Triplane Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 Here's my admittedly-unscientific look at FSX load times with varying drive configurations. These times are the average of three executions of FSX for each scenario. I see no reason why the results for P3D wouldn't be the same.The only add-on is a complete set of ORBX scenery. I saw NO difference in in-game performance no matter which drive was being used. My bottom-line? You can run FSX/P3D from any drive you chose and the only penalty is going to be the initial load time. But, you may already know that......... Internal SSD Reference Internal HDD - 7200 RPM +112 seconds External SSD + 54 seconds External HDD - 10000 RPM +157 seconds External HDD - 7200 RPM +201 seconds External HDD - 5400 RPM +236 seconds Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Colbert Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 Very interesting, Doug. One thing that I'll mention (though I have no numbers to back it up) is that there are times where FPS are impacted by loading scenery (or something, maybe AI traffic). For example, there is a "wall" of loading-induced FPS drop just to the south of Friday Harbor that runs East over towards Anacortes and when my plane encounters this there are a few seconds of FPS drop/jerkiness while something loads up - I get the same thing when taking off on Runway 27 San Diego shortly after takeoff. I also use XP11 and see this same phenomenon when encountering the next set of "Ortho4XP" scenery tiles while those load up. (BTW I don't use a SSD, I use a 7200 RPM internal HD - I'm sure a SSD would help a great deal) Thanks, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stewart Hobson Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 My understanding is that SSDs enable faster loading times of the sim (I can verify this), and also faster loading of (in flight) scenery, depending upon one's LOD setting of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nedo Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 3 hours ago, Triplane said: Here's my admittedly-unscientific look at FSX load times with varying drive configurations. These times are the average of three executions of FSX for each scenario. I see no reason why the results for P3D wouldn't be the same.The only add-on is a complete set of ORBX scenery. I saw NO difference in in-game performance no matter which drive was being used. My bottom-line? You can run FSX/P3D from any drive you chose and the only penalty is going to be the initial load time. But, you may already know that......... Internal SSD Reference Internal HDD - 7200 RPM +112 seconds External SSD + 54 seconds External HDD - 10000 RPM +157 seconds External HDD - 7200 RPM +201 seconds External HDD - 5400 RPM +236 seconds Doug Hi Doug, Ive done some loading test too with P3D4 See below Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jocko Flocko Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 I've had two 256GB Samsung EVO Pro's running in my machine now for at least 4 years and one of them is my C: drive for my OS. I never thought they would last as long as they have and is why I purchased a couple more, both 512GB each. Went from having P3D on a standard 7200RPM 2TB Seagate Barracuda to it being on one of the new SSD's and the difference is like apples and oranges, absolutely incredible performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted July 5, 2017 Author Share Posted July 5, 2017 5 hours ago, Stewart Hobson said: My understanding is that SSDs enable faster loading times of the sim (I can verify this), and also faster loading of (in flight) scenery, depending upon one's LOD setting of course. You're right Stew, the in-flight loading times for textures have to be faster on a faster drive. But, that said, I can't see any noticeable difference. Faster? Yes. Noticeable? No. I'm going to do more testing with P3Dv4 and see if my theory holds true as far as not being able to notice the difference regardless of the drive configuration.....Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stewart Hobson Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 21 minutes ago, Triplane said: You're right Stew, the in-flight loading times for textures have to be faster on a faster drive. But, that said, I can't see any noticeable difference. Faster? Yes. Noticeable? No. I'm going to do more testing with P3Dv4 and see if my theory holds true as far as not being able to notice the difference regardless of the drive configuration.....Doug I'm willing to bet if you jacked up the LOD radius to >6.5, you'll eventually notice something, the larger the LOD radius gets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiskeyIndiaFoxtrotLima Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 Hey Do you use m.2 SSD or SATA SSD? Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted July 6, 2017 Author Share Posted July 6, 2017 36 minutes ago, Stewart Hobson said: I'm willing to bet if you jacked up the LOD radius to >6.5, you'll eventually notice something, the larger the LOD radius gets. Didn't think of that. When I get some time I'll try it on a couple of drives and see what happens (if it doesn't OOM )... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted July 6, 2017 Author Share Posted July 6, 2017 28 minutes ago, WhiskeyIndiaFoxtrotLima said: Hey Do you use m.2 SSD or SATA SSD? Regards Welcome to the forum(s). The drive is SATA. I thought about changing to an M.2 drive but my son (the computer guru) has both and he says he can't see any difference when using P3Dv3. But, when I eventually have to add another SSD it will be M.2........Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted July 6, 2017 Author Share Posted July 6, 2017 3 hours ago, Stewart Hobson said: I'm willing to bet if you jacked up the LOD radius to >6.5, you'll eventually notice something, the larger the LOD radius gets. 2 hours ago, Triplane said: Didn't think of that. When I get some time I'll try it on a couple of drives and see what happens (if it doesn't OOM )... I loaded FSX back onto the 5400 RPM external drive (the slowest) and changed the LOD Radius to 9.5. The load time increased and the VAS increased but I still see no difference in-flight. Maybe it's just my 75 year-old eyes but it looks OK to me..........Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stewart Hobson Posted July 6, 2017 Share Posted July 6, 2017 12 minutes ago, Triplane said: I loaded FSX back onto the 5400 RPM external drive (the slowest) and changed the LOD Radius to 9.5. The load time increased and the VAS increased but I still see no difference in-flight. Maybe it's just my 75 year-old eyes but it looks OK to me..........Doug Ok, How long was your flight? Was it in a full fat region? The more detailed the scenery, the more the sim has to load to keep up. Not sure all this is that scientific anyway. But I think you're on the right track. Just too many unknowns at this point. I've got 4 SSDs in my rig, and so far no problems, everything is as smooth as silk, running FSX, as always, but will make the switch in a few months when the hoopla settles down and I pay off the credit card, ha! P3Dv4 will certainly be the go-to sim, imo--several of the major scenery developers have gone on record that they will no longer be designing for FSX. The handwriting is on the wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted July 6, 2017 Author Share Posted July 6, 2017 I flew KMRY-SNS-SJC-KSFO using both the default C172 and the PMDG 737NG with all the slider full-right. In both cases I simply didn't see any problems with the texture loading. The only add-on installed is the full set of ORBX scenery, as in everything-they-make. It'll be a few days but I'm going to do the same thing with P3Dv4 and see what happens. Since the release of P3Dv4 I hardly ever use FSX. About the only reason I use it at all now is the PMDG 737NG. You gotta see P3Dv4 to appreciate just how good it is. Once you get that installed and say goodby to the OOM problem(s) it's a whole new world. God, how I miss the Peninsula.....and the bar at the Mission Ranch.....and the dining room at the Lodge in PB.....sigh..... and it's only been 53 years since I left it all ..........Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stewart Hobson Posted July 6, 2017 Share Posted July 6, 2017 33 minutes ago, Triplane said: I flew KMRY-SNS-SJC-KSFO using both the default C172 and the PMDG 737NG with all the slider full-right. In both cases I simply didn't see any problems with the texture loading. The only add-on installed is the full set of ORBX scenery, as in everything-they-make. It'll be a few days but I'm going to do the same thing with P3Dv4 and see what happens. Since the release of P3Dv4 I hardly ever use FSX. About the only reason I use it at all now is the PMDG 737NG. You gotta see P3Dv4 to appreciate just how good it is. Once you get that installed and say goodby to the OOM problem(s) it's a whole new world. God, how I miss the Peninsula.....and the bar at the Mission Ranch.....and the dining room at the Lodge in PB.....sigh..... and it's only been 53 years since I left it all ..........Doug Don't fly jetliners and probably never will. You wouldn't know the Monterey Peninsula anymore--totally changed--too many people and too many cars, and the gangs over in Salinas are trying to stake out their territory over here. Salinas is a total mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimmiG Posted July 6, 2017 Share Posted July 6, 2017 When flying, the scenery loading is normally not limited by the storage device. You can verify this by running Resource Monitor while flying. You can see that the MB/s disk I/O is less than the transfer rate of even a slow 5400 RPM drive. More and faster cores help, but there seems to be some internal bottleneck in P3D/FSX that sets the limit. I didn't see a huge improvement when going from 4 to 8 cores (though loading times are noticeably quicker). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted July 6, 2017 Author Share Posted July 6, 2017 Good info. That helps to explain why I see no performance difference regardless of the drive type/speed..........Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted July 6, 2017 Author Share Posted July 6, 2017 19 hours ago, Nedo said: Hi Doug, Ive done some loading test too with P3D4 See below 19 hours ago, Nedo said: Thanks Nedo. I just started looking at times with v4 and I must have something wrong somewhere. My load times in essentially the same situations are 2-3 times as long as yours. More testing needed but it doesn't look good here................Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted July 6, 2017 Author Share Posted July 6, 2017 10 hours ago, Stewart Hobson said: Don't fly jetliners and probably never will. You wouldn't know the Monterey Peninsula anymore--totally changed--too many people and too many cars, and the gangs over in Salinas are trying to stake out their territory over here. Salinas is a total mess. I remember Salinas as pretty much always being that way Stu. I played in a local rock band back in 1958-60 and we had dates all over northern California. But I remember one gig in particular. In 1959 we played a dance at a VFW hall in the Alisal district of Salinas. That was the only time we had to play behind the chicken wire to keep the beer bottles off the stage.....true story..........Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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