How does DVD/CD read speed affect Gameplay?

[notguru]

is there a big difference between 32x and 48x for CD?
or 16x and 18x for DVD?

when i put Far Cry 2 in, will I game slower because my drive read speed?

 

[MikeJRamsey]

is there a big difference between 32x and 48x for CD?
or 16x and 18x for DVD?

when i put Far Cry 2 in, will I game slower because my drive read speed?

Enough that Microsoft felt compelled to write "Optimizing DVD performance for Windows Games"
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb147246(VS.85).aspx

Many high end gamer rigs include optical drives such as the LG GGC-H20L Super Multi Blue Blu-ray Disc & HD DVD-ROM
http://www.cdrlabs.com/Reviews/lg-ggc-h20l-super-multi-blue-blu-ray-disc-hd-dvd-rom.html

Mike Ramsey

 

[Twoboxer]

Only if the game actually uses the DVD during gameplay for something else other than ownership verification.

 

[sub mesa]

Not really, with modern games even all movie data is copied. Some games still require the CD/DVD in the drive, but only for copy protection purposes. So the speed of your optical drive only matters for installation, not in any case game performance.

 

[MikeJRamsey]

Only if the game actually uses the DVD during gameplay for something else other than ownership verification.

Depends on the design of the game of course. "Pong" wouldn't need to be moving very much scenery into RAM. Just to get an idea of the rates involved there is table of DVD drive speeds:

speed	Data rate	        	         Disc write time*	Equivalent CD rate	CD reading speed
1x	       11.08 Mbps (1.32 MB/s)		53 min.			 9x			8x-18x
2x	       22.16 Mbps (2.64 MB/s)		27 min.			18x			20x-24x
4x	       44.32 Mbps (5.28 MB/s)		14 min.			36x			24x-32x
5x	       55.40 Mbps (6.60 MB/s)		11 min.			45x			24x-32x
6x	       66.48 Mbps (7.93 MB/s)		 9 min.			54x			24x-32x
8x	       88.64 Mbps (10.6 MB/s)		 7 min.			72x			32x-40x
10x	     110.80 Mbps (13.2 MB/s)		 6 min.			90x			32x-40x
16x	     177.28 Mbps (21.1 MB/s)		 4 min.		     144x		    32x-40x

Source: http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html
See section 4.2.


Mike Ramsey

 

[Twoboxer]

Depends on the design of the game of course. "Pong" wouldn't need to be moving very much scenery into RAM.

Its more than a bit disingenuous to suggest that only "Pong" wouldn't benefit from a faster optical drive.

Can you name a big-time FPS that uses the DVD for game play?

 

[MikeJRamsey]

Not really, with modern games even all movie data is copied. Some games still require the CD/DVD in the drive, but only for copy protection purposes. So the speed of your optical drive only matters for installation, not in any case game performance.

I agree that the best plan is to fully load the game onto the hard drive. Where that isn't possible there is this:
http://users.telenet.be/erik.deppe/cdspeedfaq.htm

"Some games crash with my new high speed drive.

All high speed drives will spin down after a while. This is done because letting it spin at high speed all the time would dramatically reduce the life of the drive.
If the game (or other program) wants to access the drive again, the drive has to spin up. This will take a few seconds and might be enough to cause trouble with some games.
However there is a utility which will allow you to change the spindown time.
It can be found at:http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aa571
Some drives (Plextor) allow you to select the spindown time.
The spinup/down time can be measured with CD Speed 99."

A non-gaming consideration is data backup to a DVD.

Mike Ramsey

 

[Twoboxer]

Oh, puh-lease lol. Moving on now.

 

[MikeJRamsey]

Its more than a bit disingenuous to suggest that only "Pong" wouldn't benefit from a faster optical drive.

Can you name a big-time FPS that uses the DVD for game play?

That's not true. It's only disingenuous; not a bit more.

I agree that if you have the disk space, load it. If you don't, what are you going to do?

