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[uncreativename]

Obviously most modern games require an SSD because SSDs can read, and especially seek, much much faster than a mechanical HDD. But the disadvantage of SSDs is that they have a lifespan based on the number of writes performed on them.

This is fine for most modern games, because modern games are mostly static, and games that do have dynamic elements usually cap the number of dynamic elements pretty low, so they don't have to save all that often, and your save data is pretty small.

But imagine if we start getting more games like Minecraft or Donkey Kong Bananza or Cities Skylines or Dwarf Fortress, except bigger and more detailed, and with huge numbers of actually simulated npcs? Playing the game would directly harm your storage drive.

Do you think this is part of the reason why most modern games stick with mostly static worlds? Also, there are more advanced HDDs being developed, mostly for AI, do you think in the future if more games begin to lean into dynamic elements, will we see more PCs and maybe even consoles with both a high speed HDD and an SSD?

 

[ReBurn]

 

[uncreativename]

When I say static game I mean something like Red Dead 2. It's a great game, obviously, but: all the npcs are set in stone, they can't dynamically move from place to place. The terrain can't be terraformed. Anyone you meet on the road is randomly generated, they're not a simulated npc that's actually moving from place to place, they get deleted the moment you leave the area. It's ideal for SSDs because the game mostly just has to read in data, almost nothing has to be written. What I'm saying is games like Minecraft where you can actually change the world are way less ideal for SSDs.

 

[Donald mac Ronald]

When I say static game I mean something like Red Dead 2. It's a great game, obviously, but: all the npcs are set in stone, they can't dynamically move from place to place. The terrain can't be terraformed. Anyone you meet on the road is randomly generated, they're not a simulated npc that's actually moving from place to place, they get deleted the moment you leave the area. It's ideal for SSDs because the game mostly just has to read in data, almost nothing has to be written. What I'm saying is games like Minecraft where you can actually change the world are way less ideal for SSDs.

Bro when you build in cities skyline it's not writing the cities in real time to your SSD lmao.

 

[jshackles]

Modern SSDs can handle literally thousands of write cycles per memory cell. That's hundreds of thousands of terabytes written as a mean time between failures. For context, a 1TB NVMe drive can typically write and rewrite 50GB per day for over 33 years before failing on average. And that's with QLC NAND, something like TLC NAND is easily double and sometimes triple that figure.

Even if you had the CPU and memory in a system to do what you're suggesting (write persistent NPC data to storage, for some reason) you're never going to come close to writing enough data to actually damage your SSD in the span of a human lifetime. And that situation (thanks to developments in the technology due to AI) is improving almost daily.

 

[uncreativename]

Bro when you build in cities skyline it's not writing the cities in real time to your SSD lmao.

That's not what I'm talking about, Cities Skyyline was just an example. Imagine a future game similar to Cities Skylines but with like 100 other fully simulated cities competing with yours that can all have like 10 million fully simulated npcs. Your CPU could handle it imo, but it'd require a lot more writes to your SSD.

 

[uncreativename]

Modern SSDs can handle literally thousands of write cycles per memory cell. That's hundreds of thousands of terabytes written as a mean time between failures. For context, a 1TB NVMe drive can typically write and rewrite 50GB per day for over 33 years before failing on average. And that's with QLC NAND, something like TLC NAND is easily double and sometimes triple that figure.

Even if you had the CPU and memory in a system to do what you're suggesting (write persistent NPC data to storage, for some reason) you're never going to come close to writing enough data to actually damage your SSD in the span of a human lifetime. And that situation (thanks to developments in the technology due to AI) is improving almost daily.

Yeah? When I looked it up, the number I got was 600 Terabytes written per SSD. That seems pretty small. But maybe that number was wrong...

https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/simon-crisp/samsung-990-pro-2tb-review/all/1/

Samsung quotes endurance figures of 600TBW for the 1TB drive and 1,200TBW for the 2TB model and back the range with a 5-year warranty.

 

[The_hunter]

Mechanical failure of HDD will happen well before SSD failure.

 

[BlackTron]

HDD and SDD endurance isn't different enough to matter to video games.

The kind of constant read/writes you're talking about do happen all the time from the page file.

 

[uncreativename]

Mechanical failure of HDD will happen well before SSD failure.

That's a really good point... Maybe there is no perfect solution.

