Happy to report that running SOW off a solid state drive, I can load a full scenario (in this case GCM 40,000 troops, and max graphics) in 15 seconds. This is immediately after rebooting my computer, so the game isn't already cached in memory which brings it down to 10 seconds.
The drive was $80 on newegg during a sale, and during a given week there's usually some kind of 128gb SSD available for that price. So it's not a super high end thing, and prices are still dropping, eventually everyone will have an SSD. I didn't get it mainly for SOW, it makes everything else load faster too, including rebooting which is down to 20 seconds instead of 1 minute.
I compare this with my laptop which loads the same scenario with the same settings in 35 seconds, using a standard 7200rpm disk drive.
It's also good to note that Windows 7 will automatically fill all of your available RAM with whatever it thinks you're most likely to use, based on past patterns. For example I have 16gb of ram in my desktop, only 5gb are "in use" currently, but the rest of it has things cached in it so they load faster. Presumably, given enough time after rebooting my computer, SOW and its data files will be in there as well. Ram is also very important for SOW, and it's relatively cheap. You can get 8gb for around $40 on newegg which is plenty for now. As said, the more ram you have, the more likely SOW will stay cached in memory so it loads really fast.
Anyway, I look forward to the day when all SOW MP players have SSDs and at least 8gb of ram, so the games load in 15 seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if this is mostly true within three years.
SOW loading time
Re: SOW loading time
I love newegg. I have a 80GB SSD but I run my higher end 500gb standard hard drive with 7200 rpm, 8GB of ram. Newegg just posted a sale on the RAM I built my computer with though so shortly I will upgrade from 8 GB of RAM to 16... I am looking forward to that. I haven't noticed any issue with the game being on a standard hard drive though. I use my SSD mainly just for my OS and other things like my graphic and video editing software where rendering times are more important. Game always runs smoothly for me in my standard drive. Though I have never tried a online battle.
Happy to report that running SOW off a solid state drive, I can load a full scenario (in this case GCM 40,000 troops, and max graphics) in 15 seconds. This is immediately after rebooting my computer, so the game isn't already cached in memory which brings it down to 10 seconds.
The drive was $80 on newegg during a sale, and during a given week there's usually some kind of 128gb SSD available for that price. So it's not a super high end thing, and prices are still dropping, eventually everyone will have an SSD. I didn't get it mainly for SOW, it makes everything else load faster too, including rebooting which is down to 20 seconds instead of 1 minute.
I compare this with my laptop which loads the same scenario with the same settings in 35 seconds, using a standard 7200rpm disk drive.
It's also good to note that Windows 7 will automatically fill all of your available RAM with whatever it thinks you're most likely to use, based on past patterns. For example I have 16gb of ram in my desktop, only 5gb are "in use" currently, but the rest of it has things cached in it so they load faster. Presumably, given enough time after rebooting my computer, SOW and its data files will be in there as well. Ram is also very important for SOW, and it's relatively cheap. You can get 8gb for around $40 on newegg which is plenty for now. As said, the more ram you have, the more likely SOW will stay cached in memory so it loads really fast.
Anyway, I look forward to the day when all SOW MP players have SSDs and at least 8gb of ram, so the games load in 15 seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if this is mostly true within three years.
Re: SOW loading time
It's probably most useful for modders to have the game on the SSD when you are testing something and have to keep restarting.
But you could try it and compare, depending on how full your ssd is. Just remember if you move the game you need to deactivate first or you'll have to wait a few days to get your code unlocked.
The ssd wont do much for performance once you're in game -- it only will make reading/writing files faster. Some of that does happen in game, but I dont know if it ever blocks the game. Mainly the ssd just makes loading the scenario/graphics faster.
But you could try it and compare, depending on how full your ssd is. Just remember if you move the game you need to deactivate first or you'll have to wait a few days to get your code unlocked.
The ssd wont do much for performance once you're in game -- it only will make reading/writing files faster. Some of that does happen in game, but I dont know if it ever blocks the game. Mainly the ssd just makes loading the scenario/graphics faster.
Re: SOW loading time
Garnier wrote:
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The Activation folks thank you for mentioning that.Just remember if you move the game you need to deactivate first or you'll have to wait a few days to get your code unlocked.
B
Last edited by born2see on Thu Aug 09, 2012 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Those in whose judgment I rely, tell me that I fought the battle splendidly and that it was a masterpiece of art.” - George McClellan to his wife describing the battle of Antietam