onson Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 I recently purchased a SSD for the sole purpose of decreasing load time when playing Skyrim. My question is, would I have to install Windows on the SSD to get the full performance benefit from having a SSD? I was thinking of installing the SSD and moving Skyrim on it with a program called Steam Mover. Basically , does the OS have to be on the SSD to get the full benefit of having a SSD?Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nydomino24 Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 (edited) The OS ALWAYS has to be on the SSD, will make ur pc start up much faster too. Though Skyrim doesnt have to be installed on it, doesnt really matter but if u have the space on it go for it. Just use TESV (sp?) it frees up the ram on ur pc for the game Edited May 20, 2013 by nydomino24 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkinsane Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 I'd put both on the SSD, this way your windows and Skyrim will start up fast. But putting only Skyrim on SSD will speed up Skyrim's load times, and only Skyrim's load times (Well, Skyrim & your other steam games). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blitzen Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 I have 2 SSDs. One is for the OS, one is for Skyrim. That's the best way to do it. The important parts of the OS are in what is called the kernel, and that should be loaded into RAM when the computer boots up. You should theoretically not see much of a run time penalty with the OS on a HD. But who knows, it's Windows. In theory, placing the OS on the SSD mainly produces faster boot times. Depending on the size of the SSD and how many mods you pile onto Skyrim, and what other games you may install, putting both on the SSD is probably the best choice if you don't want a second SSD. Just be sure to make regular backups. Unlike HDs, SSDs tend to fail without warning, They simply stop working at some point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onson Posted May 21, 2013 Author Share Posted May 21, 2013 So for right now , I decided to install the SSD as just a "storage drive" with nothing on it. I used a program called steam mover to move skyrim to the SSD just see how that works. Everything is working but load times really don't seem much different. I'll have play a little more to really be sure but I'm really considering a complete reinstall anyway just to clean out the pc. Anyone else switched to SSD that can give me an idea of the load time difference ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greentea101 Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 There's not much difference in load times for most games, not just for Skyrim. There are more things going on when a game is "loading" than just reading data from the storage device. There are also calculations going on, which depend on the GPU and CPU. If it was just about reading data, it would be a lot faster. Having an SSD helps a lot with the OS startup (which IS mostly just about reading data), and with the startup of applications, but not nearly as much with games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onson Posted May 21, 2013 Author Share Posted May 21, 2013 I was under the impression that load times were significantly reduced during games, I thought he wait during the load screen was data being loaded from the hard drive. So a slow drive would equal longer wait. Do I not understand that correctly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greentea101 Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) Like I said, there are also calculations happening alongside reading from the hard drive. I've been using SSDs for about two years, and I've been running games both from SSDs and HDDs (I move them around via NTFS junctions when I need to free space). I have yet to see a significant load speed increase for a game loading from SSD. The difference is borderline placebo. I guess it can be significant if you've been using an old HDD, but if you have a modern one with decent performance, you probably won't notice much difference moving to SSDs. There may be some games that benefit from an SSD, but I haven't seen one yet. Edited May 21, 2013 by greentea101 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted3507349User Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 I'm certainly no expert, but I would think that one big advantage of having the OS on a SSD would be much faster access to the virtual memory, that's always been a bottleneck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onson Posted May 21, 2013 Author Share Posted May 21, 2013 " Like I said, there are also calculations happening alongside reading from the hard drive. I've been using SSDs for about two years, and I've been running games both from SSDs and HDDs (I move them around via NTFS junctions when I need to free space). I have yet to see a significant load speed increase for a game loading from SSD. The difference is borderline placebo. I guess it can be significant if you've been using an old HDD, but if you have a modern one with decent performance, you probably won't notice much difference moving to SSDs. There may be some games that benefit from an SSD, but I haven't seen one yet." This is a quote from another forum:" Lemme put it in perspective for you. My BF3 load time went from 45 seconds-2 minutes down to 15 seconds tops. My windows load time went from 5 minutes~ to about 25 seconds" So you see the reason for my confusion lol. Im not in any way saying anybody is incorrect or being untruthful but I guess everyone's system and personal experience is different. At the end of the day, the only way I will know for sure is after I install it and try it out. I'll post my observations when everything's up and running. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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