Any PC Players Running FFXIV on SSDs?

Just recently installed a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB with RAPID enabled. Sequential Reads and Writes are 1,000+ MB/s and Random Reads and Writes are 90,000+ IOPS.

BUT, with all that said I honestly don't feel a significant difference in terms of loading screens both at starting up the game and changing zones. Right now it takes about 5 seconds and before the upgrade it was taking maybe 10 seconds at most.

So I was hoping to get some feedback from everyone to benchmark with my system and see if I need to spend more time tweaking the OS and drivers (the journey to install the SSD and download the appropriate drivers was a 2-day endeavor).

I'm not real technical but I know enough to do some damage. The whole reason I got into upgrading to a SSD was after seeing how Diablo 3 was loading INSTANTLY on my cousin's rig.

Looking forward to hear back from you guys. Cheers~

I have a Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB and have RAPID enabled.

RAPID mode uses DRAM as a cache. You will get a speed boost only when reading data that was cached, reading data that's not in cache will not be any faster.

That's about as good as it's gonna get.

Erm I don't think I've seen 1-2s load times. I'm using the same SSD and changing zones are typically 3s wait (after teleport finish casting) for me.

IDK what's the usual speed for normal 7200rpm HDD because I never used them for quite a long time. I've heard some people say it could take up to 30s, IDK. I pick SSD as I have other photography and imaging programs that I use frequently that demands performance, so normal HDD is never a thing for me.

Nonetheless do you really need 1s load screen or something? I don't think it make a difference in this game?

And I'm curious what driver and OS tweaking you have done.. Mine is just one evening business from installing hardware from scratch (ie screwing in the CPU to the motherboard etc) to all the software and drivers, no tweaking whatsoever done and IDK why your load time is 5s and took 2 days to configure.

I use a Crucial M4 500GB disk...it's a couple years old, but it works good. I routinely zone in before other people in the PT (skipping cutscenes, etc.)

However, I also put a Samsung EVO 840 SSD in my PS4 (also 500GB), and the load times on the PS4 are noticeably shorter than they are on the PC.

So take that for what it's worth. To me, that says that Windows is continuing to hog resources even though the game is supposed to be in exclusive (full screen) mode.

What OS are you using? I've noticed the game runs better on Windows 8.1 than it did on Windows 7 or even Windows 8.0.

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Originally Posted by Eekiki

What OS are you using? I've noticed the game runs better on Windows 8.1 than it did on Windows 7 or even Windows 8.0.

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Here's my build. It's somewhat dated but I don't really run any resource-intensive programs so until something breaks they're going to stay... perhaps I just had unrealistic expectations and I'm trying to shake the feeling that I didn't get my money's worth...

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 945 (OC'd to 3.4 GHz)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB DDR3 1600
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB Desktop Kit (MZ-7TE250KW)
HDD: WD Black 500GB 7200RPM

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Originally Posted by Pseudopsia

I have a Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB and have RAPID enabled.

RAPID mode uses DRAM as a cache. You will get a speed boost only when reading data that was cached, reading data that's not in cache will not be any faster.

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Well I ran the performance benchmark in Magician on my HDD as well and got 128 MB/s in Seq. Read and Write. That's 8x the difference so I was hoping to see some drastic performance boost. I wonder if my cpu and/or my motherboard is the bottleneck now...

CPU does affect load times. I did notice this in the benchmark when I was testing it with enabling and disabling cores.
Also communication with the server will affect load times. There's only so low you can get the load times.

I don't recall what the load times on my setup is; I'll check tonight.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Nonetheless do you really need 1s load screen or something? I don't think it make a difference in this game?

And I'm curious what driver and OS tweaking you have done.. Mine is just one evening business from installing hardware from scratch (ie screwing in the CPU to the motherboard etc) to all the software and drivers, no tweaking whatsoever done and IDK why your load time is 5s and took 2 days to configure.

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2 days may be exaggerating but I only have limited time to play or search online on weeknights. The main reason was because I cloned my HDD to the SSD and found out that 1) my BIOS was outdated, 2) Windows never installed AHCI drivers so I had to find guides to make changes in the registry, 3) the default Windows AHCI driver is also outdated and was only giving subpar readings on my SSD (without RAPID I was only getting 300 Seq Read/Write, 2000 Random Read (no I didn't miss a 0 there) and 40000 Random Write).

I don't think you'd notice too much of a difference from HDD -> SSD for a game such as this. MMO's in general are very processor-dependent, and don't make too many rw's to your disk since everything is updated through the server. Also, the reason for loading time between zones is due in part to your connection to the server, as that is where your location data is being processed.

Honestly for this particular game you won't have extravagantly faster loading times but, you ll defo have a performance boost :)

And yes, windows 8.1 is the way to go

I run using a 150GB SSD from Sandisk. I havnt done any tweaking at all because I didnt know I could til reading your post, but I do have an improvement compared to my old 1TB Hard drive from seagate. The loading screens are about half the original time, but the beggest difference is loading the programme up in the first place - HDD would take up to 15 seconds to get the client up, then probably another 20 seconds to the game after green button. SSD client is up as soon as I click the shortcut in my start menu and game probably 2 or 3 seconds after green button. Though obviously it hasnt improved connecting to servers at the start screen -.-

Personally I upgraded from a 7200rpm drive and old i7 930 cpu up to an SSD and i7 4770k and it took a good 15-20 off of my load times. Make sure your SSD isn't at full capacity because that seems to effect the performance on mine, I found that having about 25% free space as opposed to 5% free space made a big difference for me. Other than that I would recommend upgrading your CPU since that seemed to have the largest impact for me as far as overall performance goes.

