DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
True.. but like I said before.. Dont fill it to the max.
You may also want to keep stuff like savegames (if apply) on a ssd because autosaves can otherwise cause hitches
True.. but like I said before.. Dont fill it to the max.
You may also want to keep stuff like savegames (if apply) on a ssd because autosaves can otherwise cause hitches
Sure. But from my experience it's hard to even fill a 250gb SSD.
True.. but like I said before.. Dont fill it to the max.
You may also want to keep stuff like savegames (if apply) on a ssd because autosaves can otherwise cause hitches
Sure. But from my experience it's hard to even fill a 250gb SSD.
I have 270 steam games, with some, such as NS2, taking up around 10gb, it is not too hard to fill a SSD with just my games. Thats without all the code I write, music, videos or anything else.
My PC has a total of 5TB of space, and i'm about 80% total space usage...
True.. but like I said before.. Dont fill it to the max.
You may also want to keep stuff like savegames (if apply) on a ssd because autosaves can otherwise cause hitches
Sure. But from my experience it's hard to even fill a 250gb SSD.
I have 270 steam games, with some, such as NS2, taking up around 10gb, it is not too hard to fill a SSD with just my games. Thats without all the code I write, music, videos or anything else.
My PC has a total of 5TB of space, and i'm about 80% total space usage...
I'm sure if you delete all the games tha you haven't played in a month you gain LOTS of space
I personally use the steam backup feature and put them on my HDD.
And music, videos etc. is exactly the stuff I'd put on my HDD, because the milliseconds don't matter as much here.
True.. but like I said before.. Dont fill it to the max.
You may also want to keep stuff like savegames (if apply) on a ssd because autosaves can otherwise cause hitches
Sure. But from my experience it's hard to even fill a 250gb SSD.
I have just 4 games on mine. Natural Selection 2,Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite & Rome 2:TW. I store no music,films or other media and yet i only have 30gb free from 250gb... That said, I have about 350 mods on the go on Skyrim (and epic 30-60sec load times as a result). So it's very possible to fill a 250gb drive.
I agree though that an SSD is the most cost-effective performance upgrade for your pc. Once you've made the switch, you'll never go back.
P.S. I once tried to run my modded Skyrim on a HDD, and after 5mins of load screens I gave up. The difference really is that big!
Don't forget you can also create symbolic links (or junctions) between your SSD and your mechanical HDD. So basically, you can take a folder that's on one of them, and insert it into a folder on the other one without actually moving/copying it.
One nice application for gamers with Steam is to move games off the SSD when it runs full. Of course, you can create Steam libraries on each drive, but last I checked, moving games between them is not supported.
So the solution with symlinking is to either
- install Steam onto your HDD and move your most frequently-used games to the SSD (and symlink them to where they were before)
or
- install Steam onto your SSD, and move rarely-played games to your HDD when the SSD runs full.
For managing symlinks/junctions, this tool works very nicely.
I think there are also programs that automate moving Steam games around, but I haven't bothered with them, as moving the game folder and creating a junction is so easy already.
normal harddisk still are more reliable in general due to the SSDs being so new in tech... depending on brand
I don't think that's the case anymore? The early models tended to die from controller/firmware bugs a lot, but they have become much better. I would guess that mechanical failure of HDDs is the bigger risk now.
you can create Steam libraries on each drive, but last I checked, moving games between them is not supported.
Yeah, it is not supported in "one click", but it is still very easy to do:
1. Add new STEAM library folder wherever you want.
2. Make a Reserve copy of your game via STEAM.
3. Uninstall your game.
4. Restore your game to the new game folder via STEAM.
5. Delete the reserve copy.
you can create Steam libraries on each drive, but last I checked, moving games between them is not supported.
Yeah, it is not supported in "one click", but it is still very easy to do:
1. Add new STEAM library folder wherever you want.
2. Make a Reserve copy of your game via STEAM.
3. Uninstall your game.
4. Restore your game to the new game folder via STEAM.
5. Delete the reserve copy.
Of course there's a always way to get them there. But to call it "supported", I was indeed thinking of a simple "move this game to library X" option.
