I have a 128kg SSD and then my 1TB, I have steam installed with BFBC2 which will be deleted for BF3 soon. I am doubtfully going to use any mods for Skyrim my first initial playthrough of the game but in the long run I will for sure use mods I have no doubt. I have not really played a TES game heavily with mods since Morrowind, had some here & there for Oblivion but I really forgot how big simple to big mods can be.

I am thinking ill be fine to install Skyrim & BF3 as those are the only 2 games I will be playing the rest of this year (maybe swtor). Worse case scenario I will haft to delete steam (skyrim) and reinstall to my 1TB if I think mods are going to cause a issue on my SSD. Still uncertain about it because im not sure how much loading will be going on in Skyrim compared to Oblivion's. I am sure less because of the new engine & dynamic world/map but I have no idea.

So will you be installing Skyrim on a SSD?

Discuss

i've got 240 gigs of Raid0 SSD (120+120), which i use for all my primary applications. So... yes. Load times are next to nothing, its kinda obnoxious when you wana read one of those helpful tips in the loading texts.

Nope. SSDs are too expensive... but if I had a spare several hundred dollars to waste lying around, I might buy myself a decent-sized one for my PS3...

Hi there,

I was also interested to find out if the geeks out there thought an SSD would do anything for the game besides load times, had an informative exchange over at the nexus:

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/445773-will-running-skyrim-off-an-ssd-improve-gameplay/page__p__3692610__fromsearch__1#entry3692610

Conclusion: Yes there will be definite benefits to using an SSD over a HDD, mainly very fast load times, and lack of "stuttering" as new textures are loaded from disk. I will be installing Skyrim on a dedicated SSD, and modding the [censored] out of it.

I also use a Raid0 SSD setup for my primary drive, but it seams it only really helps with loading times or some very slight frame rate improvement if you have a LOT of texture/graphics mods installed.

SSD really is the way to go but for most people it is just too damned expensive at the moment.





Not me though.

How much space should be allowed for Skyrim and mods? would a 64 gig one do if its just for a game or 2?
My arma 2 installation is 37 gigs... so I might want something bigger for arma 3.
How do you install games on separate HDD's in steam?

I have a 12GB spot reserved on my SSD for Skyrim. If I later want to start using massive amounts of mods then I may have to move everything to a separate drive or mount a partition from another drive directly into the folder.

To get the full benefit, you also want to make sure windows is also installed on the SSD.

In modern computers, the hard disks are the bottle neck keeping most systems from reaching their full potential. By which i mean load times, not only in menus but any time you have to pull information from the disk and render it on the card. Were talking textures, models, characters... the hole world! Most of all this is pre buffered, but its still prominent in open world games (like, i duno... skyrim?), because your constantly loading/buffering. SSD users will see it in high res texture load times, rendering models (like while walking up to a forest). Our cards can handle most of anything being put up on screen, but the hazy/low poly pre renders are usually because it hasnt been pulled up.

SSD are usually severely given a lack of credit, because their benefits arent that noticeable. Well, by which i mean, theyre not obvious. The engines are designed to handle situations where the buffer lags behind, so theres no frame rate improvement, and very hard work goes into making sure that the low res/poly stuff transitions in smoothly so it goes unnoticed. But if you compare situations where all memory has to be suddenly dumped, and re-loaded and rendered (like world transitions, opening a door, or sometimes just walking across a certain thresh hold, or even just turning around!) when the SSD can spit out the information as fast as the computer can render it, its flawless, and non existent. How can one appreciate something they dont notice then? But a standard HD user might notice some loading going on.

Just my take anyway...

The prices on them things are absolutely stupid and besides two WD Raptors in Raid0 will do the job more then adequately.

I don't think I will. Aside from >slightly< faster start ups with some games, I have noticed zero difference in performance when I installed them on both as a test.

My SSD is only a fast 150 gig, one. All my games on steam alone are about 500 gigs. I wouldn't even know how to use Install games on seperate locations using Steam, if I wanted to.

Yeah don't raptors run at 6gb/s?

I would add that loading times can increase exponentially when you install a lot (hundreds) of mods, IMHO, to the point where SSD becomes almost a necessity. If you like to play on a high difficulty setting where you are frequently dying and then you have to wait a few minutes to reload every time you die, the game becomes almost unplayable. Only certain kinds of mods seem to affect this particular loading period, such as graphics mods and OBGE shaders.

