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NVMe vs SSD


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I've read lots of places that an NVMe barely makes a difference in gaming compared to an SSD.

Just want to check that also applies to DCS. NVMe are twice the price, so is it worth it? I'm not bothered about shaving a few seconds boot times but concerned with ingame performance.

Thanks

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Well, maybe 1 thing to consider.

 

 

If you only have ONE ssd, then get it in NVMe as you then have the OS, DCS and the PageFile on ONE drive, which cries for I/O queue depth to happen.

 

 

In that case, a NVMe will likely show benefits over a SATA drive.

 

 

FWIW, I run my DCS off a Samsung 850Pro, which was ok, now it runs as a Raid-0 to have more space in 1 volume, not for speed, but I run my OS off a NVMe and PF from a 3rd SSD.

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Returned mine and saved 120$ buying a 1tb normal ssd instead. Saw no difference in gaming (dcs xplane etc) and nothing to justify the markup in price on anything else. Faster transfer, virus search has been mentioned, that's about it. In short the rest of the computer can't keep up.

1080 ti, i7700k 5ghz, 16gb 3600 cl14 ddr4 oc

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surprise! you just noticed the difference between marketing and theory, and reality.

 

things that look good on paper and take money from your wallet, do not always deliver.

 

 

 

 

eehhhh, you dont run Virtual machines I assume.

 

 

I can C L E A R L Y see the difference once you start 2 VM's off that 1 disk.

 

 

If you dont tax your system that hard that such differences will show you cannot blame the car but the driver.

 

 

I am pretty confident that a single drive system is well advised to go NVMe over Sata, like a 1TB NVMe over a 1TB Sata SSD.

 

 

 

- DCS core

- DCS track recording

- Pagefile

- Operating System

.....

maybe in addition

.......

+ Streaming

+ Recording

+ SRS

+ TS

+ TacView

etc....

 

 

I know too much about computing and I/O that I dont need a proof to know that this will be better with a drive that is 6x faster.

 

 

People complain about stutter and freezes, just saying...

Gigabyte Aorus X570S Master - Ryzen 5900X - Gskill 64GB 3200/CL14@3600/CL14 - Asus 1080ti EK-waterblock - 4x Samsung 980Pro 1TB - 1x Samsung 870 Evo 1TB - 1x SanDisc 120GB SSD - Heatkiller IV - MoRa3-360LT@9x120mm Noctua F12 - Corsair AXi-1200 - TiR5-Pro - Warthog Hotas - Saitek Combat Pedals - Asus PG278Q 27" QHD Gsync 144Hz - Corsair K70 RGB Pro - Win11 Pro/Linux - Phanteks Evolv-X 

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This guy ran some tests - however they are in VR.

He seemed to gain around 3-4 fps with m.2 Nvme SSD versus SATA SSD in VR.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3668873&postcount=175

Don B

EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero|

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The latency is much less, the I/O is a TEN-fold higher and the raw speed is about 6x better, in addition you have no cables and no mess, a much less protocol overhead.

 

 

There is no reason but budget to not grab a NVMe over a Sata based drive if your hardware can accept it. At least for your OS I woudl do that.

 

 

If I had to buy new, I had 2 NVMe, nothing else.

Gigabyte Aorus X570S Master - Ryzen 5900X - Gskill 64GB 3200/CL14@3600/CL14 - Asus 1080ti EK-waterblock - 4x Samsung 980Pro 1TB - 1x Samsung 870 Evo 1TB - 1x SanDisc 120GB SSD - Heatkiller IV - MoRa3-360LT@9x120mm Noctua F12 - Corsair AXi-1200 - TiR5-Pro - Warthog Hotas - Saitek Combat Pedals - Asus PG278Q 27" QHD Gsync 144Hz - Corsair K70 RGB Pro - Win11 Pro/Linux - Phanteks Evolv-X 

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hmmm after I got my 1TB NVME m.2 I benched it against my Sata samsung 1T evo 850 SSD

 

NVME m.2 = 2962 (I think)

850 SSD = 525

 

So a little bit quicker


Edited by Johnny_Rico

METAR weather for DCS World missions

 

Guide to help out new DCS MOOSE Users -> HERE

Havoc Company Dedicated server info Connect IP: 94.23.215.203

SRS enabled - freqs - Main = 243, A2A = 244, A2G = 245

Please contact me HERE if you have any server feedback or METAR issues/requests

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Hrm, that SATA3 vs PCIe for a new SSD and gaming question is something i have not yet resolved properly for myself as well. Thing is, all benchmarks i have seen over the last 2-3 years make this pretty much negliable at the moment. I just got myself a 500gb Samsung 860 Evo which should be pretty much at the limit of the Sata3 specifications. And i have looked a bunch at the I/Os and read speeds while loading DCS and loading different levels. And i have never seen it jump beyond 400mbps. I have only looked at it with sysinternals processexplorer, there is probably better and more accurate ways to record i/os and sequential reads during loading or copying operations.

