New rig, opinions please

[CharliesP51 0]

SSD = no FPS improvement. In some cases might improve blurries, but very rarely. Stability = no improvement.

 

SSD in FSX is basically all about loadtimes.

If you don't care much about that, get Vrap or WD black.

 

Load times for textures (VC and aircraft) and sound files get a real boost (dramatic reduction in load times) in FSX with any SSD. Who would choose to 'not care' about that? Moreover everything that accesses the SSD in one's system gets this "blow your hair back" loading speed improvement..not just FSX. All-white aircraft and guage-less panels are a thing of the past with an SSD. I do care about that and have enjoyed it for years now.

 

FYI my Win 7 desktop boots in 10 seconds. Try that with ANY HDD ..Hmmm?? Have you tried an SSD? Happy Landings to ALL

 

Oh, he's banned? Good. With a dynamic IP, he could come back, but I doubt he'll want to do so. If he does, I'll summon the pirate.

 

On-topic: While I know that SSDs can improve load times, do they have any advantage concerning FPS, stability or blurries? To be honest, I don't think so.

 

Why not try an SSD..you'll never go back

Edited August 26, 2012 by CharliesP51

[Kosta 122]

Have you tried an SSD?

 

Yes, I tried. Twice. Sent it back to Amazon.

 

Just calm down, please. We all know SSDs are faster and all that. The question for many still remains is the price-performance ratio. Including me. That is why I have 600GB Vrap. Which is also quite fast. And I don't have white panels.

[CharliesP51 0]

Calm down? Didn't know I was excited...

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

The SSD price per GB ratio is still too high for me. You still need an HDD along with an SSD in your setup, so I'm not interested.

[ryanbatc 12,940]

2400MHZ RAM

256GB SSD

 

Those are yummy prices... I spend $240 for my gen2 SSD a year and a half ago!!! (And it was a 120GB)

 

The SSD price per GB ratio is still too high for me. You still need an HDD along with an SSD in your setup, so I'm not interested.

 

With that I'd just dump the velociraptor and ssd.... and just basic 64mb cache HDD.... save up for an SSD later.

[Ben Cap 89]

 

Those are yummy prices... I spend $240 for my gen2 SSD a year and a half ago!!! (And it was a 120GB)

 

 

 

I spent 285 for my 120GB SSD!

[TechguyMaxC 516]

I got my Vertex 4 shortly after launch and paid a premium for it at $699, it's down to $549 now just a few short months later. That's class-leading performance in large capacity at just over $1/GB. I think SSDs are just about at the inflection point. Of, course, by the time they get there Memristors will be out and then it's a whole new ball game. Ain't technology great?

[Manny 1,293]

I think we need a serious invenstigation on the following

 

SSDs vs HDs (does it add value for FSX...apart from loading time. I believe SSDs help with reducing blurrie.

 

PCI-E. Does this add value for FSX? I believe it helps with reducing blurries.

 

IB vs SB ... plenty of discussion but no total consensus still. I believe IB helps with FSX in general.

 

 

IMO, having all three. (IB + PCI-E + SSD), I get almost no Blurries when I fly around at 300kts... I have addon sceneries on my SSD and on 1TB BLACK/6GB HDs.

 

When flying in areas of scenereies on SSD...no blurries. But flying over sceneries stored on my BLACK HD, I do get some blurries... so I have to limit my speed not more than 200kts when flying over sceneries on my HD

 

Manny

[gman! 1]

I honestly fail to see the benefits of getting an SSD for a rig when you look at the price and amount of space you're getting. Yes the interface is fast, but it might be easy to fill up the space. Unless money is disposible for someone I would just get a fast HDD and a motherboard with SATA III to futureproof if you ever want an SSD.

[ZachLW 37]

I honestly fail to see the benefits of getting an SSD for a rig when you look at the price and amount of space you're getting. Yes the interface is fast, but it might be easy to fill up the space. Unless money is disposible for someone I would just get a fast HDD and a motherboard with SATA III to futureproof if you ever want an SSD.

 

I agree with you, and I'm a a solid state user (for my system drive)! It's hard to fork out the dough for something that saves only minutes in a day.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

If you can afford it, there's no reason not to. SSD prices continue to drop, large, premium drives are now selling for very close to $1/GB. Unless you intend to run huge amounts of photo scenery, I doubt anyone's FSX install is going to take up the remainder of a 512GB drive after OS install.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

I'll be interested in SSDs when I don't need to have a second HDD for data.

[SAAB340 28]

I think we need a serious invenstigation on the following

 

SSDs vs HDs (does it add value for FSX...apart from loading time. I believe SSDs help with reducing blurrie.

I've done that. See the results here.

 

PCI-E. Does this add value for FSX? I believe it helps with reducing blurries.

Well, it can in certain scenarios. But there's ways to make it a non issue.

When it's not the CPU ot the internal limiter that's restricting the FPS whithin FSX we loose texture loading. So if you have the internal FPS lock set to unlimited and you fly low over for example a forrest you will have the x16 PCIe 2.0 bus restricting you and subsequently loose texture loading. But by using the half rate vSync tweak you lock the FPS internally to 30FPS and it becomes a non issue as PCIe 2.0 is not limiting yet @30FPS. It's only if you want to lock the frames at full vSync @60FPS that I see a need for PCIe 3.0.

 

IB vs SB ... plenty of discussion but no total consensus still. I believe IB helps with FSX in general.

I would be good with a more detailed look in to the difference between the two

 

IMO, having all three. (IB + PCI-E + SSD), I get almost no Blurries when I fly around at 300kts... I have addon sceneries on my SSD and on 1TB BLACK/6GB HDs.

 

When flying in areas of scenereies on SSD...no blurries. But flying over sceneries stored on my BLACK HD, I do get some blurries... so I have to limit my speed not more than 200kts when flying over sceneries on my HD

 

Manny

Interesting to here that you get some blurries with the WD black. Thanks for reporting that. My testing didn't include the WD black but I allways wondered if the access time from it will be fast enough. Maybe I should get one and test it...

 

What I have prooven is that HDDs can induce blurries but that the Velociraptor doesn't. I've also proven that SSDs pretty much only improve on load times over a Velociraptor. A Velociraptor is a HDD that has a few specific usage scenarios where it makes sense to have one. FSX is one such scenario. But you should never have the OS on the same HDD as you have FSX on. So you'll need a 2nd drive as well. And I would recommend that OS drive to be a smaller SSD on wich you can also put the main FSX installation.

 

I'd say that the best bang for the buck when it comes to FSX performance is a SSD+Velociraptor combo. Sure enough, an all SSD setup will be slightly faster when it comes to loading a flight. But at a big cost if you have large add-ons.