World of Warcraft: Shadowlands minimum hardware requirements call for an SSD

[thelatestmodel]

No mechanical drives have a massive advantage over solid state, price per gb. I have 12tb of storage in my desktop, each 4tb drive when I bought it was $120, to replace it with solid state is excessively expensive. As for optical drives, I still use a Blu-ray burner.

Price per GB has literally nothing to do with building a gaming PC though. It is 100% about performance.

If you're still using a mechanical drive for anything other than archival storage then you're way behind the times.

 

[Per Hansson]

Let's see if this works, quoting myself in a 10 year old post about SSD performance in WoW:

Steven; actually for World of Warcraft I noted a tremendous speed increase by having it on a small SSD, this was a 16GB Mtron SATA-1 SSD I was "testing" for my work place (was going into a CNC machine)
The loading times where improved tremendously, as was the loading of characters when you where finally in game
This was compared vs a WD Raptor 150GB mechanical HDD
SSD; 28 seconds to load game fully into Dalaran, another 4 sec as characters load
HDD; 77 seconds to load game fully into Dalaran, another 30 sec as characters load

Gosh I feel old re-reading that

 

[Markoni35]

Why limit yourself to 4 or 8 TB? Here's a better solution. I'm selling a 250 MB ZIP drive, like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Iomega-ZIP-250-Parallel-external/dp/B000092QKK

You can reach any capacity you want if you have enough diskettes. Sky is the limit.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Great news. Mechanical hard drives need to go the same way as optical drives. I mean really who’s still running brand new AAA games on a mechanical drive in 2020?

Hey now. I still make great use of my optical drives (yep, that's plural). Most of the time I have my bluray drive that's in use - I copy any new movies I buy and put them to my plex server. I still on occasion take one of my blank DVDs and backup data on them as well as copying things to a spare HDD. Also, I still install and play old copies of games, so I need an optical drive to read the media so I can install my games.

Right now I'm playing Darkstone (released in 1999). A fun hack'n'slash RPG...I don't think it's as good as Diablo, but I still enjoyed it enough to where I can come back to the game 20 years later and still find it entertaining.

 

[candle_86]

Price per GB has literally nothing to do with building a gaming PC though. It is 100% about performance.

If you're still using a mechanical drive for anything other than archival storage then you're way behind the times.

no, lets see 4tb SSD is $400-600, I'd need 3 which at the low end is $1200 and at the higher end is $1800. However 4tb HDD is $70-100 for consumer grade. Most games don't benefit from an SSD and anyone dropping loads of cash on them is a fool.
The ideal gaming system on a budget is a 480-512gb ssd with a 1-2tb hdd.

Things like wow benefit but things like call of duty don't. If the world isn't streaming and loads the level into memory then an hdd is pointless for that game.

Also price per gb should be relevant unless your trust fund provides your needs

 

[DaveBG]

@DaveBG Didn't you argue on a Star Citizen thread that SSD's "Will never be a requirement for games".

Well good to see more games putting an SSD as a requirement

Nope, you got it wrong. It was specifically for the sc "game". Not to mention that I later clarified that not only that but for the game as it was like ~7years ago. Which if you look harder is not even a game but a scam trap. Since you remember this you probably fallen into it? LOL

 

[Burty117]

Nope, you got it wrong. It was specifically for the sc "game". Not to mention that I later clarified that not only that but for the game as it was like ~7years ago. Which if you look harder is not even a game but a scam trap. Since you remember this you probably fallen into it? LOL

Nice, very mature.
I'll just leave a link to that comment section in-case you have forgotten and remind you, you claimed SSD's don't help with frame rates (even though you experienced what not having an SSD is like in SC) and then claimed "they probably only recommend SSD for load times, they are not a requirement and probably never will be".

Now WoW is requiring an SSD...

Now normal human beings would go "Well I'll be damned! SSD's really are fast becoming a requirement! If the worlds most popular MMO is already getting in on the action, I guess you're right and SSD's are going to become a requirement".

Not randomly attack another game that has nothing to do with the article at hand.

 

[DaveBG]

Nice, very mature.
I'll just leave a link to that comment section in-case you have forgotten and remind you, you claimed SSD's don't help with frame rates (even though you experienced what not having an SSD is like in SC) and then claimed "they probably only recommend SSD for load times, they are not a requirement and probably never will be".

Now WoW is requiring an SSD...

Now normal human beings would go "Well I'll be damned! SSD's really are fast becoming a requirement! If the worlds most popular MMO is already getting in on the action, I guess you're right and SSD's are going to become a requirement".

Not randomly attack another game that has nothing to do with the article at hand.

