Exploring SSD Performance In Battlefield 3, F1 2011, And Rift

Launching F1 2011

Even though our F1 2011 installation only monopolizes 12 GiB, launching the game is more storage-intensive than Battlefield 3. Our Vertex 3 has to read about 600 MB to get from the launch button to selecting a Grand Prix race.

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Overall StatisticsF1 2011: Launching
Elapsed Time00:49
Read Operations8 686
Write Operations505
Data Read592.30 MB
Data Written3.28 MB
Disk Busy Time1.82 s
Average Data Rate326.91 MB/s

Most transfers are 128 KB in size, which makes sense considering that a majority of accesses are sequential. Only 21% of the process is random. This reflects the structure of the Steam-based F1 2011 installation. There aren't many files of varying sizes strewn across the drive. Instead, all of the game data is localized to a few large files. However, SSDs excel at speeding up random accesses. As a result, you don’t have queue depths stacking up like you would see on a hard drive.

I/O Trends:

  • 62% of all operations occur at a queue depth of one
  • 36% of all operations occur between queue depths of two and four
  • 79% of all operations are sequential
  • 5% of all operations are 4 KB in transfer size
  • 10% of all operations are 8 KB in transfer size
  • 80% of all operations are 128 KB in transfer size

  • asnorton44
    Interesting to see it won't imrpove all gameplay
    Reply
  • clonazepam
    Makes sense. I'll install sw:tor to the ssd after i figure out how to make its 20GB fit on it lol... the rest go to the HDD...

    Good read. Thanks for being so thorough.
    Reply
  • IMO, a WD Caviar Black or a Samsung Spinpoint F3 would have been a better test drive than the Green one.
    Reply
  • christoforo
    Thanks to all the reviews you made here guys. A couple of months ago I started planning my ssd purchase, and i decided to buy a Kingston HyperX 240gb bundle kit. I cant wait till it arrives. I have advanced computer skills, so many things I thought from personal experiences are published here, like I knew some games are more write dependant or read dependant from and HDD, and about the apps on the background on WIN7, and many many more. I already ordered my SSD, but its nice to have a serious review about ssds on gaming performance. Its all about the speed that the apps can be done by write/read on a ssd on the background that really matters, from this simple thing is that anyone willing to upgrade to an ssd can benefit with a smoother playable experience.
    Reply
  • gmcizzle
    Storage can actually make a difference in FPS in certain situations. Only put in 2gb or so of RAM in the test system and rerun Battlefield 3, and the difference in frame rates will be different between HDD and SSD as the game switches to secondary storage once RAM is exhausted.
    Reply
  • Supernova1138
    True, but it is much more cost effective to add more RAM to your system in that circumstance than to get an SSD large enough for your OS and a couple of games. With RAM so inexpensive these days there is absolutely no reason to be running low on it under any gaming scenario.
    Reply
  • cumi2k4
    Agreed with xyzqwerty, please do another test with faster drives such as wd black or the f3. Comparing the ssd with green version is like racing your turtle with the neighbor's hare.
    Reply
  • acku
    cumi2k4Agreed with xyzqwerty, please do another test with faster drives such as wd black or the f3. Comparing the ssd with green version is like racing your turtle with the neighbor's hare.
    I'm a little confused why you would want to see that comparison. We established there was no diff between a slow HDD and a fast SSD. And you expect a difference between a fast HDD and fast SSD?

    Cheers,
    Andrew Ku
    TomsHardware.com
    Reply
  • silverblue
    asnorton44Interesting to see it won't imrpove all gameplayI see what you did there. :P
    Reply
  • FunSurfer
    9523292 said:
    I'm a little confused why you would want to see that comparison. We established there was no diff between a slow HDD and a fast SSD. And you expect a difference between a fast HDD and fast SSD?

    Cheers,
    Andrew Ku
    TomsHardware.com


    He probably want to see that comparison on the "Hard Drive Performance Comparison" page, where is a big difference between SSD and HDD performance (the HDD up to 477% slower)
    Reply