Civ5 load times HHD vs SSD disappointing

[mrmike1949]

Just got another SSD to use for Steam/games and measured the difference in start-up time for Civ 5: a little disappointing. It went from ~ 75 secs (+/-2 ) secs with HDD to ~ 50 (+/- 1) secs with SSD

Details:
CPU AMD Phenom X4 , model 945, overclocked to 3.3GHZ
RAM 8GB DDR3
HDD Western Digital 1TB, 7200 RPM
SSD San Disk 256GB "Ultra Plus"
Windows 7/64 bit, fully updated
C drive is a separate, 128GB SSD in both cases

Time was measured from clicking on the DX10/DX11 box to when the ESRB "Click to Continue" box come up

Took about 35 minutes to copy Steam app directory (79 GB) from HDD to SSD

I was really hoping to cut start-up in half or even 60%, kinda disappointing on 1/3 reduction

 

[regeneration64]

Hey, that is still 25 more seconds of playing CiV!

You will notice the difference more on large/huge maps end game when loading a save. I've got similar specs to you and compared to my old PC the loading times are markedly different.

 

[mrmike1949]

I tried an experiment and left "Core Temp" program always on top: program shows that all 4 cpus are REALLY busy while Civ 5 loads itself (typical 40 to 80% busy)

 

[Mahasona]

I tried an experiment and left "Core Temp" program always on top: program shows that all 4 cpus are REALLY busy while Civ 5 loads itself (typical 40 to 80% busy)

I'm no expert but I thought Core Temp measured temperatures, so you mean the temperature range was from 40C to 80C?

Sad you've not got more feedback from other users, I'm planning an upgrade sometime soon so would like more info about SSDs, how effective they are re games and how best to use them.

 

[Plasmawolf55]

I'm no expert but I thought Core Temp measured temperatures, so you mean the temperature range was from 40C to 80C?

Sad you've not got more feedback from other users, I'm planning an upgrade sometime soon so would like more info about SSDs, how effective they are re games and how best to use them.

Core temp also shows CPU load. A phenom ii would explode at 80c!

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Really? 80c isn't that hot, like 175º. Sounds like cpu might be the bottleneck now, so upgrade your heat sink with an electric kettle heating element. You can oc your cpu and make tea right at the computer.

 

[Plasmawolf55]

I'm just saying, the phenom ii processor begins to break down at around 62°C.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

[Arcaian]

I'm just saying, the phenom ii processor begins to break down at around 62°C.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

I used a phenom x4 at about 80 degrees for a solid year with no problems

 

[mrmike1949]

I used a phenom x4 at about 80 degrees for a solid year with no problems

Cpu temp of 80C means that there are likely points on the cpu that are well over 100C, maybe even up to 125C - MUCH TOO HOT! Temps like that WILL affect long term reliability

Worst case I've seen on mine is ~ 50C when it has really been busy for a long time; my shutdown set for Temp>75C (never have it that)

 

[mrmike1949]

I'm no expert but I thought Core Temp measured temperatures, so you mean the temperature range was from 40C to 80C?

Sad you've not got more feedback from other users, I'm planning an upgrade sometime soon so would like more info about SSDs, how effective they are re games and how best to use them.

I use the SSD for the main game file - my entire Steam directory is on the new SSD. I have a smaller SSD for C (system) drive which is also used for game SAVE files, note that SSDs WILL wear out from being re-written too often. I don't allow page/swap files on the SSD, I use the HDD for those to keep the writing down. It should still last longer than the cpu/mb combo will

 

[b7fanatix]

37 Seconds on my I5-3570, with SSD.

I'm struggling to remember the details but it was equipped with the lowest latency modules available at the fastest officially supported memory frequency of the CPU. Looks like a CPU bottleneck.

Have a look at "Mantle" and "Directx 12" on Anandtech and Tomshardware, looks like a lower level way of programming graphics effects, should reduce the dependency on CPU performance.

 

[phillipwyllie]

i7-2700k with 8GB RAM with steam on an old sata HDD->38s to load civ5
Looking at the the performance graphs in process explorer I can see the first half that time is taken up with read/writes from/to HDD, and during the whole time the CPU utilization fluctuates wildly from 0%-50%, with the peak around the middle.

I believe Civ5 is heavily dependent on lua scripting so I would assume many lua scripts are run at start-up, which isn't affected so much by I/O speed.

Also due to HDD caching(if that's it's real term) I/O operations are usually faster the second time you run them(as the HDD can store the file(s) location(s) in it's cache/memory/wherever). Run the test again immediately after the first test and compare, you should see huge increase in I/O performance.

 

[mrmike1949]

i7-2700k with 8GB RAM with steam on an old sata HDD->38s to load civ5
Looking at the the performance graphs in process explorer I can see the first half that time is taken up with read/writes from/to HDD, and during the whole time the CPU utilization fluctuates wildly from 0%-50%, with the peak around the middle.

I believe Civ5 is heavily dependent on lua scripting so I would assume many lua scripts are run at start-up, which isn't affected so much by I/O speed.

Also due to HDD caching(if that's it's real term) I/O operations are usually faster the second time you run them(as the HDD can store the file(s) location(s) in it's cache/memory/wherever). Run the test again immediately after the first test and compare, you should see huge increase in I/O performance.

Yeah, when I re-started with the HDD, times were close to the 50 secs I get with the SSD for initial start-up

So sounds like it may be cpu limited, although my RAM is not the fastest, call it medium speed

 

[Naokaukodem]

wow 75 secs seems long to me. not sure about the performance of my own PC, loading is long but i wouldn't say over a minute.

 

[Cromagnus]

Startup time is the least of my worries. It's "Next Turn" time that kills Civ 5 for me. I'd probably play on Huge maps more otherwise. I'd like to see comparison charts of "Next Turn" times with various memory & CPU configurations.

 

[b7fanatix]

When i finally bookmark all those tabs i got open, i'll reboot and see how long to launch with memory speed pegged back in the bios to conservative/cheap & nasty ram timings, see how much difference it makes. If the LUA scripts are very intensive but fit neatly in the cpu cache, virtually none. If they're capriciously cross referencing odds and sods of data from all over the place then it's a different story.