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Use SSD just for running apps/games?
- Thread starter Dallows
- Start date
Windows doesn't really take up all that much space by itself. You'd lose much of the tangible benefits just by running games and applications off of the SSD. Caches and user data get put on the mechanical drive, web browsing doesn't get faster ... the list goes on.
I say, don't do it. Put Windows on the drive... just Win7x64 with no page file and hibernation file only takes up 16GB or so.
I say, don't do it. Put Windows on the drive... just Win7x64 with no page file and hibernation file only takes up 16GB or so.
+1 on this. The OS is what will benefit from the SSD and is what will use 99% of the I/O (compared to an app or two alone, so you might as well get the added benefit since you are purchasing a drive and installing it.
I've noticed this as well. As most games are loaded from hard drives or optical discs it makes sense that they'd optimize the load patterns to be largely sequential. This isn't always the case though.
Most of the small amount of gaming that I do is Flight Simulator X with about 40GB of addon terrain mesh and such and it's composed of hundreds of thousands of small (under 1MB) files that it needs to load depending on where you're going and what is visible in the active view. Just changing to another camera can involve loading hundreds of these small files. So a few years ago I bought myself a couple of 15krpm SCSI HDDs, one to put Windows and Flight Sim on, and the other for the scenery. Smoothed things right out for under $500
An SSD is even better at this, and for alot less money. But it depends on the game. Other games I tried to speed up by putting them on the drives with faster access times (vs 7200 rpm HDDs) didn't show nearly the same benefit. Actually Sims 3 got quite a bit better too.
Most of the small amount of gaming that I do is Flight Simulator X with about 40GB of addon terrain mesh and such and it's composed of hundreds of thousands of small (under 1MB) files that it needs to load depending on where you're going and what is visible in the active view. Just changing to another camera can involve loading hundreds of these small files. So a few years ago I bought myself a couple of 15krpm SCSI HDDs, one to put Windows and Flight Sim on, and the other for the scenery. Smoothed things right out for under $500
An SSD is even better at this, and for alot less money. But it depends on the game. Other games I tried to speed up by putting them on the drives with faster access times (vs 7200 rpm HDDs) didn't show nearly the same benefit. Actually Sims 3 got quite a bit better too.