Regarding "very easy" - doing it with junctions/symlinks is even simpler:
1. ctrl-x on old location
2. ctrl-v in destination
3. "select link source" on destination
4. "drop as junction" in old location
I'm going to throw it out there to no one in particular that SSDs are the single most cost efficient way to boost performance in just about any game these days, and not just NS2. For NS2 it's mostly just going to boost load times especially now that we're precaching even more stuff than we already were, but if we've missed anything that can cause a hitch it'll certainly mitigate the issue. Lots of popular games don't precache much at all, though - lots of Blizzard games are particularly bad about this, but they're hardly the only ones.
Bottom line: buy an SSD, put your most demanding games on it. You'll thank yourself later and it's hardly a big investment now.
It seems to have made my counter-strike more smoother . I also forced the 'preload' command so it loads the entire map before connecting, I don't really feel any hitches and it always feels like the entire world is loaded and information is sent to my screen faster than before. (No framerate gain however) but I'll always take a smoother looking image.
So I believe it does benefit performance, but in a different way. My game was much less smooth with the same framerate on a 7,200 rpm hard disk. Which is still in my system and will be where most things are installed.
One day I'll be able to have a machine of entirely SSDs or whatever is out, and maybe even run them together in raid which I've never done
How much space is on your SSD? Because really, there's no reason to not install programs there. It just speeds up the computer overall a lot. You should dump all the data on your HDD. Stuff you don't need often.
I have downloads from my browser redirected to the hard disk, and small programs which open fast like mumble and etc will all be on the hard drive. Things like web browsers, steam, and some games will be on my SSD. Specifically games I play a lot or fps games
Single-player games or really large games will get thrown onto the HDD as being not this newfound 'super smooth' and having small load times do not bother me. I just hope one day I get enough wealth to make one super computer, and then move to a location with that 1 gb/s internet and find a wife. Then I'm living the good life!
you can create Steam libraries on each drive, but last I checked, moving games between them is not supported.
Yeah, it is not supported in "one click", but it is still very easy to do:
1. Add new STEAM library folder wherever you want.
2. Make a Reserve copy of your game via STEAM.
3. Uninstall your game.
4. Restore your game to the new game folder via STEAM.
5. Delete the reserve copy.
you can create Steam libraries on each drive, but last I checked, moving games between them is not supported.
Yeah, it is not supported in "one click", but it is still very easy to do:
1. Add new STEAM library folder wherever you want.
2. Make a Reserve copy of your game via STEAM.
3. Uninstall your game.
4. Restore your game to the new game folder via STEAM.
5. Delete the reserve copy.
Of course there's a always way to get them there. But to call it "supported", I was indeed thinking of a simple "move this game to library X" option.
Regarding "very easy" - doing it with junctions/symlinks is even simpler:
1. ctrl-x on old location
2. ctrl-v in destination
3. "select link source" on destination
4. "drop as junction" in old location
Does this require a program? by reserve do you mean the 'backup' feature? and do you add a new steam library folder from steam itself or do it manually. I've never actually installed steam games on another drive so I have no idea.. I'd assume some of this is under the 'downloads' section which is a new thing cause I've never used it and it must have shown up recently
@ezekel, look:
you have your NS2 in C:\Program Files\STEAM\bla-bla-bla\NS2 and you want to transfer it to your new SSD to \Games\NS2.
Then first you need to create a folder "Games" on your SSD disk \.
After that, you have to add this folder "Games" as STEAM Library in Settings->Downloads.
And finally, backup your game via STEAM, uninstall it, and restore it choosing new location in \Games.
That's all!
Just tested it out, very easy to use.. just added another install location and now every time I go to install a game it asks first where I want to install. love it.
the answer is no, ns2 won't write to your ssd very much at all. an insignificant amount.
You know what I realized though, the mods folder location is in your appdata so if you download tons of mods it will! :P
Anyway after a lot of reading I'm no longer concerned for SSD write life, these things seem stable to 700TB and I fortunately got the latest one which apparently is even stronger and I'd have to be writing like 40GB daily for a long time to even do some damage, I barely write a GB in two months :P
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
@Regnareb
While you can always do tests which are designed to stresstest cell life expectancy its not 'real'.
What I mean by that is, how many drives will show severe defects in % will only be shown over a period of years. Testing is a strong indication how a model would behave yes. And a model passing stresstests is likely to do well, agreed. But HOW well it will do with individual disks dying, changing in production methods etc will only be shown in the long run.
