DCS on separate drive performance?

[Tricky11]

Afternoon all. I have my DCS installed on its own nvme drive and Windows with the saved game folder on another nvme drive. Could be loosing performce and load time due to having setup like this?

[kksnowbear]

You're not losing performance per se; It would be more accurate to say you'd be making matters worse (at times, much worse) if you had the OS and the game on the same drive.

The key to consider here is that the system uses storage constantly.  Files are read by both the operating system and other programs (to do whatever)...and files are written to, for various reasons, as parts of programs running (think program log files, as one example).

If you install the game files (any game, not just DCS) and the operating system on the same drive, then at times, that game and the operating system will both be trying to use the single storage resource.  (How much is a complicated discussion, but for the purposes of your question, it doesn't matter how much, because when it happens, it's very bad).

In technical terms, we call this "resource contention": Multiple processes attempting to use a single resource at the same time.  It's easy enough to see, then, that at best, each process is only able to use the resource at a part of 100%; in other words, with two processes you might have a 50/50 split, or it might be 80/20...but because there is only one resource to be utilized (a single storage device), then one way or another, like it or not, somebody's waiting (to be accurate, usually everybody is waiting - more than they'd have had to otherwise).

It doesn't matter how much or how little, nor does it matter how often it happens or anything else...the absolute, brutal fact is that a machine can perform better with less resource contention.   If it were possible, then ideally, every single thing that happens in the computer would be given 100% of the machine's resources, at any time, for as long and as often as needed.  This way, no one's ever waiting on anyone else.  Everyone gets what they need in the absolute shortest time possible.

But, common sense tells us this isn't possible. It is unquestionably ideal, but it's just not possible.  So, the objective becomes trying to get everything as close as possible to that ideal.

Forcing resource contention by storing everything on one drive is a very bad idea, especially considering that storage is (relatively) cheap.

You might also consider that the folks who design these systems are fairly smart people, and the fact that they see fit to put all the different drive connections and controllers in a design should tell you that they understand it's important to avoid resource contention.

So if I understand your question, are you better off having games on a separate drive?  Absolutely.

Edited February 17 by kksnowbear

[blkspade]

If you've got a decent NVME drive, the IOPS it will be capable of should make it relatively irrelevant that games are on the same drive as the OS. Having north of 500K input/output operations per second, makes them intended to do many things at once. Provided, you have the RAM to prevent endless paging, the absolute busiest your OS drive will be is during malware scans or updates. Outside of those taking place the background activity is going to be imperceptible on game performance. Those things actually hit the CPU harder than anything. Getting max NVME performance actually demands many CPU threads be engaged, and those things will use 6-8 threads alone. The IO of DCS can also use just as many threads. 

[kksnowbear]

15 hours ago, blkspade said:

If you've got a decent NVME drive, the IOPS it will be capable of should make it relatively irrelevant that games are on the same drive as the OS.

I'm sorry but this is absolutely not accurate.

I'll post indisputable proof as soon as my schedule permits.  A single drive system (even NVMe drives) loses performance when being utilized by multiple processes.  Fact.

The absolute, brutal fact is that a machine can perform better with less resource contention.  It doesn't matter how much or how little, nor does it matter how often it happens or anything else...when it happens (and it will), it's a bad thing that most assuredly will impact the drive's performance. 

Just as I said, it is perfectly logical that, ideally, every process would have 100% unimpeded access to all the machine's resources at once, any time and for as long as needed.  Since this is not possible, the best possible solution is to approach that ideal as closely as is realistically possible.

And, as I also said, since storage is relatively cheap these days, just no reason to hobble performance on purpose.  Even if you have a ton of RAM, you're not necessarily going to stop paging activity - and, besides that, you'd obviously prefer that memory is available to the game as much as possible.

Basic system design: Don't create 'bottlenecks' and you don't have to worry about trying to resolve them.

Edited February 23 by kksnowbear

[blkspade]

My point is that anything putting enough of a real load on your NVME drive to be noticed, is pegging other resources beyond the drive itself. NVME SSD's are woefully underutilized in most consumer applications, and DCS itself just isn't so IO demanding (on a SSD) that a random log file being written disrupts the experience. That's just not where the bottleneck is for DCS. There is always a bottleneck to some degree somewhere, you just mitigate those that would have the worst effects. I was talking about egregious paging, where you're obviously operating more from disk than RAM when you aren't running anything intensive. If you load a hungry enough app (DCS), Windows almost always wants to shift things to swap. 32GB of RAM is barely enough for some maps and missions. Syria still has a memory leak. Having 64GB of RAM ends up being a big improvement for DCS, but in part because the software is a bit broken.

