Hard Drive speed and game performance

**Nanny de Bodemloze** · December 04, 2010, 09:59 PM

I have a 7200 rpm HDD with a SATA connection. I know there are much faster HDDs out there. In terms of game performance (with fps as the measure), how much improvement could I expect running a game like NTW off of a high-end HDD? If I am running FRAPS on a separate HDD, where it is continuously recording to the HDD during gameplay, how much quality/fps improvement could I expect from a high end HDD? Would the different in either case be really noticeable?

I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to HDDs and their relationship to game performance, so any insight would help here.

My system specs (if that is important to the discussion)
i7930 2.8
6 gb ram
ASUS P6T mother
ATI 5970 gfx 2gb

Thanks in advance!

cheers

**Ishan** · December 04, 2010, 10:23 PM

You will gain only 4-5 fps at max if you buy a SSD. The role of HDD is faster loading, saving, Quick save, Quick load etc it doesn't boost the fps, so no need to purchase a new Hard Drive.

Generally while recording gaming it sucks the fps like 30-60 depends on your game recording software so putting a new GPU in SLI or Crossfire helps significantly as the fps is increased by multi-GPUs.
I have 2 ATI HD5870 in Xfire so recording is not a issue for me as i can assign 30 fps to the recording software.

**Doono** · December 05, 2010, 04:29 AM

Very little without investing in an ssd, games generally load the data they need into ram, so unless your system is very low on memory the hard drive shouldn't be a deciding factor in performance while in game.

A faster hard drive will decrease load time, the only time while in game where it improves performance is when data needs to be loaded on the fly into RAM. And that system you have is a killer i don't see how you could possibly be having performance issues lol. You would probably see far more of a benefit overclocking that CPU and fitting a better cooler.

**Nanny de Bodemloze** · December 05, 2010, 07:39 AM

@ Doono - ya, I need to OC now...I selected the components so I could OC, but since I've never done it before I've been reluctant. Now its time I guess. Not having performance problems, but my system is all about what I can record for machinima, so, although I'm willing to sell my mother for 5 fps there have been no takers and therefore I'm looking for every hardware addition/tweak I can find.

Thanks guys! Very, very helpful!

+rep

**mrcrusty** · December 05, 2010, 07:33 PM

Overclocking seems like it would net a better return on performance gain than an SSD. Not to mention that SSDs cost a lot, and overclocking is free.

**♔KillZoneGB♔** · December 06, 2010, 05:03 AM

Nice system, ever thought of maxing out your MB ram? (24gig for you)

Dataram RAMDisk - Windows 7, Windows Vista, XP, Server

Benefits:

Faster than any SSD in read/write by miles (good for downloading and in a working environment)
No defragging needed (Reboot sorts that out)
Page-File (to bypass the 32bit gaming limits)
Internet Browsing (reduces HHD fragmentation/wear and tear,must IMHO for ppl with SSD)
symbolic link(s) (ram drive must be in NTFS to work)

Cons:
gonna cost you some dosh to fully populate the MB.
if the power fails, your work will be lost.

before overclocking, best to brush off some of the OS dung (services)

anyhoo just a few things to ponder over......................

Have fun y'all

**Simetrical** · December 06, 2010, 12:31 PM

It's so typical of Windows that a RAM disk is a third-party add-on. They've been a built-in feature of most Unixes (including Linux) for years, and I've been told they were part of DOS too. But in addition to the problem of losing your work on shutdown, you also have to populate the thing, which will take time on boot. If you just want your game files to load faster and are willing to pay for a bunch of extra memory, you're probably best off sticking in the memory and letting SuperFetch handle it, or alternatively, reading the files you want in the background so they're cached. IIRC, I used a tmpfs for a game for a while, and didn't find it to be worth it in the end. A small SSD will give you almost the same performance for less money and without the hassle.

**Nanny de Bodemloze** · December 06, 2010, 12:56 PM

All morning, I've been running FPS test with NTW, and testing different recording setups using RAMdisk. At most, I was able to squeeze out 1 fps from using this RAMdisk. Either I'm not using it right, or it doesn't have much impact on the kind of improvements I'm looking for. Square peg, round hole maybe. Thanks for the suggestion Killzone, I really didn't know much about RAMdisks before.

**irishron** · December 06, 2010, 07:11 PM

Ramdisk was originally in DOS 4 if I remember right.

**♔KillZoneGB♔** · December 08, 2010, 10:26 AM

Originally Posted by irishron

Ramdisk was originally in DOS 4 if I remember right.

I believe so, remember in 1988/9 @ college doing my diploma, we installed a F1 game to a ram drive.

Better loading times than the old 5 1/4 " Frisbee's

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

^^^ This is my little multimedia ramdrive,

with datram`s config tool, you can tell it to: load up the ramdrive using an img file, nice bonus if you want to install data to it, then save the img.

Simetrical, made a good point about i/o access speed, so the ramdrive read/write speed`s naturally be effected by the speed of the memory, 1333mhz i`m getting 5400mbps read speed, write speed i cant remember.

Cheers guys for the rep,

mrcrusty, let us know how your Christmas present goes

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Top Tip

Don't forget to defrag your RamDrive,before saving the image file

**Simetrical** · December 07, 2010, 11:56 AM

You won't see FPS improvements from faster disks under normal conditions. Using a RAM disk or SSD will, however, significantly speed up level load times in most games (although doubtless not all). I measured a very large improvement in game startup and level load for Dragon Age when I used an Intel SSD instead of a cheap 7200 RPM disk, but alas, I don't seem to have posted the figures anywhere. So if you want to test the usefulness of a RAM disk, try timing load times instead of measuring FPS.

**Simetrical** · December 08, 2010, 12:38 PM

I'm guessing RAM drive performance will not be affected by the speed of the memory, realistically. The overhead of a system call to do the write is going to make the actual memory copy speed fairly unimportant, I'd think. From the perspective of an application expecting its writes to go to a persistent medium, RAM drives are instantaneous.