Why a gamer needs a solid state drive and will it add FPS
In 2020, a lot of players are still using classic hard disk drives (HDD) and ignoring more modern solid state drives (SSD). Prices for the latter have long ceased to be exorbitant – the popular volume of 500 gigabytes today will cost only 3-4 thousand rubles. The most common reason users cite is “the system is working well anyway, but games won’t be useful anyway.” However, even console manufacturers have taken care of installing an SSD and call it almost the main advantage of the next generation.
We decided to find out, is it true that switching from HDD to SSD will not affect the FPS in games? And then what is the use of it?
What makes the transition to SSD for the system?
- Operating system startup is accelerated. If Windows is installed on a solid-state drive, then you can start working already in a maximum of 10 seconds after pressing the PC power button. After this time, the OS logo will appear on the classic hard drive at best. And full loading of drivers, services and various libraries, when the desktop has already appeared, can take more than a minute.
- Most applications start instantly. On the HDD, even a banal Microsoft Word can take several tens of seconds to load, and Adobe Photoshop can take several minutes.
- The paging file no longer slows down the system. If you have 8 gigabytes of RAM or less, then in 2020 this is often not enough. Many programs, especially games, take the missing volume from the paging file, which is usually located on the system disk. And if it’s a hard drive and not a solid state drive, then performance issues are inevitable in modern applications.
- Reduces the load on the central processor. Modern CPUs have long run ahead in the speed of task execution, and HDDs have changed little in these indicators. In one second, the processor performs billions of micro-calculations, but when interacting with the hard disk, it has to repeatedly idle while waiting for the data to be loaded. This idle time translates into a pointless additional CPU load. The latter is especially critical for budget or legacy PCs.
- In games, levels and matches load several times faster. The difference can be up to 10 times! Watch the comparison video in the next chapter.
How does SSD affect FPS in games?
If the game is installed on an SSD, then, considering all the above factors, it will definitely work better on your PC. But the improvement will not be visible on the average or maximum FPS counters. Even the final score of a Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark may differ insignificantly.
However, in open world games (especially the latest ones, like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or Red Dead Redemption 2 ), when you need to load a large number of assets, the difference in the minimum FPS will be very noticeable. Finally, friezes, statters and other microproblems with performance will disappear when moving from one location to another or while driving fast around the city. The gameplay will become much smoother and more comfortable.
In games with frequent loading screens between levels ( Fallout 4 , Skyrim , The Outer Worlds ) or after death ( Dark Souls 3 , Sekiro , Doom Eternal ), you will be able to devote more time to the gameplay itself, and not to fall out of the process every few minutes.
There is also some benefit in multiplayer games: you will stop being one of the last to be loaded into the match, and friezes will disappear on the giant battle royale maps in the first seconds after landing.
Do you need an expensive NVMe M2 drive for gaming?
For games, no. At least in the coming years. Most developers are still making games for hard drives, as SSDs haven’t completely supplanted them. Therefore, at the moment, replacing the HDD with an SSD provides only several times faster loading of levels or matches, as well as the absence of friezes. So far, this is the limit that games tailored for hard drives can use.
In theory, ultra-fast NVMe drives should increase the difference from HDDs even more, but, as mentioned above, modern games are not yet effectively using their capabilities. Therefore, for example, levels are loaded at the same speed as on a regular SSD with a SATA 3 interface.
Summarizing all of the above, we want to say that in 2020, the transition to SSD is not just desirable, but necessary. So you will not only get much more comfort when working with your PC in any task, but also help the game development industry get rid of long-standing problems.
