• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

SSDs next gen will change my gaming habits.

93xfan

Banned
Really wanted to invest in Tekken 7 and play more Forza Motorsport this gen, but just couldn’t stand the load times for just a single match or (especially in the former).

Sometimes I don’t fast travel in games because I just don’t want to stare at a load screen.

And sometimes I’d load up a game with really short to no load times this gen if I didn’t have a lot of time to play.

Looking forward to what SSDs will mean for my gaming habits next gen. Anyone else feel the same way?
 
Last edited:

farmerboy

Member
Game changer, not only for load times, but pop in as well. Also, I wonder if a better ssd solution will translate to one console having better textures than the other?
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Also, I wonder if a better ssd solution will translate to one console having better textures than the other?
Maybe, but I think it is unlikely a big difference and even then it is just for a frame or two until the other catches up if anything.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
I remember when you had to wait 10 minutes for the game to load from a tape. Kids today...

Remember when you put the mouse pointer at the loading bar to check if it's actually going or if the PC froze? Good 'ol times indeed.


The best thing is tho - SSDs alone wouldn't be such a biggie, as you can already put an SSD into your PS4, and we all know it isn't as half as big of an upgrade as it is on PC/laptops, it's basically on par with SSHD, but this time around with next-gen consoles, we will undoubtedly get a proper high-bandwidth interface (PCIE4), along with a high-performance CPU, because it's the Jaguar that is always the bottleneck as far as current-gen consoles go. So yeah, dramatic changes (in a positive way) are indeed ahead of us.
 

Dargor

Member
Nothing is standard on PC.I was making the point that this Gen of consoles didn't even attempt to have any real edge to them.They even released "enthusiast" models and they still lack SSDs.

of course there are, hds for one are standard. maybe soon ssds will become standard.
 
of course there are, hds for one are standard. maybe soon ssds will become standard.

Where is this stated? Storage is needed as it’s a requirement for any modern computer to operate. The type of storage isn’t in a PC standards handbook.
 
Last edited:

Dargor

Member
Where is this stated? Storage is standard as it’s a requirement for any computer to operate. The type of storage isn’t in a PC standards handbook.

Are you saying the vast majority of pcs out there do not come with a hard drive or am I reading you wrong?
 

The Shepard

Member
Game changer, not only for load times, but pop in as well. Also, I wonder if a better ssd solution will translate to one console having better textures than the other?

Pop in is the worst, proper breaks immersion seeing things appear out of nowhere in front of you. Open worlds should look amazing next gen.
 
Are you saying the vast majority of pcs out there do not come with a hard drive or am I reading you wrong?
You are reading me wrong, they all come with storage. It can be the most common thing being HDD but it’s not a guaranteed standard. Unlike consoles which are all the exact same, it’s manufacturers standard that ALL PS4’s have a HDD. Sony don’t make one with an SSD.
 
Last edited:

Dargor

Member
You are reading me wrong, they all come with storage. It can be the most common thing being HDD but it’s not a guaranteed standard. Unlike consoles which are all the exact same, it’s manufacturers standard that ALL PS4’s have a HDD. Sony don’t make one with an SSD.

Yeah, I think this conversation is running in circles, thx for the banter though.
 

Mithos

Member
Will change for me too, Will play less games because SSD/m.2 is more expensive then old mechanical drives, and deleting and re-downloading a 50-100 game is a 2-4 day wait.
 

93xfan

Banned
Nah man. I'd hate to be so pressed for time that load screens define what I play.

Could also be that it hurts the experience when you get long load times often and the trade off doesn’t feel worth it.

like a long line at an amusement park for a short ride when there are plenty of other rides with shorter lines.
 
S

SLoWMoTIoN

Unconfirmed Member
Really wanted to invest in Tekken 7 and play more Forza Motorsport this gen, but just couldn’t stand the load times for just a single match or (especially in the former).

Sometimes I don’t fast travel in games because I just don’t want to stare at a load screen.

And sometimes I’d load up a game with really short to no load times this gen if I didn’t have a lot of time to play.

Looking forward to what SSDs will mean for my gaming habits next gen. Anyone else feel the same way?
Next gen?
You can buy a SSD right now and get better load times (by half in most games) if you have a PC/Ps4 Pro/X1X/Sega Saturn Neo.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
what year is it?

i bought my first SSD in 2008 i think lol.

trust me. while SSDs should definitely have been the standard this gen and not next gen, they aren't a game changer (heh). sure things will load up a bit faster but it won't magically make load screens disappear or be drastically shorter. once you get your games on the SSD you'll be soon wishing that it would just load faster.

there are still a lot of games on PC that take a while to load and i'm using an NVME SSD. even if the PS5/XB2 use drives based on PCIE4.0 speeds then i don't imagine it will let games load much faster.
 
Last edited:

mcz117chief

Member
SSD don't do miracles. I barely notice any difference when I install games on my SSD, tbh.
That's odd. I guess the games must have some serious issues then. I only have a small SSD which I use for one game at a time but games like Total War load up incredibly faster on the SSD. Post battle loading screens on HDD are between 1 and 2 minutes, on SSD it takes between 5 to 10 seconds.
 
