[SOLVED] same game runs slow after reinstall onto faster hard drive !

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys hope everyone had a very merry xmas .. not sure if there are any Dragon Age Inquisition fans out there who can help out (or maybe one doesn't need to be familiar with DAI to troubleshoot this issue, I'm the first one to admit everyone on this forum probably knows way more than me )

Apologies for the long wall of text that's about to follow .. but I figured the more info I can give people the better as far as troubleshooting...

I was very happy with the speed and loading time of my DAI game ... but then (foolishly?) I got greedy and installed a newer SSD drive than the one I currently have installed ....went from a Intel® SSD X25-M Series 80 GB ssd drive, apparently read speed of up to 250MB/s and a write speed of up to 100MB/s model is intel ssdsa2m080g2gc ... to the Hyundai sapphire 120 GB SSD drive model C2S3T120G read speed.. well never mind Hyundai's advertised read/write speeds, crystaldiskmark reports read 229 MB, write 211 MB and since the 80 GB hard drive is several years old assuming (hoping) the Hyundai would be an actual upgrade !

So I basically uninstalled DAI from Origin on the 80 GB drive, formatted old 80 GB hard drive, deleted the partition/volume on it, and removed old 80 GB hard drive from computer, installed and formatted 120 GB hard drive into computer, ran various tests on it (hddscan, seatools for windows, short and extended tests and butterfly test on hddscan) which all seem to indicate the hard drive is working properly... I did get an access violation error which appears to have gone away on it's own (hopefully?... not sure if it's still sticking around somewhere in the background) when the hard drive was installed, haven't seen that error pop up after making adjustments in permission for security for the hard drive.

I should point out that the 120 GB hard drive is not my primary " C " hard drive I have Windows on... so basically I have a different SSD drive just for games alone.. this was the setup with the 80 GB SSD drive earlier on so just continuing it with my new 120 GB hard drive. I let Windows label it " G drive " , the same letter Windows assigned the old 80 GB hard drive I removed.

Video card is the nvidia geoforce GTX 1060 which has served me faithfully with the 80 GB drive with no issues. Processor is FX8350, again no problems until I upgraded to the new hard drive. Motherboard is a Asus M5A78L-M Plus/Usb3 Motherboard - M5A78L-M PLUS/USB3 , dd3 memory (I know I know it's old stuff .. my wife will crucify me if I upgrade now so waiting for ryzen CPU's , DD4 memory and an appropriate motherboard to fall to ridiculously low prices a few years from now before upgrading.. but oddly enough even with that hardware setup I was fine with DAI's performance right up until switching hard drives).

I should point out that I am using mods to alter my character's (inquisitor's) appearance.... but even with the mods (which I have reinstalled onto the game, the mods that is) I was happy with the game's performance and speed with the 80 GB drive.

Now it's the strangest thing... the game still runs my previous saves, my character still looks the same which I'm told is a minor miracle since mods are involved ... but suddenly the load time (when the screen goes black and the green inquisitor logo flashes in the lower right hand corner) is maybe two to three times as long as before... even for something as simple as being in Skyhold and exiting say the Undercroft (where you go to have new items made and generally speaking manage inventory for all characters, storage chest is there) to go back into Skyhold.. that used to happen in maybe 15 seconds at most, now it takes a good 30 seconds to 2 minutes or so with the new hard drive ... which I shouldn't complain about too much I guess , the game is still running after all.. but it's the strangest thing.

I've also turned off cloud saves for Origin hoping that would help but no luck there either. I've deleted most of my saved games since I heard that can create lag too, didn't have any effect

Installed the latest driver for my video card, still no luck the game is definitely working but running slower than before as far as that lag time to get from location to location (I should point out that when the game loads no problem at all, gameplay runs smoothly whether during combat or not)... anyone have any insight as to what might be going on ?

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and replies

 

[Obakasama]

Hm... I always thought Inquisition's loading screens were hard coded like the original Mass Effect's elevator scenes....

