Hi folks, I got a nice bonus and some of it is burning a hole in my pocket. Want to beef up my DCS A-10C experience and thought about getting an upgrade for my older EVGA GeForce GTX 480 to a new GTX 570 or 580, but my Storm Scout case won't take an 11" long card, and the 10.5" cards have less on-board memory and clock speed. With the 480 I'm running mid to high 20's frame rates in A-10C with Fraps. (FYI, the top end EVGA 580 cards have liquid cooling! $700...)

So I'm thinking of a new SSD instead. I'd have to uninstall DCS A-10C and re-install it on the SSD, and allow the user files to stay in the default [user]\'Saved Games' folder. One issue I'd like to improve is the long load time for A-10C missions, especially now that I am doing mission editing.

Comments/suggestions? Should I take a big leap and install my Win 7 OS onto an SSD, and keep the HDD for my libraries of pictures and music? SSD recommendations? Gotcha's?

Wrecking Crew

At what resolution?

FYI SSD won't improve your frame rates, just loading times and not by much. I tried running both from SSD and HDD. DCS isn't very optimized and as such benefits the most from high CPU clock. For me it drops down to ~30 FPS min (everything maxed out, HDR on warm, AA, AF etc.) only when on the runway. 580 Lightning & i5 2500k @ 4.5 GHz | 1920 x 1200

SSD won't improve performance? Oh well, there goes my upgrade plan.

IIRC it will remove some small stuttering if you are experiencing them during game play (I don't), or so I've read.

The best upgrade you can get is a CPU upgrade. Just take a compare the outside view with cockpit view FPS.

Well, CPU performance is based on clock, yes? Or based on type of CPU? Coz my i5-750 is clocked at 4.1GHz now, I can't find any justification for spending another few hundred £££ for a 0.5-0.7GHz increase.

T}{OR, I usually agree with you but I'll have to disagree on this one -- with some qualifying conditions.

I can say on my computer having a 64GB SSD for the Win 7 C drive, and a 128GB SSD for specific sims, it made a huge difference in overall throughput.

Biggest specific difference is in loading textures during a mission and overall smoothness.

I have an older system, and doesn't even use SATA III (SATA II on the older mobo), but it helped a lot in overall throughput.

CPU: Intel i7-920 @ 2.67GHz
MOBO: Asus P6T
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5870 (11.12 drivers)
VRAM: 3818 MB
RAM: 6136 MB
C: 64GB SSD
D: 128GB SSD
Monitor: 27" ASUS LCD
OS: Windows 7 / Service Pack 1
Logitech G27 Controller

Doug, can you define what you mean by "overall throughput"?

I've read and seen reviews that shows SSDs makes boot up faster, even makes programs like Photoshop load faster... so I though having an SSD will shorten the loading time for DCS A10. I'm talking specifically of the phase wherein a mission designer goes from the mission editor in to the game itself to test the mission.

Better than trying to verbally convey it, I'll try to get some time tonight to do a rough cut video and people can decide for themselves if it seems faster. I can do the specific scenario you mentioned - Ice. Any other scenarios to try?

BTW, I can get away with the two small SSD drives because this computer is only used for simming, and I only load 6-7 sims at any one time. The laptop and netbook do business and light gaming.

I stand corrected then.

I did actually consider a second SSD for sims. Right now I use WD Caviar Black 2 TB as my storage and gaming drive. And moving A-10 back and forth a couple of times for testing purposes only gave me some faster loading times. WD C.Black is actually pretty fast as a standalone for gaming.

In my post above I have said how I've read some people do benefit from less stuttering / overall smoothness. Might be because I have a late high end rig on my end though but the change for me was / is really pretty small. I am running A-10 off SSD now only so that I can say that I am running one game from it.

If you do decide on getting SSD for A-10, I would recommend using mklink with it (e.g. I moved my Tracks folder to HDD) so the SSD doesn't get filled with unnecessary stuff (i.e. I don't need to clean it often).

No idea how you're going to do a video, but I remember watching one "comparison video" that ran through the same startup sequence and opening a program (can't remember if it was PS) and the vid clearly showed that SSD-equipped system was quicker than the non-SSD system.

So basically, a cold-boot test, a opening a big program like Photoshop test, and some comparisons with games that have significant loading times like a big DCS A10 mission.