Mike Ramsey

 

[Twoboxer]

That's not true. It's only disingenuous; not a bit more.

I agree that if you have the disk space, load it. If you don't, what are you going to do?

Mike Ramsey

Actually, since it was intentionally misleading, it *was* more than disingenuous. But we're just parsing words here.

Since Pong, no game needs to be played from the DVD. (My turn now )

No room? Delete the last game or buy more disk. Last thing to spend money on is swapping out a "slow" optical for gaming.

 

[MikeJRamsey]

Now, now, you don't know what my intention was. It would not be correct to say that I was intentionally misleading.

I have come around to your point of view. Load the whole game and buy more storage if you have to.

I do plan on buying a blu-ray burner but not for gaming. I want to use blu-ray discs for off site backups.

 

[Twoboxer]

NP, Mike - the wordplay was fun.

Thanks for remaining a gentleman throughout.

 

[notguru]

Its more than a bit disingenuous to suggest that only "Pong" wouldn't benefit from a faster optical drive.

Can you name a big-time FPS that uses the DVD for game play?

Just so you guys know, I'm not thinking of getting Pong.
I might get Far Cry 2 though.
D'you think Far Cry 2 is used only for ownership verification? Or does the game need the DVD?

 

[swifty_morgan]

I use Vista for my main gamer....... and if you go to start/games......... when it loads, if you right click on the FarCry2 icon and select play........... it'll run without the dvd.

As far as dvd-rom drive speed............ never really noticed that any game ever got hampered going from one drive to the next from one machine to another.......

 

[505090]

None of my game s use the disc for anything other than copyright crap. And for the copyrighted games i have disc images mounted to virtual drives, which would be the fastest way to assess a cd or dvd.

 

[MikeJRamsey]

None of my game s use the disc for anything other than copyright crap. And for the copyrighted games i have disc images mounted to virtual drives, which would be the fastest way to assess a cd or dvd.

Are you creating a virtual CD-ROM?

 

[notguru]

None of my game s use the disc for anything other than copyright crap. And for the copyrighted games i have disc images mounted to virtual drives, which would be the fastest way to assess a cd or dvd.

I do I do the whole mounting images business. Do I need special software like Alcohol 120%? Is anything free?
Do you think this looks reliable?: http://www.slysoft.com/en/gamejackal.html

 

[505090]

Are you creating a virtual CD-ROM?

yes i use alcohol 120 to make 1 to 1 images of the discs then mount them on virtual drives.

as far as free options dameon tools will allow you to mount up to 4 virtual drives at a time

 

[Twoboxer]

I do I do the whole mounting images business. Do I need special software like Alcohol 120%? Is anything free?
Do you think this looks reliable?: http://www.slysoft.com/en/gamejackal.html

I've used Jackal in a trial - about 75% at the time, so I let it go.

Instead, from the same site you could use:

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html
http://www.slysoft.com/en/clonedvd.html

and this free one:
http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

They work well.

 

[notguru]

yes i use alcohol 120 to make 1 to 1 images of the discs then mount them on virtual drives.

as far as free options dameon tools will allow you to mount up to 4 virtual drives at a time

hOW ARE YOU LIKING WINDOWS 7 ?

 

[505090]

love it, it's what vista should have been

 

[notguru]

one more question.....or statement rather:
when i tried playin crysis it asked me for the dvd.
so i guess games do require the dvd
how do i use virtual clonedrive (slysoft.com) to create ISO image of crysis?

 

[505090]

yes it checks that you have the dvd for copyright bs. It has nothing to do with game performance. I only use images so i don't have to look for discs.

I have never used clonedrive you would have to read the manual

 

[Twoboxer]

Virtual clone drive does not rip the image, that's what the other two products combine to do. VCD is merely the mounting place for the image, a virtual DVD drive.

 

[notguru]

Virtual clone drive does not rip the image, that's what the other two products combine to do. VCD is merely the mounting place for the image, a virtual DVD drive.

So then how do I make the image?