Solid state hard drive question

If i get a SSD as a secondary drive and install ffxiv arr to it it wont have OS on it would i still be able to run it and also increase my loading time?

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Originally Posted by Lethaltyrant

If i get a SSD as a secondary drive and install ffxiv arr to it it wont have OS on it would i still be able to run it and also increase my loading time?

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Yes, I run my OS on my solid state, and my games on another set of drives (raided)

ok ty i think i may do this then to increase my loading times literally my loading times are like an ungodly amount of time lol

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Originally Posted by Lethaltyrant

If i get a SSD as a secondary drive and install ffxiv arr to it it wont have OS on it would i still be able to run it and also increase my loading time?

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Yes, assuming: 1) money's no issue for you (because the rapid read and writes to the SSD from playing an MMO will seriously reduce the life of the drive), 2) you have an extra sata port to even install the drive, and 3) you're not running on a SATA I system.

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Originally Posted by Slynk

the rapid read and writes to the SSD from playing an MMO will seriously reduce the life of the drive

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Reading data doesn't cut away from the life of the drive, only writing, but I don't see how an MMO (or at least I don't see how this one) does massive amounts of writing for this to be a factor?

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

Reading data doesn't cut away from the life of the drive, only writing, but I don't see how an MMO (or at least I don't see how this one) does massive amounts of writing for this to be a factor?

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Typically games like this have a disk cache for things like character models (since they are dynamically generated) as well as environment caches (since they are so large.) Video games have a strict memory limit to uphold and this is bypassed by disk caching.

Ok thank you for the info for now i may wait just to see i just ordered a new video card and way more powerful CPU im going from dual core to quad core 3.8 ghz i was asking about the SSD because i heard someone mention it about load times but i dont want to reinstall OS lol i might upgrade memory too since that is relatively cheap

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Originally Posted by Lethaltyrant

Ok thank you for the info for now i may wait just to see i just ordered a new video card and way more powerful CPU im going from dual core to quad core 3.8 ghz i was asking about the SSD because i heard someone mention it about load times but i dont want to reinstall OS lol i might upgrade memory too since that is relatively cheap

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You don't have to install your os on it, assuming you have an extra port for the drive. Just re-install FFXIV on it by itself. Make sure to format it properly.

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Originally Posted by Slynk

Typically games like this have a disk cache for things like character models (since they are dynamically generated) as well as environment caches (since they are so large.) Video games have a strict memory limit to uphold and this is bypassed by disk caching.

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Ah I see your logic, but no, like in FFXI all characters are rendered on the fly (or at least if they are cached, it's only in memory), there's definitely no disk caching involved :) Same for the environments, it loads enough of what's around you into RAM (explaining the ~1GB the game can use at times) and I believe it loads/releases more as you move around.

It does however write out the character data to disk every time your change your gear (and possibly when the condition degrades) to the My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A REALM REBORN folder, although this data is pretty tiny and compared to the amount of writes Windows itself does (especially when it uses the pagefile), this game isn't really anything to worry about.

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Originally Posted by Lethaltyrant

Ok thank you for the info for now i may wait just to see i just ordered a new video card and way more powerful CPU im going from dual core to quad core 3.8 ghz i was asking about the SSD because i heard someone mention it about load times but i dont want to reinstall OS lol i might upgrade memory too since that is relatively cheap

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Also, if you post your system specs I (or others) could tell you where your bottleneck is. Upgrading components willy nilly doesn't necessarily result in an increase in performance.