Time for a New Computer- Advice Appreciated

[Denniss]

Believe me, SSDs are essential for any computer. Not primarily to speed up games but overall experience like system boot, update install and general responsiveness. Difference is epecially noticable on systems where the pagefile is in use as the SSD is wayyyy faster than a HDD due to lack of moving/spining mechanical components.
On Win7/8.1 a 120GB SSD is more or less sufficient as system drive, double that for Win10.
With the SSD prices dropping a lot this year many opt for 500GB or more as system drive (+ their favorite games).
HDDs are still usable for data storage due to their cheap price but if you have games with thousands of small files you want to have those on a SSD for faster load.

[Skuzzy]

There is nothing that requires an SSD to run.  Nothing.  That makes it optional.

Not saying it is a bad thing, but to say they are required, or essential is simply not true.  That is like saying an NVidia 2080Ti is essential/required.

What you consider a big deal in performance gains is not what someone else might consider a big deal.  If you play games and are on budget, then an SSD should be the last option in the list of things to get for that system.  Spending more on a video card will get you more for game play.

I m really not trying to get in your face about this, but when you say things like you just said, and some inexperienced person comes along and reads it, then it could lead them to spend money on hardware they would be better off spending on a better video card, for example.

SSD's, like many higher end hardware devices, are a nice option.  If you want faster boots, then that is one way to go to get there.  If you want those initial load times for an application to be faster, then that is a way to get to there. 

As far as overall responsiveness goes, if an SSD is making a difference in that, then the system is poorly configured. Very poorly.  The thing about properly configuring a system is this; it only takes some time to do.  No more cost than that.

[Skuzzy]

By the way, I posted my various load times for Aces High III.  It would be nice to hear from others what their load times look like.

[TequilaChaser]

Believe me, SSDs are essential for any computer. Not primarily to speed up games but overall experience like system boot, update install and general responsiveness. Difference is epecially noticable on systems where the pagefile is in use as the SSD is wayyyy faster than a HDD due to lack of moving/spining mechanical components.
On Win7/8.1 a 120GB SSD is more or less sufficient as system drive, double that for Win10.
With the SSD prices dropping a lot this year many opt for 500GB or more as system drive (+ their favorite games).
HDDs are still usable for data storage due to their cheap price but if you have games with thousands of small files you want to have those on a SSD for faster load.

I was waiting to see if Skuzzy noticed/caught this in Denniss' post, quoted above....

with regard to SSDs being used as the main OS drive as well as running AH3 game on the same drive...

their have been known problems regarding SSD drives being used as the main OS drive as well as running AH( AH2, AH3 etc ) from the SSD when it comes to doing MS windows updates and  doing Aces High patch updates....to where the SSD could possibly be in cache mode or trash cleaning mode, etc while a person is not aware of it and begins to do their MS windows updates or do their Aces High patch update or worse yet, they start to update their Aces High Version from something like Example: Aces High III Version 3.03 Patch 19   to    Aces High III Version 3.04 Patch 3  ....... and finds themselves with a completely FUBAR computer........

need to go make Supper for Dad..... I'll let Skuzzy break it down for y'all,if people have questions....


TC

[Bizman]

TC, that was some interesting reading! How can you tell if the SSD is in cache mode or trash cleaning mode? I've recently had some hard times trying to get a brand new SSD equipped PC to install updates, both for the Store Apps and Windows itself. No damage done so far, but the installing times have varied from half an hour to overnight for a version update. It's kinda funny, new laptops have been manufactured only a couple of months before selling, yet their Windows usually is two or three versions behind.

Another thing I've noticed about SSD's is that since they're fast they're widely used in cheap systems to mask the lack of performance. Anyone knowing anything about computers could immediately tell that a ~1GB processor, 4 GB RAM and a 32 or even 64 GB SSD is far from capable to everyday usage despite being "lightweight and stylish" as a recent ad said. What hasn't been advertised is that the semi-annual version updates have been growing almost exponentially. The latest version update requires at least 20 GB of free disk space, rather 25 or even 30. A year ago 6 GB was sufficient and back then it could be expanded with a memory stick, a feature that has recently been abandoned. In that perspective I fear that 128 GB won't be large enough as a system disk in only a couple of years.

[Skuzzy]

For example, running the game off an SSD could induce stutters in the game if you have skins downloading in the background.