LOL, dude I have several NVME drives now and am one of the first to begin using SSDs. However for a long time SSDs did not cause frame rate changes. Heck even for this WOW game it is not actually a requirement. They specifically say SSD OR HDD so you can play it on HDD, SSD is just recommended.
You either have comprehension problems you cannot read. More and more games might have benefits of SSDs but the vast majority even today do not.

 

[Burty117]

LOL, dude I have several NVME drives now and am one of the first to begin using SSDs.

Yet in the other comment section you claimed "Who had SSD's in 2013?". Now you're claiming "one of the first to begin using SSD's". At least get your story straight?

However for a long time SSDs did not cause frame rate changes.

Never said they did, I was pointing out more and more games will require an SSD and you said "they probably only recommend SSD for load times, they are not a requirement and probably never will be". Which as this article points out, is categorically false.

They specifically say SSD OR HDD so you can play it on HDD, SSD is just recommended.

It also says in brackets under the Minimum Requirements:
"depending on the performance of the drive, player experience may be impacted on HDD". Have you played WoW recently from a HDD? Then moved it to an SSD? It's night and day difference in load times and frame pacing. Blizzard are clearly trying to point people to SSD's here knowing that HDD performance is horrible.

You either have comprehension problems you cannot read. More and more games might have benefits of SSDs but the vast majority even today do not.

That was never in question, you stated before games will "probably never require an SSD" and you're flat out wrong. You had a terrible experience in SC because you were running it from a HDD. You've seen first hand that SSD's have a major benefit and here's another game that requires an SSD.

 

[neeyik]

@Burty117 @DaveBG - please take this to private messages.

 

[Regularjohn]

I can understand Flight Sim, but CoD being so large is just the devs being **** at compression.

I heard a rumour and I don't know how true it is but apparently cod has duplicated data across the install folder to speed up loading on mechanical drives

 

[Markoni35]

Does that mean it won't run from a USB stick?

 

[thelatestmodel]

no, lets see 4tb SSD is $400-600, I'd need 3 which at the low end is $1200 and at the higher end is $1800. However 4tb HDD is $70-100 for consumer grade. Most games don't benefit from an SSD and anyone dropping loads of cash on them is a fool.
The ideal gaming system on a budget is a 480-512gb ssd with a 1-2tb hdd.

Things like wow benefit but things like call of duty don't. If the world isn't streaming and loads the level into memory then an hdd is pointless for that game.

Also price per gb should be relevant unless your trust fund provides your needs

Amount of storage is irrelevant. It's about your IO speed, your data throughput.

The speed of your IO affects literally everything you do on your system.

Don't use mechanical drives for anything except archival storage.

 

[candle_86]

Amount of storage is irrelevant. It's about your IO speed, your data throughput.

The speed of your IO affects literally everything you do on your system.

Don't use mechanical drives for anything except archival storage.

Wrong, ssd for boot drive and the handful of programs that benefit, but the 6.3tb of games I have installed are largely on my mechanical drives and they preform just as well as they would on solid state because the games assets are loaded into ram, why this is so hard for people to understand is beyond comprehension

 

[Burty117]

Wrong, ssd for boot drive and the handful of programs that benefit, but the 6.3tb of games I have installed are largely on my mechanical drives and they preform just as well as they would on solid state because the games assets are loaded into ram, why this is so hard for people to understand is beyond comprehension

Have you played WoW or Star Citizen from a HDD? SC in particular is basically unplayable from a HDD.

 

[candle_86]

Have you played WoW or Star Citizen from a HDD? SC in particular is basically unplayable from a HDD.

But edge cases, 99% of games are just fine, the point I'm making is cost per gb is not even close yet, anyone claiming hdd is only useful for archival storage is an *****.

 

[Burty117]

But edge cases, 99% of games are just fine, the point I'm making is cost per gb is not even close yet, anyone claiming hdd is only useful for archival storage is an *****.

Oh, then yeah definitely. It'll be interesting what happens over the next 6 years or so though, as more and more game engines start expecting fast access to storage.

I wonder if we'll end up splitting our library install locations based on age.

 

[candle_86]

Oh, then yeah definitely. It'll be interesting what happens over the next 6 years or so though, as more and more game engines start expecting fast access to storage.

I wonder if we'll end up splitting our library install locations based on age.

We very well might, it's somewhat infuriating however as right now the average computer has 256gb of solid state if bought today, you can upgrade it but off the shelf it's 256gb.

 

[Axiarus]

But edge cases, 99% of games are just fine, the point I'm making is cost per gb is not even close yet, anyone claiming hdd is only useful for archival storage is an *****.

I like quick load times. No games on HHDs for me. I also don’t install all the games I own.