 

But when i take this observation combined with all those SATA vs NVMe benchmarks together; then i conclude that right now and probably a couple more years down the road, for gaming at least, Sata3 is the way to go if you don't have the cash lying around in heaps. NVMes are still about 2x the price. Better invest that money into a better CPU, GPU or Hotas and stuff. I think the NVMe investment makes sense as soon as more game engines are designed in a multi-threaded way so that you actually see that game process make your reading operations jump beyond 500mbps.

 

And with that same flawed/dirty quick look at the disk read operations during DCS missions, after the map has loaded, i see read operations in the low double digits. I mean somewhere between 2-20mbps, always interspersed with couple of seconds with no reading at all. All Sata 3 ssd should be able to handle this easily, and its more question how well ones specific setup of cpu, gpu, ram and drive are all running fast enough combined.

Honestly, i believe its more important that game devs integrate proper loading/streaming technologies in there games so that the cpu has ample time to prep everything and load that stuff into memory before a stutter can even occur.

 

But, my system is by no means beefy anymore, so if someone whos got an Ryzen 2700x or Intel 8700k overclocked with fast memory and a sata and nvme ssd could give this a go with identical DCS folders, i'd be sure interested to see whether this might actually make a difference afterall.


Edited by sc_neo
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For my next 2700X + 1080Ti build I'm tempted to just go with 2x 500GB 860 Evo's. I haven't seen one benchmark that says NVME *will* give me higher FPS or less stuttering.

Regards, Django.

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NVMe vs SSD

 

no one is claiming nvme is not a faster technology.

 

the question is whether you would notice in in real life.

 

loading a game 2 seconds faster might be worth it for some. maybe.

 

but i fail to see how a nvme drive can improve your frame rates.

unless the game code is brain damaged and requires everything in the sim to stop dead every few seconds while it loads a file from disk.... we stopped doing that in the 90’s, didn’t we?

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Yeah I have one 1TB Samsung 970 Pro m.2 Nvme for my new upcoming build, also a new Samsung Evo 860 1TB Sata SSD for it also.

 

Strongly considering going ahead and ordering a second 1TB Samsung 970 Pro m.2 Nvme for this build. Might as well go all out I recon lol.

Don B

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why did you not go with the 970 pro nvme 2gb version? Even more TBW...though i reckon its totally inconsequential for a gaming rig anyway...the total bytes written i mean. Still, i am not sure why you would buy multiple still comaratively expensive nvme drives if no here is able to produce any measurements that seem to justify this for gaming in general nor DCS in particular. Yeah, but when you building a system right now and if you're not strapped for chash and want to invest into something that will last you many years, maybe going its wise to go the nvme route even if they will probably drop in price quite a bit more over the next year.


Edited by sc_neo
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why did you not go with the 970 pro nvme 2gb version? Even more TBW...though i reckon its totally inconsequential for a gaming rig anyway...the total bytes written i mean.

 

Well I was trying to at least be a little frugal with my money LOL.

However now will probably spend more - serves me right I guess for trying.

Don B

EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero|

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I'm here! :) Just reading all the replies until I have something to add.

Thanks Johnny Rico for benchmarking, while I understand NVMe is clearly much quicker in read writing, the question is whether it actually makes a difference during the game - FPS. A few seconds at startup can't justify double the price even if I can afford it. Future-proofing is irrelevant because a year or two from now storage prices will be massively cheaper so negate any perceived current benefits. There are plenty of benchmarks showing little difference in general gaming but I wanted to know if there was anything specific about DCS (or Xplane) that would make a difference. My options are either a 500gb NVMe drive or a 1TB SSD for the same price. Unless there is a noticeable performance increase iN GAME I'd much rather a larger boot drive. (Other storage drives aren't a factor).