The weakness of an SSD comes to when a file needs to be updated or even changing the name of a file.  On an HDD updates or name changes are much faster as HDD's can overwrite information.

When a skin comes down from the server, it is stored as a temporary file until the file can be verified.  The OS actions for this operation are about the same for either the SSD or HDD.  The difference comes when it is time to rename the file to its new name and put it in the skins folder.

SSD's cannot update information of a file.  A name change on an HDD is a very fast operation as it can change data stored on the disk.  An SSD has to read the original file into a temporary system RAM location.  Erase the original,  then write the entire file again, to its new name and location.  With the SSD, the Windows directory update requires the filesystem data to be read into memory, then changed, then erase the original and write the new.  An HDD just overwrites the original data with the new.  This takes a lot longer than an HDD does.  It could stall the game.

For those of you who are running Aces High III on your SSD, I strongly recommend disabling skin downloads in the hangar.

There are also potential problems with patches where data can get corrupted causing a complete game installation to be done.

The game also does a fair number of file updates while playing.  Most of these will happen in the SSD RAM drive in system RAM and Windows will also cache those writes as well, but that can also cause some issues when the cache gets flushed and suddenly you have a long pause in the game.  File updates are pretty ugly with an SSD and there is no way around that.

[Bizman]

An SSD has to read the original file into a temporary system RAM location.  Erase the original,  then write the entire file again, to its new name and location.  With the SSD, the Windows directory update requires the filesystem data to be read into memory, then changed, then erase the original and write the new.

That sounds like flashing the BIOS which has always been somewhat of a hazardous operation!

[JTs]

Go to PCPartPicker.com and put together something you like. Save it and post a link here. Many people can help you fine tune it for ah

[Pudgie]

For example, running the game off an SSD could induce stutters in the game if you have skins downloading in the background.

The weakness of an SSD comes to when a file needs to be updated or even changing the name of a file.  On an HDD updates or name changes are much faster as HDD's can overwrite information.

When a skin comes down from the server, it is stored as a temporary file until the file can be verified.  The OS actions for this operation are about the same for either the SSD or HDD.  The difference comes when it is time to rename the file to its new name and put it in the skins folder.

SSD's cannot update information of a file.  A name change on an HDD is a very fast operation as it can change data stored on the disk.  An SSD has to read the original file into a temporary system RAM location.  Erase the original,  then write the entire file again, to its new name and location.  With the SSD, the Windows directory update requires the filesystem data to be read into memory, then changed, then erase the original and write the new.  An HDD just overwrites the original data with the new.  This takes a lot longer than an HDD does.  It could stall the game.

For those of you who are running Aces High III on your SSD, I strongly recommend disabling skin downloads in the hangar.

There are also potential problems with patches where data can get corrupted causing a complete game installation to be done.

The game also does a fair number of file updates while playing.  Most of these will happen in the SSD RAM drive in system RAM and Windows will also cache those writes as well, but that can also cause some issues when the cache gets flushed and suddenly you have a long pause in the game.  File updates are pretty ugly with an SSD and there is no way around that.

Hhhmmmm……………………….

This could be another reason besides graphics driver-generated TDR's (it makes the most sense of what I've been seeing\capturing) as to why I'm seeing the random game freezes ingame as this will be the same regardless of where the game files are loaded.....whether on the same SSD as the OS is installed on or on a separate SSD from the OS-installed SSD (as I have all currently configured in Team Red.....1 NVMe M.2 SSD for OS, drivers and monitoring softwares, 1 small SATA III SSD for pagefile duty only and 1 large SATA III SSD for programs, Windows Libraries, storage) as OS would be the initiator when it decides to flush the cache of unused\stale data in system mem regardless of whether or not there resides sufficient free addressable system mem to retain it, the write process would be the same due to using SSD's and there won't be any .dmp file dumps generated due to this occurring as well due to normal OS operation to pause game momentarily to perform this work to refresh the cache...………....

I have been using my listed SSD configuration for at least the last 2 1\2 yrs so this could very well be the culprit of the screen pause issue on my end. I had ran Win Performance Monitor in background configured to check for writeouts from system mem to virtual mem (pagefile) while playing AHIII for 2+ hrs back in the day and found that there were 0% writebacks recorded there so I knew that no writes to pagefile were occurring but cache dumps are a different process that I didn't consider to be separate from paging…………..

