Non scientific External HDD vs SSD on Xbox One X

  • Stone0898
    Master
    Insider

    May be of interest to some, apologies if not.

    I just bought and plugged in a 500GB external SSD drive, the main reason for purchase being that I thought it would improve load times on the game.

    I thought I'd time how long the game takes to load, from when I hit the 'A' button on my dashboard, to my pirate arriving at the tavern in adventure mode.

    With the game installed on a 1TB external HDD alongside 40+ other games the time to load in was 6 minutes and 11 seconds.

    Next I formatted the new SSD drive, and moved the game and save data from the external HDD. This took about 5 minutes, I didn't time it, but I put some washing on and pumped up the tyres on the caravan, which I guessed was about 5 minutes.

    Next I started the game in exactly the same way, navigating the menus at my usual speed and loading up my sloop. I was expecting a small decrease in time taken to load, and would have been happy with a sub 5 minute load time, but I was up and running in 2 minutes and 4 seconds. That's roughly a third of the time.

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  • K1LROYw4sH3R3
    Captain
    Insider

    Yes and mermaid trips are a few seconds. Also returning from the ferry is only a few seconds.

    To me no external upgrade should drastically change what happens in a shared world game. To me this is bad design and really should be changed.

    If your crew fights another crew on their ship. It’s got a few holes and is filling with water. You kill the whole crew but they don’t spawn back in time due to having the internal drive so they can’t bail on respawn. Do this to a crew all equipped with a SSD and they’ll be back and bailing and fighting in 15-18 seconds.

    Shame really that an outside force can sway a battle.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    I 😍 my SSD.

  • Look Behind You
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Moderator
    Founder
    Deckhand

    The overall respawn from death (between an original Xbox One and a PC with an m.2 NVMe SSD) varies by about 3-5 seconds. From the moment of death to spawning back on the ship with the ability to move takes my PC 40-42 seconds, my original Xbox One takes ~45 seconds.

  • K1LROYw4sH3R3
    Captain
    Insider

    @triheadedmonkey my experience with my xbox1 was horrible. I’ve had sessions while playing a friend who’s on PC that we go through the ferry door together and I show up 30 seconds later. Either with him dead again and I was no help or after the fights over.

    Yes this is anecdotal but it’s still something a player experiences. Can be a real let down when there’s a good fight going on.

  • Look Behind You
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Moderator
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @k1lroyw4sh3r3 mine is only based on personal experience too, but the time 'on ferry' seems to be standard across platforms, just the few seconds loading onto/off the ferry seems to be different.

    The only reason I have the times is that I decided to record it when I first installed my SSD. ( PC with SSD Times and Original Xbox Times ) to see the difference.

    Initial load in/boot times are hugely different

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  • UltmateRagnarok
    Master

    PCs have little difference in load times, as much of the longer or shorter screens depends on what's happening in the game. Ships are taxing to the game (among many, many other variables), and the both of you are suffering those screens from having several around you. While it is true that SSDs, HDD, or any other similar upgrades can change this slightly, it's not as good as you think. If a player spawns on the side of the ship closer to another in a ship-to-ship battle, they can take a full minute or more longer to load compared to someone spawning in on the other side of the ship.

  • PomalotacusMk3
    Master

    Im playing on the Xbox X. My 'set sail' time went from minimum 2 minutes, down to 25 seconds. Mermaids take 5 or 6 seconds maximum, where previously 10 to 15 seconds was the norm(The same times also applied to getting stuck in the environment and being teleported to the ship). Entering and leaving the PL hideout is about 20 seconds, which used to be 40 to 50 seconds. The ferry was the most painful, with up to 20 seconds of blackscreen when leaving the ferry, compared to 5 or 6 seconds maximum with SSD. There was even times when the ferry door was already open after long blackscreens after death. Regardless of enemy ships, skalleons, krakens or volcanoes, 5 or 6 seconds of blackscreenevery time. Not once have i been stuck on a blackscreen since getting an SSD. I even tried using my SoT external HDD, but still hit long blackscreens😥

    Its a totally different game with an SSD...kinda goes against Rare's 'no pay to win' motto...

  • Look Behind You
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Moderator
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @pomalotacusmk3 said in Non scientific External HDD vs SSD on Xbox One X:

    Its a totally different game with an SSD...kinda goes against Rare's 'no pay to win' motto...

    Not really...Rare has nothing to do with your hardware setup. There isn't anything in-game the is regarded as Pay to Win, what you do in your home is a tad out of their control.

  • Zormis
    Marauder
    Insider

    @ultmateragnarok said in Non scientific External HDD vs SSD on Xbox One X:

    PCs have little difference in load times, as much of the longer or shorter screens depends on what's happening in the game. Ships are taxing to the game (among many, many other variables), and the both of you are suffering those screens from having several around you. While it is true that SSDs, HDD, or any other similar upgrades can change this slightly, it's not as good as you think. If a player spawns on the side of the ship closer to another in a ship-to-ship battle, they can take a full minute or more longer to load compared to someone spawning in on the other side of the ship.

    Are we talking about initial game load or loading on a mermaid spawn?

    On PC load times my old gaming rig had an old i7 and the game would load, like xbox one S slow, despite having a new SSD. Which tells me this is based also on processing speed. I could load on my gaming laptop that is an 8th Gen i7 way faster

    I built an i9 and the load times to get into the game night an day.

    As far as mermaid load times I have a SSD on my xbox one x as well as my PC and the spawn time seems to be about the same, even on my old i7. Sometimes though the server takes its sweet time on the black screen which then it doesn't matter what you have in your xbox/PC

  • UltmateRagnarok
    Master

    @zormis

    Initial startup being faster really doesn't matter for balance between the platforms, but yes, it does appear to be faster. Load times from mermaids, unsticks, and the Ferry of the Damned are pretty much not affected by much of anything related to the platform.

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