Dragon Age Inquisition runs slow (load when move to new area) after reinstall onto faster hard drive

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys brand new to the forums so my apologies if this question has already been answered elsewhere.

I was very happy with the speed and loading time of my DAI game ... but then (foolishly?) I 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 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.

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.

I should point out that I am using mods to alter my character's (inquisitor's) appearance. (katherine face texture, ... 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.

The mods being used (only 2, face texture and eyebrows for women) are the katherine face texture and eyebrows for women at this link here

https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonageinquisition/mods/612/?tab=files

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 and I reinstalled the game :P ... 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 10 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 :P, 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 finishes loading no problem at all, gameplay itself runs smoothly whether during combat or just walking around talking to people, cutscenes move at the speed they're supposed to ... it't just the lag time black screen thing has increased for some reason)... anyone have any insight as to what might be going on ?

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

[andrepartthree]

It was the strangest thing but...okay so when I generated my Inquisitor I used mods for her appearance... tried reinstalling the game back onto the original SSD drive where I was happy with the speed of the loading screens and loading screens were still going slow.. frustrated, I tried disabling the mods and... not only are loading screen speeds back to normal, my Inquisitor still looks the same appearance wise despite the mods being disabled..I have no idea how I got that lucky but looks like the problem has been solved :) ..

 

A few tips for anyone who comes across this thread (I've noticed even if one is not part of a forum per se a forum thread relating to your problem can still come up during a google search when one is trying to troubleshoot)

 

- if you happen to have Acronis True Image installed use that to your advantage..I foolishly went the "safe way" (in my mind anyways) and uninstalled then reinstalled the game.. very time consuming, if you restore from an Acronis image you created then boot off Acronis's bootable system restore CD that speeds things up a lot ... in my case I wouldn't have had to mess with the mods to begin with after reinstalling the game if I'd just used the Acronis product I already had (I guess I just thought it would be safer to reinstall the game).

 

- be careful when "upgrading" to a new ssd drive, don't just assume that because the drive is newer you will get better performance ... the Hyundai I upgraded to , turns out it's actually WORSE than my several year old Intel SSD drive (technical details don't make sense to me to be honest :P but the kind folks at the tom's hardware forum explained the Hyundai was DDRAMless or something like that which evidently affects gaming performance)... so even if it costs a bit more, do the google research, say "cheap SSD drives for gaming" .. mind you even the cheapest SSD drive is still better than a "normal" non SATA drive for gaming so if that's all that's within your budget (I foolishly bought the Hyundai on sale for $17 thinking it would be an upgrade) and your game is currently installed on a non SSD drive then by all means give it a try.