Hi.  I'm trying to decide if  my 300G Velociraptor would be sufficient for FSX or should I get an SSD?   I already have an SSD for the OS. 

 

Any comments on this are appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Jeff Smith

You referring to size or speed or both? I have FSX on an SSD and P3D on a Raptor and I have switched them back and forth just out of curosity. I don't see a huge difference in load times but the SSD would have a slight advantage. Your not going to see an in game performance increase. IMO.

FPS-wise an SSD will not make any difference above a Raptor. Be since an SSD is a lot faster than a HDD, loading times will be shorter with an SSD.

I think it might also reduce blurries in cases where the blurries are caused by the HDD not being able to provide the data fast enough to the CPU/GPU.

Thanks, Rendi. I was mostly referring to speed/performance in this choice.

 

Also, can FSX and FS9 be run on the same computer which is optimized for FSX via the AVSIM Software/Hardware Guide for FSX (on separate drives) or should I just maintain a separate computer for each sim?

 

Thanks,

Jeff

Not to mention an SSD has a ridiculous MTBF (mean time before failure) when compared to a HDD.

Using either a Raptor drive or an SSD there is about a 1 FPS average difference over using  a 7200 rpm basic drive. Now as far as load times go, it depends on the SSD's Random 4k Read/Write. There is a 0 FPS difference between both the SSD & Raptor drives in terms of in-game performance, however with the SSD you MAY get snappier texture loading (less black spots that pop up at random) but this has never been fully confirmed to make that much of a difference.

 

Personally I would go with the best bang for the buck, I currently run FSX on a 500GB SATA III Raptor drive, its pretty responsive, if you really have the money either the Samsung 840 Pro or the OCZ Vector in no less than 256GB (FSX grows quite a bit from its small initial form), either of those two SSD's would be the best options for maximum performance by today's standards.

In addition to the best bang for the buck consider how big your install is going to get. A HDD, even a Vrap will start to lose performance when about 50% full where an SSD can get to 90% or more before any performance hit is seen.

 

So it comes down to several factors, cost, size, etc. And I would only compare a Vraptor vs SSD not just ANY HDD - the speed difference between a Vrap and a regular HDD is significant.

 

Vic

Thanks for all the great comments from all of you.  I will probably go ahead and use the Raptor for FSX since I already have it and the differences seem slight between the two. 

 

The only other question is if I can run FS9 and FSX on the same computer which is optimized for FSX via the AVSIM Software/Hardware Guide for FSX (on separate drives) or should I just maintain a separate computer for each sim?  If they can run on the same computer then I would use the Raptor for FS9 and get a 250G SSD for FSX.

 

Thanks,

Jeff

Thanks for all the great comments from all of you.  I will probably go ahead and use the Raptor for FSX since I already have it and the differences seem slight between the two. 

 

The only other question is if I can run FS9 and FSX on the same computer which is optimized for FSX via the AVSIM Software/Hardware Guide for FSX (on separate drives) or should I just maintain a separate computer for each sim?  If they can run on the same computer then I would use the Raptor for FS9 and get an SSD for FSX.

 

 

Thanks,

Jeff

You betcha. Did it for along time perhaps 5 or more years. Had FS2004 on the Raptor and FSX on the SSD.

SSD ALL THE WAY no questions asked cant express how awesome my ssd is over the old method - no crashes boots in seconds just amazing fsx loads a ton faster.

You can easily run them both, just remember that on a raptor drive going past 60% there is a decrease in performance, I have both FS9 and FSX installed but on 2 different drives.

SSD ALL THE WAY no questions asked cant express how awesome my ssd is over the old method - no crashes boots in seconds just amazing fsx loads a ton faster.

You never take into consideration a "cost" factor! 1000.00 videocard. 1000.00 throttle qudarant etc. Some of us have college tuitions to pay and Daughters to marry off.

No kids here buddy just Corvettes and Flightsim  :yahoo:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/383881-how-different-hdds-and-ssds-performs-with-fsx/

(links to the important images in a post further down)

 

As you already have the one SSD and one Velociraptor I'd stick with that for now and install FSXs main installation on the SSD together with the OS and putting large scenery files on the vRaptor.

 

With that kind of installation you'll only give up a little bit of time loading a flight in comparison to SSD only performance vise.

 

Given the price fall of SSDs since last summer there's very hard to recommend to buy a velociraptor new now if you are in the need of more storage unless you need a lot of extra storage for example for loads of photo scenery.

 

But you already have both a velociraptor and a decent sized SSD so that's almost as good combination as SSD only.

SAAB340 (and everyone), thanks for your comments.  Actually, your idea of installing FSX with the OS sounds good except everywhere I've been reading on AVSIM, including the Software/Hardware Guide for FSX, has been strongly advising against putting FSX on the same drive as the OS.  Apparently, you've been having good luck with it.  I just don't know yet.  I guess a little more investigating on my part is needed.

 

I am having another 250G SSD installed for FSX and plan to use the Raptor for FS9 (maybe), although I may end up using your method.  The jury is still out,

 

Jeff