More practically, it sounds like a new install of DAI onto the new SSD? Have you tried verifying the game cache via Origin to see if it makes any difference? That's pretty much the only thing I can think of....

 

[andrepartthree]

Thank you so much for your quick reply .. I feel so stupid asking this, I tried googling the answer myself with no luck but.. could you tell me how to verify the game cache in Origin? .. also long as I'm asking stupid questions .. I made this a 'watched" thread on the forum but I'm not getting email notifications when someone posts a reply ... is this normal or did I just forget to click on something?

Hm... I always thought Inquisition's loading screens were hard coded like the original Mass Effect's elevator scenes....

More practically, it sounds like a new install of DAI onto the new SSD? Have you tried verifying the game cache via Origin to see if it makes any difference? That's pretty much the only thing I can think of....

 

[Obakasama]

Crikey. This only reminds me how long it's been since I've played any Dragon Age game (and using Origin) as a result....

So go to My Game Library, click on Dragon Age: Inquisition, then there should be a cogwheel which is settings, click on that and choose 'Repair'. Hopefully that will help that aspect. (Sometimes some games on Steam go a bit strange and verifying the game cache there solves it, so hopefully the same for Origin.)

 

[andrepartthree]

Thank you so much .. I tried the repair thing but have yet to play the game (things just got crazy busy around here, madly shopping the after xmas sales trying to stock up on the xmas tree decorations my wife got rid of without my knowledge.. ha ha, now I can secretly replace them while she's off at work ! ) .. ahem... sorry about that totally off topic ... will be trying the game again soon to see what happens, thanks again so much ..

 

[Nemesia]

There is too much information here and too hard to get it all in a few lines.

Could you please list your entire computer specs. OS and PSU brand and model.

Please tell us what drives you have in that specs and which one is your OS on.

 

[andrepartthree]

Thanks for your reply Nemesia ...

computer specs: O/S Windows 8.1, PSU is Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 850w , I have six sata drives hooked up to the motherboard (I know I know that's a lot but wasn't a problem until I installed the new Hyundai SSD drive), C drive for Windows 8.1 is HP M700 2.5" 240GB SATA III Planar MLC NAND Flash Internal Solid State Drive (SSD), the hard drive I have the game installed on is the Hyundai sapphire 120 GB SSD drive model C2S3T120G .. the other hard drives installed are ...PNY CS900 240GB 2.5” Sata III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - (SSD7CS900-240-RB) on which I have Windows 10 installed for dual booting (but the game is giving problems on my win 8.1 install), and the following non-SSD sata drives... Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB Review (WD10EALX - 009BA0 ) , TOSHIBA (model) DT01ACA100 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive and the Seagate SkyHawk 4TB Surveillance Internal Hard Drive HDD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache (ST4000VX007) - I know I know that last one isn't really meant for desktops but the game was giving no problems even with that installed and the game isn't installed on the seagate anyways ... sorry for the strange bold / red color formatting, did copy and paste and tom's hardware controls not letting me remove the formatting...

 

[Third-Eye]

Hi guys hope everyone had a very merry xmas .. not sure if there are any Dragon Age Inquisition fans out there who can help out (or maybe one doesn't need to be familiar with DAI to troubleshoot this issue, I'm the first one to admit everyone on this forum probably knows way more than me )

Apologies for the long wall of text that's about to follow .. but I figured the more info I can give people the better as far as troubleshooting...

I was very happy with the speed and loading time of my DAI game ... but then (foolishly?) I got greedy and installed a newer SSD drive than the one I currently have installed ....went from a Intel® SSD X25-M Series 80 GB ssd drive, apparently read speed of up to 250MB/s and a write speed of up to 100MB/s model is intel ssdsa2m080g2gc ... to the Hyundai sapphire 120 GB SSD drive model C2S3T120G read speed.. well never mind Hyundai's advertised read/write speeds, crystaldiskmark reports read 229 MB, write 211 MB and since the 80 GB hard drive is several years old assuming (hoping) the Hyundai would be an actual upgrade !

