of bit density, caching heuristics, the fact that its still a mechanical device, means it will be slower.

The more demanding can be translated that it requires more data reads/writes and the SSD will give you superior performance then a spinning drive

 

[diamond.g]

What are they doing with Games that require them to run on a SSD? On my computer, I have. mix of HDD and SSD storage. On my HDD, I have a fairly recent game, Cyberpunk 2077 which runs smoothly on an HDD, but the Star Wars Outlaw game provides a warning, "crappy performance on a HDD" and it was crappy taking forever to launch, to such a point, I thought something was wrong with the game.

In general I understand as "games get more demanding" but there was another recent game, that ran unbelievable bad on a HDD, it was either Star Citizen or maybe Starfield, requiring me to move it to an SSD. Is it just the amount of info being processed? Or is there something to do with the way they are programming games today because there are SSDs available? 🤔

It is one of the things Mark Cerny pointed out at the PS5 reveal. They want developers to be able to load assets as the player is viewing them and then jettisoning them when the player isn't. Allowing for more detail in viewport without having to store a ton of not seen stuff in RAM or VRAM.

 

[Huntn]

It is one of the things Mark Cerny pointed out at the PS5 reveal. They want developers to be able to load assets as the player is viewing them and then jettisoning them when the player isn't. Allowing for more detail in viewport without having to store a ton of not seen stuff in RAM or VRAM.

So that is the answer, a change in structure making faster required… 🙂

 

[Huntn]

The main reason games are starting to require the use of an SSD is bandwidth. As game assets have increased both in terms of size and quality, traditional HDDs are becoming more and more of a bottleneck because they simply can't transfer data fast enough to keep up with modern gameplay and the speed at which data needs to be loaded into the game. As far as the Nvidia app goes, have you tried changing the game settings in each title instead of letting Nvidia manage them?

I have not, especially when I get a message up front says hey you’re on a HDD this game needs to be on a SDD.
I also have a decent graphic card so I’m out of the mode of tweaking settings to make a game run, which doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it if I had to, but when I get that message, it’s like OK, SDD it is. And the time I had one of these games on a HDD as I said, in another post, the performance was so bad on launched that I thought it had frozen. It was taking that long to load up like five minutes.

 

[Plutonius]

The main reason games are starting to require the use of an SSD is bandwidth. As game assets have increased both in terms of size and quality, traditional HDDs are becoming more and more of a bottleneck because they simply can't transfer data fast enough to keep up with modern gameplay and the speed at which data needs to be loaded into the game. As far as the Nvidia app goes, have you tried changing the game settings in each title instead of letting Nvidia manage them?

I agree for the most part but in many cases, the developer decides to use the storage as memory rather than reading the data from storage less often and storing it in memory.

It makes sense where an SSD is used (it might be necessary) but it precludes using an HDD.

SSDs also have a lifespan and I worry if a game is using the SSD as RAM.

 

[dmccloud]

I agree for the most part but in many cases, the developer decides to use the storage as memory rather than reading the data from storage less often and storing it in memory.

It makes sense where an SSD is used (it might be necessary) but it precludes using an HDD.

SSDs also have a lifespan and I worry if a game is using the SSD as RAM.

Modern SSDs have a long enough lifespan that using an SSD like RAM wouldn't be a concern.