Comments
You may also want to keep stuff like savegames (if apply) on a ssd because autosaves can otherwise cause hitches
Sure. But from my experience it's hard to even fill a 250gb SSD.
I have 270 steam games, with some, such as NS2, taking up around 10gb, it is not too hard to fill a SSD with just my games. Thats without all the code I write, music, videos or anything else.
My PC has a total of 5TB of space, and i'm about 80% total space usage...
I'm sure if you delete all the games tha you haven't played in a month you gain LOTS of space
I personally use the steam backup feature and put them on my HDD.
And music, videos etc. is exactly the stuff I'd put on my HDD, because the milliseconds don't matter as much here.
I have just 4 games on mine. Natural Selection 2,Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite & Rome 2:TW. I store no music,films or other media and yet i only have 30gb free from 250gb... That said, I have about 350 mods on the go on Skyrim (and epic 30-60sec load times as a result). So it's very possible to fill a 250gb drive.
I agree though that an SSD is the most cost-effective performance upgrade for your pc. Once you've made the switch, you'll never go back.
P.S. I once tried to run my modded Skyrim on a HDD, and after 5mins of load screens I gave up. The difference really is that big!
One nice application for gamers with Steam is to move games off the SSD when it runs full. Of course, you can create Steam libraries on each drive, but last I checked, moving games between them is not supported.
So the solution with symlinking is to either
- install Steam onto your HDD and move your most frequently-used games to the SSD (and symlink them to where they were before)
or
- install Steam onto your SSD, and move rarely-played games to your HDD when the SSD runs full.
For managing symlinks/junctions, this tool works very nicely.
I think there are also programs that automate moving Steam games around, but I haven't bothered with them, as moving the game folder and creating a junction is so easy already.
I don't think that's the case anymore? The early models tended to die from controller/firmware bugs a lot, but they have become much better. I would guess that mechanical failure of HDDs is the bigger risk now.
1. Add new STEAM library folder wherever you want.
2. Make a Reserve copy of your game via STEAM.
3. Uninstall your game.
4. Restore your game to the new game folder via STEAM.
5. Delete the reserve copy.
Of course there's a always way to get them there. But to call it "supported", I was indeed thinking of a simple "move this game to library X" option.
Regarding "very easy" - doing it with junctions/symlinks is even simpler:
1. ctrl-x on old location
2. ctrl-v in destination
3. "select link source" on destination
4. "drop as junction" in old location
I have downloads from my browser redirected to the hard disk, and small programs which open fast like mumble and etc will all be on the hard drive. Things like web browsers, steam, and some games will be on my SSD. Specifically games I play a lot or fps games
Single-player games or really large games will get thrown onto the HDD as being not this newfound 'super smooth' and having small load times do not bother me. I just hope one day I get enough wealth to make one super computer, and then move to a location with that 1 gb/s internet and find a wife. Then I'm living the good life!
Does this require a program? by reserve do you mean the 'backup' feature? and do you add a new steam library folder from steam itself or do it manually. I've never actually installed steam games on another drive so I have no idea.. I'd assume some of this is under the 'downloads' section which is a new thing cause I've never used it and it must have shown up recently
you have your NS2 in C:\Program Files\STEAM\bla-bla-bla\NS2 and you want to transfer it to your new SSD to
Then first you need to create a folder "Games" on your SSD disk
After that, you have to add this folder "Games" as STEAM Library in Settings->Downloads.
And finally, backup your game via STEAM, uninstall it, and restore it choosing new location in
That's all!
You know what I realized though, the mods folder location is in your appdata so if you download tons of mods it will! :P
Anyway after a lot of reading I'm no longer concerned for SSD write life, these things seem stable to 700TB and I fortunately got the latest one which apparently is even stronger and I'd have to be writing like 40GB daily for a long time to even do some damage, I barely write a GB in two months :P
I'll be in the streets of new york accepting donations while playing my sitar saving for the 1 TB edition
While you can always do tests which are designed to stresstest cell life expectancy its not 'real'.
What I mean by that is, how many drives will show severe defects in % will only be shown over a period of years. Testing is a strong indication how a model would behave yes. And a model passing stresstests is likely to do well, agreed. But HOW well it will do with individual disks dying, changing in production methods etc will only be shown in the long run.