So I basically uninstalled DAI from Origin on the 80 GB drive, formatted old 80 GB hard drive, deleted the partition/volume on it, and removed old 80 GB hard drive from computer, installed and formatted 120 GB hard drive into computer, ran various tests on it (hddscan, seatools for windows, short and extended tests and butterfly test on hddscan) which all seem to indicate the hard drive is working properly... I did get an access violation error which appears to have gone away on it's own (hopefully?... not sure if it's still sticking around somewhere in the background) when the hard drive was installed, haven't seen that error pop up after making adjustments in permission for security for the hard drive.

I should point out that the 120 GB hard drive is not my primary " C " hard drive I have Windows on... so basically I have a different SSD drive just for games alone.. this was the setup with the 80 GB SSD drive earlier on so just continuing it with my new 120 GB hard drive. I let Windows label it " G drive " , the same letter Windows assigned the old 80 GB hard drive I removed.

Video card is the nvidia geoforce GTX 1060 which has served me faithfully with the 80 GB drive with no issues. Processor is FX8350, again no problems until I upgraded to the new hard drive. Motherboard is a Asus M5A78L-M Plus/Usb3 Motherboard - M5A78L-M PLUS/USB3 , dd3 memory (I know I know it's old stuff .. my wife will crucify me if I upgrade now so waiting for ryzen CPU's , DD4 memory and an appropriate motherboard to fall to ridiculously low prices a few years from now before upgrading.. but oddly enough even with that hardware setup I was fine with DAI's performance right up until switching hard drives).

I should point out that I am using mods to alter my character's (inquisitor's) appearance.... but even with the mods (which I have reinstalled onto the game, the mods that is) I was happy with the game's performance and speed with the 80 GB drive.

Now it's the strangest thing... the game still runs my previous saves, my character still looks the same which I'm told is a minor miracle since mods are involved ... but suddenly the load time (when the screen goes black and the green inquisitor logo flashes in the lower right hand corner) is maybe two to three times as long as before... even for something as simple as being in Skyhold and exiting say the Undercroft (where you go to have new items made and generally speaking manage inventory for all characters, storage chest is there) to go back into Skyhold.. that used to happen in maybe 15 seconds at most, now it takes a good 30 seconds to 2 minutes or so with the new hard drive ... which I shouldn't complain about too much I guess , the game is still running after all.. but it's the strangest thing.

I've also turned off cloud saves for Origin hoping that would help but no luck there either. I've deleted most of my saved games since I heard that can create lag too, didn't have any effect

Installed the latest driver for my video card, still no luck the game is definitely working but running slower than before as far as that lag time to get from location to location (I should point out that when the game loads no problem at all, gameplay runs smoothly whether during combat or not)... anyone have any insight as to what might be going on ?

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and replies

The SSD you bought to replace your old one may be dramless (I'm still looking for more info, but it's low end and likely dramless) which will make it perform worse than even some older SSDs. Your motherboard also has no SATA 6Gb ports (SATAIII or SATA3) so you're only getting half the maximum transfer speed the controller on the SSD is capable of.

Edit - Here is the tomshardware review of that brand and model series. It is DRAMless. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hyundai-sapphire-ssd,4948.html

 

[andrepartthree]

Holy crap ! Well you learn something new every day thank you Third-Eye .. at least the mystery is solved now

I tried unsuccessfully to see if the Intel® SSD X25-M Series 80 GB ssd drive I had installed before was also DRAMless (I'm not an expert on these things so I had no idea what I was looking for ) but then I saw the product description on newegg

https://www.newegg.com/intel-x25-m-mainstream-80gb/p/N82E16820167016

where they say " "THE BEST SSD" AWARD FROM DRAMEXCHANGE The Intel X25-M Mainstream series SSD get "the Best SSD" Award Insignia from DRAMeXchange. " ... so maybe the Intel SSD drive is not DRAMless?

