Does having a the OS on a SSD have any effect on gaming?

[amadeok]

Hello, I would like to know if having the OS on a SSD will in any way improve the gaming experience in terms of hiccups, stutter, hitching, ect, that sort of things caused by the storage unit being to slow to read. I dont mind at all the loading times. thanks

 

[Archaic59]

The games would have to be on the SSD. Game objects that load dynamically will load faster and checkpoint saves are much faster but actual fps will not change using SSD.

 

[InvalidError]

Once you have enough RAM to keep the game's frequently used data in the file system cache, an SSD makes very little difference beyond loading times.

If you are tight on RAM, you may see a little less stuttering from the game and OS spending less time reloading stuff from storage or swapping data in/out of the swap file(s) from using SSDs.

 

[Xtergo]

Short answer: Depends but Most likely Yes

Whenever your running a game or something there is always you OS In your harddrive performing background tasks, there is usually and antivirus running and updates and some things that your operating system is doing, due to the limitations of a HDD that can read only one thing at a time has to move its read/write head has to move away from the sector of where ur game is at and do the task which ur OS considers more important and then get back to the sector where the game is running off..

When this happens there is a possibility depending on how the game is coded its has a short stutter or a microstutter or in some rare cases a crash if there is something like an antivirus scan in the background, All these problems can now be solved with an SSD that can perform simultaneous read and rights For important Stuff like system files and Antivirus thingies... or an update to the OS, the hdd is liberated from this burden and can focus on Reading/writing a game instead

Advantages :
- Disappearing of microstutters
- less loading times
- System becomes very responsive and snappier
- Boots and shutdowns quickly
- does not slow down like a HDD would
- system can maintain itself very well if the SSD supports trim.

Note: the above things I mentioned are not 100% accurate but enough to give a reasonable explaination in easier words

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCItBX8288Y"][/video]

 

[Xtergo]

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCItBX8288Y"]

He is not talking about loading games directly off an SSD, but liberating his HDD from System files and leave the disk dedicated to gaming, while his ssd keeps the OS

 

[amadeok]

Thanks for replys,
I have 8GB of RAM. Yes i know they have to be on the ssd, I was planning on keeping the OS on the HDD, wich got me thinking if some sort of system service or software might use storage resources thus cause performance problems, is this possible?

 

[InvalidError]

I have 8GB of RAM. Yes i know they have to be on the ssd, I was planning on keeping the OS on the HDD, wich got me thinking if some sort of system service or software might use storage resources thus cause performance problems, is this possible?

The OS and background process disk activity is slim to none when you have sufficient RAM to accommodate everything with plenty of room to spare for the file system cache. With memory being as affordable as it currently is, I wouldn't build a new gaming or "serious use" system with less than 16GB of RAM in it. (I put 32GB of RAM in my i5-3470 when prices were at similar levels over three years ago.)

 

[amadeok]

I have 8GB of RAM. Yes i know they have to be on the ssd, I was planning on keeping the OS on the HDD, wich got me thinking if some sort of system service or software might use storage resources thus cause performance problems, is this possible?

The OS and background process disk activity is slim to none when you have sufficient RAM to accommodate everything with plenty of room to spare for the file system cache. With memory being as affordable as it currently is, I wouldn't build a new gaming or "serious use" system with less than 16GB of RAM in it. (I put 32GB of RAM in my i5-3470 when prices were at similar levels over three years ago.)

So you are saying that actually 8GB is not enough anymore? I would have to upgrade motherboard or toss away my current modules.. upgrading motherboard wouldnt be bad cause i only have sata 2

 

[InvalidError]

So you are saying that actually 8GB is not enough anymore?

It is enough to hold the game's working data set, OS, background stuff and a few other things. If the objective is to eliminate disk IO altogether beyond the initial loading, 8GB may not be enough to hold all the frequently accessed game data on top of that.

 

[madmatt30]

I'm with invaliderror on the ram nowadays , for people with an existing 8gb setup on a 2 slot board they're probably getting on fine the majority of the time BUT on a new build basis nowadays therevus absolutely no reason whatsoever not to go with 16gb if you can afford it.
Especially if you're running an ssd , it means minimal disk access ingame & you can also minimise the available page file to 256mb.

 

[amadeok]

So you are saying that actually 8GB is not enough anymore?

It is enough to hold the game's working data set, OS, background stuff and a few other things. If the objective is to eliminate disk IO altogether beyond the initial loading, 8GB may not be enough to hold all the frequently accessed game data on top of that.

Thanks everyone for your support.
Of course this whole question is avoided if i just get a bigger capacity ssd and install both games and OS on it right?

 

[InvalidError]

Of course this whole question is avoided if i just get a bigger capacity ssd and install both games and OS on it right?

It will make it less noticeable but depending on how much time the game ends up waiting for blocking disk reads or swapfile hits, it may not help as much as having extra RAM to spare on file caching and eliminating swapping.

 

[amadeok]

Of course this whole question is avoided if i just get a bigger capacity ssd and install both games and OS on it right?

It will make it less noticeable but depending on how much time the game ends up waiting for blocking disk reads or swapfile hits, it may not help as much as having extra RAM to spare on file caching and eliminating swapping.

I see. Would you recommend one of these ssds instead of the EVO 850 for my situation?
SanDisk Ultra II SDSSDHII-240G-G25
Kingston Ssd 240Gb Hyperx Savage

 

[InvalidError]

If I decided to buy an SSD for my PC, I would likely end up getting a 250GB EVO850.