Last edited:

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
That's odd. I guess the games must have some serious issues then. I only have a small SSD which I use for one game at a time but games like Total War load up incredibly faster on the SSD. Post battle loading screens on HDD are between 1 and 2 minutes, on SSD it takes between 5 to 10 seconds.
depends on the game and what the game is doing.

most games with an SSD it will just cut the loading times down a bit. cutting it down from 1-2 mins to 5-10 seconds is definitely not the norm.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
i must say i am already getting tired of people expecting SSDs to provide insane performance improvements. i blame Sony for that bloody Spiderman stuff. people who have never used an SSD before are just falling for the hype/marketing.

SSD's are great and i couldn't live without one in my PC. i'm sure they will be great in next gen consoles too but i'm far more interested in the speed/power of the CPU/GPU and capacity of RAM. that's where the majority of performance is coming from. storage speed isn't gonna do much.
 

Dontero

Banned
An M.2 isn't all that much faster unless it is NVMe

That is mostly because fast boot sequence. Most of standard mobos have that feature now.
My PC without fastboot spends most of time on ASUS logo which is boot sequence for mobo rather than loading windows files.
It is about 4seconds total.

NVME drivers are great at sequential (aka big singular files) but about the same as SSD on many small files (which is what system and games are).
I used one of the fastest NVME drives 4 years ago and it was barely different from my SATA3 SSD. The only huge difference was when i was copying huge files.
 

Portugeezer

Gold Member
At first I couldn't understand OPs mindset, but then I think about my Switch, when I am into a game I play it a lot more often on Switch because every game is suspended ;you don't really turn off the Switch so it's so quick to jump back in.

Next gen needs to make turning on a console like turning in your TV, bang it's instant, bang press X and I'm in the game like it was nothing. That is the dream.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
My gaming habits were forever altered when I started playing DS and PSP years ago. Cutting down on the time it takes for a player to jump in should've always been a priority, but alas we crave our HD textures and open worlds and cinematic cutscenes.
 

Stuart360

Gold Member
Yeah i agree with some of the comments here. SSD's are certainly faster than a standard HD, but they are no miracle workers. In fact i have started noticing load times on some recent games that are nearly as long as they used to be on my standard HD.
They can cut stuttering down a bit if you are playing a game that is streaming tons of data on the fly, but thats only in rare cases. All SSD's really do is improve load times a bit.
 

Life

Member
Yeah i agree with some of the comments here. SSD's are certainly faster than a standard HD, but they are no miracle workers. In fact i have started noticing load times on some recent games that are nearly as long as they used to be on my standard HD.
They can cut stuttering down a bit if you are playing a game that is streaming tons of data on the fly, but thats only in rare cases. All SSD's really do is improve load times a bit.

A little bit? It's significantly faster. Windows boots much faster, games load very quickly (multiple times faster) etc etc. If people actually valued their time and wanted to play games - they would have ditched consoles as soon as SSDs became affordable.
 

Stuart360

Gold Member
A little bit? It's significantly faster. Windows boots much faster, games load very quickly (multiple times faster) etc etc. If people actually valued their time and wanted to play games - they would have ditched consoles as soon as SSDs became affordable.
Its not a huge difference imo. It is with booting Windows, i'll give you that, and load times on games are faster, but like i sid, i'm already experiencing load times in some recent games that were nearly as bad as on my HD. Sure playing those games on a HD now would mean even slower, but its not this revolutionay tech that Sony is making it out to be.
I expect next gen games to still have loading times, sizeble loading times, in some games.
 

Life

Member
Its not a huge difference imo. It is with booting Windows, i'll give you that, and load times on games are faster, but like i sid, i'm already experiencing load times in some recent games that were nearly as bad as on my HD. Sure playing those games on a HD now would mean even slower, but its not this revolutionay tech that Sony is making it out to be.
I expect next gen games to still have loading times, sizeble loading times, in some games.

Some games might be buggy. I played Fallout 4 recently and finished it. The loading took ages and I knew something was wrong. Found a fix for it, and loading got 5/6 times faster. If ur not noticing a huge difference, something is definitely off. IT should at least be 3 or 4 times faster, regardless of game.
 

Stuart360

Gold Member
Some games might be buggy. I played Fallout 4 recently and finished it. The loading took ages and I knew something was wrong. Found a fix for it, and loading got 5/6 times faster. If ur not noticing a huge difference, something is definitely off. IT should at least be 3 or 4 times faster, regardless of game.
Oh it is 3 or 4 times faster, but you still have loading, and it can be sizeable. I'm talking more about some people acting like its going to be 1 second loading or something. Its quicker, but you can still be waiting for loading.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
I'm probably the only one who doesn't give a fuck about loading times or poor texture streaming etc.
I would buy a next gen console without ssd and with a better gpu every day of the week.

(For the record i have an ssd on pc so i know the differences between a regular hd and an ssd, still don't give a damn)
 
Last edited:

DonF

Gold Member
I installed a m.2 drive on my brothers laptop, he plays mostly overwatch, league of legends and apex, since all those games are multiplayer, the game loads as fast as the person with the slowest drive. Also, all mentioned games have a pre game lobby, so how fast the drive is, it doesn't matter.

But if next gen consoles all come with an ssd, I can see loading of this games becoming faster, since its going to be standard.
 
Top Bottom