Man that is insane all that hard work on my part for nothing thinking a SSD drive made several years later would be better, shows you how much I know .. Crazy thing is I did the research online and newegg gave it high ratings on the user reviews as did independent reviews - I saw that link on tom's hardware too Third-Eye mentioned but I just figured " Eh, I have old games like Dragon Age Inquisition, Witcher 3, Batman Arkham Knight this SSD drive should be fine " - apparently not ! I need to do my research first or at least post here and ask people if it's a wise upgrade, you'd figure I'd learn my lesson by now

But this is good though, now I know it's just a lower quality SSD drive that's the problem... I guess I'll use Acronis to clone my game install right back onto my old 80 GB SSD drive and hope it works followed by an attempt to return this Hyundai right back to Walmart where I got it from..

Thanks so much to everyone who replied !

 

[Third-Eye]

Holy crap ! Well you learn something new every day thank you Third-Eye .. at least the mystery is solved now

I tried unsuccessfully to see if the Intel® SSD X25-M Series 80 GB ssd drive I had installed before was also DRAMless (I'm not an expert on these things so I had no idea what I was looking for ) but then I saw the product description on newegg

https://www.newegg.com/intel-x25-m-mainstream-80gb/p/N82E16820167016

where they say " "THE BEST SSD" AWARD FROM DRAMEXCHANGE The Intel X25-M Mainstream series SSD get "the Best SSD" Award Insignia from DRAMeXchange. " ... so maybe the Intel SSD drive is not DRAMless?

Man that is insane all that hard work on my part for nothing thinking a SSD drive made several years later would be better, shows you how much I know .. Crazy thing is I did the research online and newegg gave it high ratings on the user reviews as did independent reviews - I saw that link on tom's hardware too Third-Eye mentioned but I just figured " Eh, I have old games like Dragon Age Inquisition, Witcher 3, Batman Arkham Knight this SSD drive should be fine " - apparently not ! I need to do my research first or at least post here and ask people if it's a wise upgrade, you'd figure I'd learn my lesson by now

But this is good though, now I know it's just a lower quality SSD drive that's the problem... I guess I'll use Acronis to clone my game install right back onto my old 80 GB SSD drive and hope it works followed by an attempt to return this Hyundai right back to Walmart where I got it from..

Thanks so much to everyone who replied !

If you can afford a new SSD, I would suggest something like the Crucial MX500 and Western Digital WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB for $65 or Samsung 860 Evo 500GB for $70. The 250GB models for around $45-55 are also a good option, but I would avoid anything below 250GB. There are also lower end models that are not as good as those I listed, but still far better than what you have bought. A lot of the cheaper models are DRAM less so you need to research them before buying. Not all DRAM less SSDs are bad, but if you can afford at least a $50 250GB SSD, you are better off taking the higher quality drive.

 

[andrepartthree]

Again thank you so much Third-Eye ..... I've taken note of these models and added them to my amazon wishlist .. having said that I am a complete and utter idiot... restored the image of my gaming hard drive back onto my old Intel drive, game was STILL running slow, was about to tear my hair out in frustration .. then tried un-doing the mods on the game and to my surprise my character still looked the exact same without the mods (no idea why).. and that did the trick, game is back to running at it's normal speed (though I suspect putting it back on my good old Intel drive helped too) . I've learned a lot from what everyone had to say here and greatly appreciate it .. lessons learned

- just use Acronis to make an image, boot from Acronis recovery media and don't worry about the whole uninstall reinstall game thing "to be on the safe side" like I foolishly did you'll save a lot of time

- check with the kind folks here at Toms hardware before buying that new SSD drive .. having said that it's hard to do that when there's a lightning fast " buy them before they sell out" Black Friday deal going on which is when I tend to buy my computer components but.. then again you get what you pay for ..

Thanks again everyone