To OP. As long as you did a clean install of your OS onto the SSD and have all the proper chipset/system drivers installed the SSD should run fast.

if there is a cpu limitation then you should be able to overclock that CPU a bit more. It should reach at least 3.8Ghz with good temps on a decent cooler.
You will want to lower the ram speed to 1333Mhz and boost the CPU/NB speed to around 2800Mhz as those CPUs are limited by the L3 Cache which is tied to the CPU/NB

On my laptop I am using a 2 year old Agility 3 SSD 480GB and on my desktop, I have a 120 GB Toshiba SSD for the boot drive and another Vertex 3 60GB SSD for caching my 500GB harddrive where I've loaded FFXIV. In either case, they seem to take about the same to load and such. I was also trying the PS4 FFXIV beta, and I don't have a SSD there and the load times all seem about the same, although I never did time or benchmark them, but they seem to go quickly enough.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

To OP. As long as you did a clean install of your OS onto the SSD and have all the proper chipset/system drivers installed the SSD should run fast.
if there is a cpu limitation then you should be able to overclock that CPU a bit more. It should reach at least 3.8Ghz with good temps on a decent cooler.

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I think that's what I'm going to do this weekend and just install everything anew. I struggle to find the most up-to-date drivers for my mobo though. The majority of the drivers on ASUS' support page are dated 2010 and their SATA driver (i.e. the .inf file) isn't even recognized by Windows. I had to go and find the 2014 one on my own.

There's these driver navigator programs all over the web and finds the drivers for you automatically, but I'm not sure if they're legit (there's also driver finder, driver installer, etc etc) and not willing to shell out $40~$50 for a one-time use.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

You will want to lower the ram speed to 1333Mhz and boost the CPU/NB speed to around 2800Mhz as those CPUs are limited by the L3 Cache which is tied to the CPU/NB

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Sorry what? LOL that's way over my head. :p

This are my load times:

Start count: When screen goes black.
Stop count: When ui element appears on screen.

Initial Login to Fallgourd Float: 20.616 seconds
Home Point to Gridania: 4.295 seconds
Zone to Central Shroud: 7.507 seconds
Repeat zoning between central shroud and Gridania: about 4 seconds each time.

System:
SSD: Samsung 840 1 TB SSD
CPU: i7 3930k @ 4.5 GHz
GPU: Asus GTX Titan
MB: Asus Rampage IV Gene
Mem: 16 GB G.skill 2400 Mhz DDR3
OS: Windows 8.1

so, you go from 10 seconds to 5 seconds (HALF the time) and its not significant for you? then, what is it?

loading is highly dependent on your connection also, when zoning to smaller and less crowded zones i get 2-4 seconds load and very crowded i get 5-10 seconds load.

If you want faster loading times, get everything better (connection and all pc parts) , im sure you will take another 1-2 seconds of every load.

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Originally Posted by PapaGuu

Well I ran the performance benchmark in Magician on my HDD as well and got 128 MB/s in Seq. Read and Write. That's 8x the difference so I was hoping to see some drastic performance boost. I wonder if my cpu and/or my motherboard is the bottleneck now...

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Mmmm it's possible that they could be. The Phenom II 945 isn't exactly the greatest at this point in time, but I guess it just depends on what your expectations are. If you want it to be quick like the Diablo mention on your friends computer, I don't think that's even possible with FFXIV. The SSD does help for things a little... but MMORPGs rely on streamed data a lot more than other genres would, which is something your SSD just wouldn't have an impact on.

An upgrade on your CPU would help the general load times, but unless you always wait 30sec or more to load your initial login, you really wouldn't see too much of an impact. Playing the game on my home desktop, which I don't remember the exact parts I use (I think it's an OC i5 3570k and some Corsair SSD), I haven't timed it but I believe it's low/mid 20s (in seconds). Even playing it on my 1st-gen Surface Pro takes around 24-ish seconds (just timed it). Though I'm not sure if my location atm testing it affected it a lot, as it's a better connection speed than what I have at home.

Loading times are around 10~15 seconds when i change zones or enter a dungeon, if i skip the cutscene right way i'm usually the first to load the game. I use a 7200 rpm hdd.

Zone changes are around 3-5 seconds for me if there aren't any network latency problems.

On my comp, I see absolutely no change between using HDD and SSD.

I use a dedicate SSD for games and i'm have the same results, it takes about 5 secs to the black screen to fade out. But i believe that SE make it so the black screen stay on until all the characters on the zone are loaded, an that take more time since you are downloading data. I think thats the case because it usually take more time to load a place with a lot of ppl around than somewhere that is empty and also cause you never get to see the ppl poping out of nowhere, like in many others mmos.

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Originally Posted by PapaGuu

I think that\\\\'s what I\\\\'m going to do this weekend :p

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Due to the age of your system you may not find newer drivers than 2010 as there\\\\'s no need to release new ones once fully optimized. You should not have to worry about SATA drivers. Those are for older operating systems that don\\\\'t readily recognize SATA during installation. The SATA optimizations come from the Chipset drivers.
For your mainboard. only use the ones from the Asus Website and stay away from Driver Fetching programs (Driver Detective etc)

I have a 64GB Kingston SSD that's almost two years old, I managed to squeeze FF14 on it, loads like a speedy bastard now.

Doesn't help your FPS in case anyone thought it did.

^I will second this. I have a 120GB Kingston Hyper X SSD as my boot drive with FFXIV installed, and while I load faster than my peers in dungeons, after cutscenes and when moving from area to area - there is no other benefit for gaming. It is rather speedy though when it comes to reinstalling the game if I have to and also installing patches. I will say the same for FFXI. Upon reinstalling, you are greeted with a very looong update, normally 8+ hours. My SSD can shred through that like crazy and have the update done in less than 2 hours.