Can test this out by swapping in a platter HDD then clone my separate SDD that contains the game files to this HDD then run the game to see if the random freezes cease due to the faster write backs to the HDD vs SSD which should speed up the cache dumps thus reduce the time needed to complete them which should show up...……………

Gonna be a while though as I will need to pick up a 2.5" SATA III HDD to use in my FD Meshify C case (have removed the 3.5" HDD cage for 120mm case fan mount in it's place to provide airflow in back side of case to cool SSD's and back side of exposed mobo at CPU socket)...………..

Will post results when done.

 

Thanks for posting this.

[230G]

Go to PCPartPicker.com and put together something you like. Save it and post a link here. Many people can help you fine tune it for ah

 OK, based on advice here and looking at some builds in MAXIMUMPC magazine, here's what I've decided on, and in fact already ordered, for the new build-

 Rosewill Blackbone - mid tower - ATX Case

 CORSAIR RMx Series RM550X 550W 80 PLUS GOLD Power Supply

 MSI Z370 TOMAHAWK LGA 1151 Motherboard

 Intel Core i5-7600 Kaby Lake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1151 Processor

 WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache

 ADATA XPG Gammix D10 2666MHz (PC4 21300) 16G (2 x 8GB) RAM

 NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti 4GB Graphics card- out of my existing system

  I was on the fence about the processor i5-7600 3.5 Ghz vs. i5-8500 3.0 Ghz, but ultimately decided to pay $5 more for the faster processor.

 Now I just hope all this stuff will work together!

 

 

[Bizman]

Looks nice at first glance.

However, and this is what worries me, MSI says that they support 8th and 9th generation Core processors, plus Pentium Gold and Celeron in the lower price range. I can't open their list of supported CPU's but from other sources the information is similar. Check, double check, triple check that before unpacking!

[230G]

Looks nice at first glance.

However, and this is what worries me, MSI says that they support 8th and 9th generation Core processors, plus Pentium Gold and Celeron in the lower price range. I can't open their list of supported CPU's but from other sources the information is similar. Check, double check, triple check that before unpacking!

 I can't open the page either, but I dug a little deeper and I think you are correct, maybe. MAXIMUM PC did some builds and used this MB and an i5-8400 processor but I don't know how that applies to the i5-7600. Any ideas?

[Bizman]

The "thousands" in Intel i# processors tell the generation, so i5-7600 is of the 7th gen and i5-8400 is of the 8th gen.

Did you have the PcPartpicker compatibility filter on when compiling the build? It won't allow that combination. Choosing the i5-7600 doesn't show the motherboard, starting the build with the Z370 mobo doesn't show the 7600.

Hard facts here: https://ark.intel.com/products/125903/Intel-Z370-Chipset/Compatible Products. Sorry, no 7600 on that list. You'll have to either change the motherboard or the CPU.

[Denniss]

7k series CPU does not work in Z370 motherboard + 4 core is a really bad choice nowadays
why such a small HDD, no SSD ?
A far better choice would be a Ryzen 5 2600/2600X (6 core with 12 threads) on a good B450 motherboard with 16 GB of 3000 RAM

[230G]

The "thousands" in Intel i# processors tell the generation, so i5-7600 is of the 7th gen and i5-8400 is of the 8th gen.

Did you have the PcPartpicker compatibility filter on when compiling the build? It won't allow that combination. Choosing the i5-7600 doesn't show the motherboard, starting the build with the Z370 mobo doesn't show the 7600.

Hard facts here: https://ark.intel.com/products/125903/Intel-Z370-Chipset/Compatible Products. Sorry, no 7600 on that list. You'll have to either change the motherboard or the CPU.

  Yep....I figured that out too late! I've decided to keep the motherboard and get a new processor.

7k series CPU does not work in Z370 motherboard + 4 core is a really bad choice nowadays
why such a small HDD, no SSD ?
A far better choice would be a Ryzen 5 2600/2600X (6 core with 12 threads) on a good B450 motherboard with 16 GB of 3000 RAM

 Yep, I blew it on the processor, but I'll return it and already have an i5-8500 (6 core) on the way, and for less money than the i5-7600.

  Regarding the hard drives, I use a seperate 500 Gb drive for storage (pictures, videos, music, documents, et al) so my main drive doesn't need to be large at all. Additionally,  I have an 500 Gb external HDD for backup that's not even close to full. I may in the future consider an SD for backup. I figure Skuzzy probably knows what works best for his stuff, and chose to follow his advice regarding HDD vs SSD.