I'm using a Seagate hybrid drive. It has 1 TB of HDD. with a built in SSD. when it needs to use certain memory (a.k.a. a whole game) it transfers it from the HDD onto the SSD. So i get the speed of a SSD, with the memory of a HDD.

tyty

You cannot, Steam has to be on the same drive as the games, there is a method for moving it, but it's a little convoluted, try a google search for relocating steam installation.

Well, since were talking about SSD now, and utilizing them. Really theres a bucket list of things that need to be done in order to use them. If you know only a little about them, its really not worth it, because unless your a real enthusiast about it, you'll feel like you wasted your money. SSD are a complicated piece of hardware which can actually go bad unless you A) take care of them, and B,) setup your computer properly to run them.

Yes, thats right, SSD actually have a very limited life span. Theres only a limited number of times each switch in the SSD can be used, so moving data on them is very harsh, and will eventually reduce performance, and its over all ability to store/move date. Eventually they'll get to the point where they'll just break down, and go corrupt. Thankfully, the SSD are programmed to limit the effects as much as possible, but with out some proper setup you can cause some noticeable degradation in a surprisingly short amount of time.

All that, and let me say, that i've spent about 500$ between my two SSD, and 90% of the time, i dont even notice it. Any one who's just now thinking of it should keep that in mind before you rush off to the local electronics store to go gear up...

However if any one's interested i did quite a lot of research about them before i got mine, so just PM me if your interested and ill help with whatever i can.

Yes, I will be installing Skyrim on a dedicated S:\ drive, a http://www.memorycusa.com/images/products/b/filemate-24gb-1_10704.jpg via SymLinks from its normal install location that I can have but one heavily modded Skyrim install to maintain but still be playable on both of my rigs, one of which is a laptop. Saves and config files will also be on S:\ with separate configuration files, yet sharing the same saves. If my Skyrim gets bigger than 24GB, I'll probably just move it to my http://www.techpowerup.com/img/10-09-28/176b.jpg with the rest of my games or get a 48GB just like it.

I have more than enough space on either of my rigs' C:\ drives (both are faster C300's), but maintaining multiple installs and installing every mod twice would be a pain.

I hope you guys know that alot of things people think SSD;s do, is actually done by System memory and video memory, right?


Better spend that money on a better graphics card, if any. Since for gaming they seem to make no real difference (at the moment, that is).

In some tests the relative gains are sometimes good, over 30% sometimes. But seeing that in most practical situations this is mostly only a few seconfs or a fraction thereof

I would suggest to use Steam's "backup" feature to transfer the game files to an external drive, then restore them when you want to play the game again, so you don't have to download it again.

Symbolic links via http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768. Once learning to use Junction, you can put anything anywhere you like. You can also close back doors, in AppData for example, by linking certain folders to non-existent locations.

[%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies]

@Echo OffEcho Create Skyrim symbolic links (x64)?PauseMD "%CD%\Link'd\%ComputerName%"MD "%CD%\Link'd\Saves"MD "C:\Games"MD "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\Common"MD "%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games"Move "%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\Saves\*.*" "%CD%\Link'd\Saves"RD "%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\Saves"Move "%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\*.*" "%CD%\Link'd\%ComputerName%"RD "%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim"Junction "%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim" "%CD%\Link'd\%ComputerName%"Move "%LocalAppData%\Skyrim\*.*" "%CD%\Link'd\%ComputerName%"RD "%LocalAppData%\Skyrim"Junction "%LocalAppData%\Skyrim" "%CD%\Link'd\%ComputerName%"Junction "%CD%\Link'd\%ComputerName%\Saves" "%CD%\Link'd\Saves"Junction "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Skyrim" "%CD%"Junction "C:\Games\Skyrim" "%CD%"Pause@Echo On

^Assumes Skyrim's directories will be like Fallout New Vegas'

Actual location must be NTFS for above to work properly. If not playing the same install on multiple computers, it could be simplified (no linking of config files/saves).

I found a Crucial C300 256GB for $225, less than 1$/GB. For what it does, it's been well worth the cost. Now that I'm used to having OS' on SSDs, I'll never use an HDD for a primary again.

Huh, i didnt even know steam could backup its stuff. I just copy/pasted my folder, and after a quick (lol not really) update, everything was playable. I did however have to modify all the permissions so steam could access its self...

I'm pretty sure the backup built into steam pretty much just copies the steamapps folder.

On topic: I'm hoping to buy http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443 when I get my next paycheck.

For me, I rather spend the extra money in upgrading my graphics card or cpu instead of buying an SSD. Maybe when price goes down later on, I will purchase one.

When i move my steam folder, i copy paste the folder between drives. works every time