Thanks for all your advice

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why did you not go with the 970 pro nvme 2gb version? Even more TBW...though i reckon its totally inconsequential for a gaming rig anyway...the total bytes written i mean. Still, i am not sure why you would buy multiple still comaratively expensive nvme drives if no here is able to produce any measurements that seem to justify this for gaming in general nor DCS in particular. Yeah, but when you building a system right now and if you're not strapped for chash and want to invest into something that will last you many years, maybe going its wise to go the nvme route even if they will probably drop in price quite a bit more over the next year.

 

I don't think there's a 2tb Pro version. If there was, I would have gotten it, lol.

 

 

As far as NVMe, I'd say if you can minimize stuttering in DCS by even 10%, it's worth it. At least if there's stuttering and you've tried everything to minimize it, you can't blame yourself for not trying, you'll just accept the fault of the DCS engine.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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Re: 1 vs. 2 NVMe drives - consider that each NVMe device you add to the system may affect the number of PCIe lanes going to your graphics card. For most chipsets, adding a single NVMe card takes 4 PCIe lanes. As most motherboards only have 16 lanes, and all 16 are usually used for the graphics card, adding an NVMe card reduces your graphics card to 8 lanes, with 4 lanes for the NVMe, and 4 lanes not used. I think for many systems, adding a 2nd NVMe card does not get 4 lanes that that 2nd card. It might only be 2 lanes, or just 1. So, make sure you understand how this works for your motherboard.

 

Also, your MB may have several M.2 ports, but they may not all be NVMe compatible (some may just be MSATA - which are not compatible with NVMe drives. The MSATA ports aren't really any different than a SATA connector. My point is, if you want 2TB, you are better off getting a single 2TB NVMe instead of 2x 1TB NVMe drives - unless you are setting up some kind of RAID configuration.

 

And yes, the 970 Pro isn't available as 2TB yet. That's why I bought a 970 EVO. For most purposes (gaming and normal business and engineering apps), the EVO models are no different in performance, and save you a lot of money vs. the Pro models.

 

As for SATA vs. NVMe, even if there is less real world benefit of an NVMe than you would like, it is still a better choice for the future vs. buying a SATA, or even M.2 MSATA SSD. The age of PCIe connected storage is here (meaning NVMe). SATA connected SSD's are limited by the SATA port, not the memory speed. If you do buy a SATA SSD, then performance is less of a concern as most new SSD models are SATA port limited. So focus on price, warranty and reliability instead for MSATA drives.

 

 

Re: the SSD improving FPS. That's barking up the wrong tree. The only thing a faster SSD can do is speed up loading data - a random and uncommon event. So it might reduce some stuttering during data loads, but it will not affect the average FPS.

 

My system has a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO (SATA), and I added a 2TB Samsung 970 EVO (NVMe) earlier this year. Sadly, I haven't had a chance to do significant benchmark tests between them because I dual boot two different Win 10 installs. The 850 has my older Win10 install which includes a lot of background tasks, extra drivers, and it is nearly full. This is my original Win10 install from 3 years ago, upgraded from a Win7 that goes back 5 or 6 years ago. The 970 is a clean install which I use to run DCS now. I haven't finished the transition to the new drive, so I can't wipe the 850 and compare two clean installs side by side. Hence, I don't have any useful benchmarks.

 

I did notice some ways in which the 970 is faster than the 850 in daily work (copying files to/from the 970 is 2X faster than the 850 for example - that's a huge improvement). Not the 6X faster that the benchmarks show, but that's not surprising.

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NVME is little confusing for many at the moment. As the physical interface being same, doesn't mean all are same.

 

At the best scenario you get motherboard and NVME that are compatible and designed for maximum performance, that is when the NVME is directly connected to the CPU over PCI-X like a graphic cards are, overpassing all other busses etc where the SATA connectors goes. But IIRC you can only get one to be so.

 

You will get huge speed benefit from it for pure data transmission. But you still are very limited to CPU and GPU that how well does a calculated data get processed, like a DCS. It is different thing to output a 1 terabyte of data from file, than to calculate 1 terabyte of data and then output it.

 

At some point the benefits to go faster just goes smaller and you are paying more for every percentage benefit you can have, depending the process you are doing.

 

Editing a multiple 4K video source files in video work? Huge benefit!

Gaming a one simulator for fun? Tiny benefit!

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Someone in here somewhere did some recent testing of DCS on a m.2 Nvme versus a Sata SSD.

He claimed around a 3-5 fps increase I believe, but this was in VR.

Don B

EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero|

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