 

[BlackTron]

Yeah? When I looked it up, the number I got was 600 Terabytes written per SSD. That seems pretty small. But maybe that number was wrong...

https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/simon-crisp/samsung-990-pro-2tb-review/all/1/

Depends on the SSD, higher capacities have MUCH higher lifespan because the wear leveling has more to spread it across. That also means the more free space you leave, the more endurance. Filling it up and then deleting/rewriting the same chunk over and over is bad.

 

[simpatico]

I wonder if they could use the RAM in a way that reduced the read and write cycles on the storage drive for those types of games. I found a nice way to save on storage in these times, I put all my little indie, 2D games on a mechanical hard drive and they're so small I can't tell a difference in load times really. I also still use mechanical drives for all my music and video. No advantage putting that on an SSD.

 

[uncreativename]

Say the kind of games I'm talking about do come to exist, though. I guess the solution is just really heavy compression, like the AI compression that NVIDIA's been talking about for textures? That way you could expand the data in RAM and do all the calculations there, and then you can write exponentially less data back to the storage drive.

Or even better, the dev could expand the data in part of your RAM, and then when done actively working with it compress it and move it to another part of your RAM designated for storage while the game is running. Even fewer writes...

 

[kevboard]

data for dynamic games is usually only code, basically text files... those don't reach sizes that would seriously impact an SSD longterm

 

[Magic Carpet]

My first SSD was a 120GB intel that released in 2010? Found a review. Still works. It's in an old PC now.

Intel Announces 120GB X25-M SSD

Intel has launched a 120GB version of their venerable X25-M SSD series for $249 MSRP. The release of the 120GB model gives Intel something to sit between their 80GB and 160GB models, allowing for more gradual steps up in capacity and price for consumers. The 120GB X25-M is also meant to give...

www.storagereview.com

 

[uncreativename]

data for dynamic games is usually only code, basically text files... those don't reach sizes that would seriously impact an SSD longterm

Yeah these games tend to cap the amount of dynamic data, and I'd always wondered why. The caps seemed so low to me. Like Crusader Kings 3 from what I've read tries to keep your max world population around 25,000 active npcs.

Maybe this is part of why that is.

 

[jshackles]

Yeah? When I looked it up, the number I got was 600 Terabytes written per SSD. That seems pretty small. But maybe that number was wrong...

https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/simon-crisp/samsung-990-pro-2tb-review/all/1/

The number isn't wrong, but think of it this way. Take the worst case scenario (how TWD is calculated). You take the entire 1TB drive and write the entire disk with all 0s - and then make another pass flipping all of those zeros into 1s. You can expect to perform this operation 600 times, or once per day for almost two years, before the NAND wears out and can no longer flip those bits.

Now do this same operation, but only write to half the disk. At the end of the 600 days, you can carry on doing the same thing to the other half of the disk, effectively having 1200 x 500GB writes and your drive has 3.2 years of life. Keep repeating this process until you have a workload that's suitable for what you're talking about. Even 100GB daily gives you 10x600TBW = 16.438 years. In the example I gave above it was 50GB / day which gives you 32.876 years.

Even in your link the 2TB model of that drive has a 1200TBW endurance rating. Which makes sense, because if you double the capacity you're doubling the NAND. So with 1200TBW, you can write that same 50GB per day for 65.753 years before you would expect this drive to fail.

Again, these are worst case scenarios where write operations have to flip every bit in the write chain. The overwhelming majority of write operations don't function that way, because you're writing essentially random strings of 0s and 1s, so there is usually overlap. The storage controller hits a block that needs to write a 0, and it's already set to 0, so it doesn't have to make any physical alterations that would impact the long-term endurance of the drive. This means that in reality these numbers can usually be inaccurate between 20-80%, meaning your 2TB drive that's writing 50GB/day might even last as long as 118.356 years - potentially longer than a human lifespan.

The reality is that with most modern SSD / NVMe drives in regular non-data-center workloads, the storage controller is MUCH more likely to fail before the NAND craps out and stops being able to be written to.

 

[Cumulus]

Ever heard of RAM....
And how the fuck do you think dynamic data is stored anyways, lol. Hint: not as full assets....
Stuff like NPCs are usually CPU limited. Terraforming depends on how it's done, can be limited by both the CPU and the GPU ( usually it would be the GPU)

 

[kevboard]

Yeah these games tend to cap the amount of dynamic data, and I'd always wondered why. The caps seemed so low to me. Like Crusader Kings 3 from what I've read tries to keep your max world population around 25,000 active npcs.

Maybe this is part of why that is.

could also be an engine limitation, or CPU related limitation for the minimum spec.

I think even 200mb of dynamic data wouldn't be much of an issue