A Gamer’s perspective of Kingston’s 128 GB SSDNow V100 series – revisited

Gaming Load times

Solid-state drives won’t increase game framerates but they can certainly reduce game startup times and save/load times.  This means less time waiting for the game to load and more time playing the game.  This is an issue of “immersion”.  If it takes a long time to load a level or an autosave, it may cause irritation, and getting back quickly into the game after your character dies is important for staying immersed in any game.

For the ten games that follow, we load autosaves and also complete levels to compare the speed of the SSD vs the HDD.  The first test (#1) represents the average of the initial loading times – the first time you load a level or an autosave; and the second test (#2) represents the subsequent load-time average (which is generally quicker).

In the following chart we test all of our games at 2560×1600 with fully maxed-out details and with AA/AF enabled (except for Metro 2033 which has DOF, AA and PhysX disabled).  H.A.W.X. 2 measures the time it takes to load the in-game benchmark as it is very repeatable and consistent.  Similarly, Resident Evil 5 and Just Cause 2 are tested by measuring the time it takes to launch their respective benchmarks.  In contrast, we load the very last checkpoint in Metro 2033 within the last level of the game and compare the time it takes for the SSD versus loading from the HDD.

For Far Cry 2, we compare the time it takes to load the Short Ranch benchmark as it is similar to loading a level.  We do a similar thing for F1 2010, DiRT 2 and Metro 2033 by comparing the loading times of their benchmarks (using the first load times versus the subsequent loading time).  For Half Life 2 Episode 2, we load an autosave in level one on the HDD and compare how long it takes for the same autosave to load on the SSD.

Let’s look at Crysis and Crysis Warhead now.  In each case, we are measuring how long it takes to load a complete level by measuring how long it takes to launch each game’s benchmark run.  First we average how long it takes to run the bench for the first time (rebooting our PC in-between tests); then we average subsequent loading times.

If you are into saving time, the SSD is definitely faster in loading PC levels and autosaves.  The SSD will not improve your framerates – or your aim – but it may improve immersion by getting you back into the game a bit more quickly!

Windows Startup and Shutdown

Now we come to what is arguably one of the most frustrating part of Windows – waiting for it to start-up or shutdown.  For some of us, it is not important as we rarely start-up or shutdown our PCs.  For others, it is a painful process to watch – while others of us do something else while our programs start-up or shut down.  Let’s first look at the average shutdown time which includes our average “fast” shutdown time as well as our average “slow” shutdown time for each drive (it represents an “average range” for the test PC) , as there are so many variables when you shutdown your PC (installing updates will prolong the process).  Basically you are saving a couple of seconds, on average with an SSD over a HDD.

(Minimum is misspelled on the chart.)

Of course we reversed shutdown with start-up because we wanted to save the very best graph for last.  We tested averages from the moment Windows 7 start-up begins to the moment that our last program – Steam – sets up.

How do you value your time?  The charts speak for themselves.  On average, Windows sets up from two to over three times faster on a SSD than on a mechanical hard drive.  Let’s head for our conclusion.