Just bought an SSD

[Kirito]

And was wondering how much faster an SSD was for 1.0? By that I mean how much faster was the install times and general gameplay time and load screens. Also how much better do you think it will be with ARR?

[Zenaku]

Seeing how FFXIV ARR was build around low end pc i think it would help better load times and such. But you wont see much different if what they say the engine can do is right. For 1.0 people said it made a hell a lot of different but i guessing that due to the shit engine crystal tool was not build around for mmo.

Having a SSD in ARR i see better loading when going to zone to zone and loading npc/char better. Not sure if you see much of a different tho but it helps

[Wilksha]

A SSD is only limited my the lowest common speed. As a note, installing a game via a Disc drive will see very minimal increase in instal speed. Why? Because disc drives have a rather low read speed compared to even a 7200 rpm HDD. blue-ray is much faster then DVD but still doesn't compare to read and write speeds of a SSD. As for loading speeds, well that will depend on how many files the PC will have to load off the SSD. SSD have the advantage of reading a whole file faster then a HDD however it's seek times are about the same as a 7200RPM drive. a 10000RPM drive will read lots of small files faster then a SSD but pales when it has to read large files; SSD win on large files. So how much of a change you'll see will depend on the new ARR client. So other then this little knowledge I've acquired from reading tech blogs like GIZMODO, it's really hard to say if you'll see any benefit at this point.

[Ricky]

iirc 1.0 game folder had like 250,000 files in it, SSD would have really helped there
I remember copying it to a USB 2.0 hd.. took forever

[Pseudopsia]

HDD vs SSD is night and day difference during load times. Install times will be faster if installing from SSD, if you're installing from blu-ray/dvd you won't notice a difference. After loading general gameplay won't be any different. Edit: you can get stuttering during game play with a HDD if it's loading data during gameplay, it really depends on the design of the game.

Here's a video I found comparing load times with GW2(I couldn't find one with FFXIV):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R23LH6uf_eA

[Mikita]

Aside from Windows' start up time being much shorter, during actual gameplay with a HDD I used to get background scroll stuttering while running around Thanalan and La Noscea. After switching to an SSD the stuttering was completely gone.

I didn't do any direct comparisons on loading times, but loading of instances still took a bit of time even with an SSD. Maybe they give a buffer so everyone can start up at about the same time?

[Medura]

well, in 1.0, animation lag changed with about a second when changing from ssd to hdd, and considering how much of a pain in the *** animation lag was, every second counted ^^

In 2.0 we will load between every area, using ssd it might feel more seemless, you will load often afterall.
Tried final fantasy 12 before? If you have tried it, think about having an mmo with loading like that, and on the ps2, that was slow! xD

[Lurex]

you made the best decision Kirito, welcome home.

[prymortal]

And was wondering how much faster an SSD was for 1.0? By that I mean how much faster was the install times and general gameplay time and load screens. Also how much better do you think it will be with ARR?

SSD was much faster loading everything in 1.0 compared to the 3 HDD's (sataII & sata III) i had at times running it. The SSD was also alot smoother & got rid of a "little" bit of movement lagg which was noticeable for the first few hours after install. Install times are faster but limited to the speed of the dvd/blu ray drive.
I cant answer how it'll affect ARR because of well you all know
But i can tell you with every game i've played with it since Tera/GW2/DCU a few others i cant remember off the top of my head, It's made a big, faster, smoother difference!

[Tibian]

I upgraded to an SSD during 1.0 from a 10k RPM WD Velociraptor. The improvement was phenomenal. Not only that, your computer is much more silent due to the lack of a spinning HDD, and your boot times and overall load times of ANYTHING are vastly improved. I could never go back to an HDD for anything.

Easily one of the best improvements you can make for your computer is an SSD if you're currently using an HDD. Well worth the price. If you're an individual who somehow needs 1TB of storage, just get an external or an internal HDD that you won't use frequently.