That’s been a thing for a while now. Basically all the big, modern games, that are also on current gen consoles want SSDs (some are just SSD recommended on minimum specs, but required for higher specs). BG3, Cyberpunk, many of the Playstation Studios games, some Xbox studios stuff, etc.
Hardware Unboxed recently did a video, if the drive speed matters (mainly about PCIe SSD speed) and tested with HDDs, SATA SSDs and NVME SDDs. They found that some games will give you a notice if they detect an HDD, but almost all will still run, even if the specs say an SSD is required. Most of the time, the initial load times will be loooooong with an HDD, but otherwise the games still work, although a few had graphical glitches because of slow asset streaming. Once you get to SATA SSDs, it starts to matter a lot less, and with an NVME you just want the biggest drive for your budget (like <10% difference for the initial load times, if at all, between PCIe 3.0 and 5.0).
As we get more and more games that use DirectStorage (or similar technologies), the number of games that truly require SSDs will most likely go up, until then HDDs should still be fine, as long as you’re ok with slow load times and maybe some more texture pop-in.
Uh, I mean, this is generally unavoidable with the passage of time and the advance of technology so, as vague as a statement as yours is, yes I do think so.
Unavoidable, sure, as an unwanted side-effect of increasing overall quality, but since it’s possible to create unoptimized games that increase hardware requirements without delivering any improvements at all, if we cherish the hardware demand increases, we will create a fertile scenario for unoptimization, market manipulation and exclusion of people in the game industry.
I will just have to respectfully disagree with you that one has anything to do with the other. I find I can be in favour of advances in technology while not being in favour of unoptimized games.
Ps4 had a mechanical hard drive and I played a few enormous games on that. Don’t remember it being a problem so I don’t think that’s such a hard and fast rule
It’s not. The size of the game isn’t the limiting factor.
Anecdotally, I played Horizon Forbidden West on PS4 and occasionally got loading screens while out and about in the open world. I assume the HDD was the cause of this.
There are 20gb games that require much faster medium than retail WoW which is like 80gigs, despite the engines lineage tracing back to when it would’ve been stored on rust made by Maxtor.
Dang we are actually getting “SSD required” on the system requirements
That’s been a thing for a while now. Basically all the big, modern games, that are also on current gen consoles want SSDs (some are just SSD recommended on minimum specs, but required for higher specs). BG3, Cyberpunk, many of the Playstation Studios games, some Xbox studios stuff, etc.
Hardware Unboxed recently did a video, if the drive speed matters (mainly about PCIe SSD speed) and tested with HDDs, SATA SSDs and NVME SDDs. They found that some games will give you a notice if they detect an HDD, but almost all will still run, even if the specs say an SSD is required. Most of the time, the initial load times will be loooooong with an HDD, but otherwise the games still work, although a few had graphical glitches because of slow asset streaming. Once you get to SATA SSDs, it starts to matter a lot less, and with an NVME you just want the biggest drive for your budget (like <10% difference for the initial load times, if at all, between PCIe 3.0 and 5.0).
As we get more and more games that use DirectStorage (or similar technologies), the number of games that truly require SSDs will most likely go up, until then HDDs should still be fine, as long as you’re ok with slow load times and maybe some more texture pop-in.
I think this is a good thing, personally.
Do you think increasing hardware requirements for games is a good thing?
Uh, I mean, this is generally unavoidable with the passage of time and the advance of technology so, as vague as a statement as yours is, yes I do think so.
Unavoidable, sure, as an unwanted side-effect of increasing overall quality, but since it’s possible to create unoptimized games that increase hardware requirements without delivering any improvements at all, if we cherish the hardware demand increases, we will create a fertile scenario for unoptimization, market manipulation and exclusion of people in the game industry.
I will just have to respectfully disagree with you that one has anything to do with the other. I find I can be in favour of advances in technology while not being in favour of unoptimized games.
It has to come with a steep increase in performance. As someone who does not care for realistic graphics I could live without it.
You think a mechanical hdd is sufficient for playing a 100gb game? That would be so painful it’s not even funny.
Ps4 had a mechanical hard drive and I played a few enormous games on that. Don’t remember it being a problem so I don’t think that’s such a hard and fast rule
It’s not. The size of the game isn’t the limiting factor.
Anecdotally, I played Horizon Forbidden West on PS4 and occasionally got loading screens while out and about in the open world. I assume the HDD was the cause of this.
worked fine for me for a couple decades. what’s painful about it exactly?
Games have changed quite a bit in the past couple decades grandpa
Yes, it depends the game.
There are 20gb games that require much faster medium than retail WoW which is like 80gigs, despite the engines lineage tracing back to when it would’ve been stored on rust made by Maxtor.