The single threaded exe could use 8 threads if you pan the external view really fast because it will use more CPU to address all the IO requests for the terrain from the SSD, but that level of use is not what's happening in regular normal gameplay. Outside of VR you can get north of 120FPS in a flight sim, and it's not getting better in meaningful way just because you put it on it's own drive. 

[kksnowbear]

And yet the fact remains: Whatever issues DCS (or any other game/app) inherently has with less-than-optimal resource usage, you're not going to make it any better by creating yet another point of contention in any system.

There's a ton that the system designer/builder cannot control, and it is what it is. We're not fixing that.

However, it makes zero sense at all to make things worse still, by creating more chances/places for problems.  Particularly when it's incredibly cheap and easy to avoid.

As I've said several times, it makes no difference how much or little it happens, it absolutely will happen, and when it does, it's never going to be a good thing.  Even if it's not "where the bottleneck is for DCS", there is zero point in creating another one, anywhere.

It's funny to me:  People have been saying for who knows how long that it's better to have an SSD than a conventional hard disk, and/or that it's best to have games on a separate drive.

Now we're actually going to contradict all that? LOL one or the other: Either that advice was full of crap then, or advising people to go backwards now is really misguided.

*I* know which is which, but it would seem some don't. 

Edited February 24 by kksnowbear

[Art-J]

I'd say it makes ALL the difference about "how much or little it happens". I used to have DCS on a moderate-size, separate SSD to the system one (and moving it there from a HDD was indeed a revolution). Ran out of space there eventually. Bought much bigger SSD and now system and DCS sit and work on it together because that's the only place where I can put them. But the point is - this switch made no noticeable performance difference whatsoever. 

Thus, even though I know it's not an "optimal" setup, and in a perfect world the game should be on a separate drive, buying yet another DCS-dedicated SSD just to get an extra single FPS here or there (if any), or a handful of stutters less, makes no sense, especially when drives big enough for modded DCS are anything but "increadibly cheap". Diminishing returns and all that.

My old'ish CPU and 3070 are much bigger performance limiters than my SSD nowadays.

[kksnowbear]

OK...first of all, you missed my point. I said "it makes no difference how much or little it happens, it absolutely will happen, and when it does, it's never going to be a good thing."

And it won't be, simple as that.

If you're going to quote me, be good enough to include the entire concept, please.

To say "this switch made no noticeable performance difference whatsoever" hardly constitutes any sort of formal, deterministic test. Your experience is very different from that reported by many others. Of course, putting games on a separate drive won't likely make as much difference as changing from a conventional disk to an SSD.  I never said it would.

Moreover, TBH (and as per your own admission) you had no choice, "because that's the only place where I can put them." So I'd venture your being satisfied with it is likely at least in part because you had to be satisfied with it.  That's not a technical factor, it's an anecdotal, individual, and isolated circumstance.

This is what's wrong with relying on people's (biased) observations instead of real tests and data. What one person finds acceptable, another might not. A guy who is used to a top end gaming system will lose his urge to play if he's forced to use a machine where the game isn't playable in his eyes.

I never said anything about FPS. FPS is not the be all, end all measurement of a system's performance, not by any stretch. And typically storage isn't considered a means to improve FPS, regardless.

Finally, if you've got money to spend on a decent gaming system, what makes no sense is to hobble it with a weak storage subsystem.  Storage is already a weak spot as it is (comparatively), and as I said, theres only so much a system designer/builder can do about that. But just I said, it makes zero sense to make matters worse. I've seen 2TB drives for less than $100, and 1TB for less still. Building a system worth 10x that (or more) but being cheap about storage is building in a weak point, and to me is unwise.

EDIT: I looked at my DCS install.  Open Beta, a few AC modules, Channel Map, Normandy 2.0...my install folder is 230G right now.  That's less than 250G.  For the sake of discussion, let's double it, in case you have a ton of stuff *and* to leave room for updates, so we'll say 500G (and you'd probably still have space available).  I've done some quick looking around and gathered big installations go between 300-500G.

So there it is:  500G.  You can get quality 500G M.2 SSDs for less than $75 brand new these days (I bet I could do better than $50 if I tried even a little).

It's not unreasonable to suggest this is 'incredibly cheap', just as I did - especially considering people who have spent ~$1000 on rudder pedals and other controllers *ahem*, and probably $1000-1500 on their base system.

Edited February 28 by kksnowbear

[SharpeXB]

I currently have DCS installed on the same C drive NVMe as the OS and have never had any trouble. Until recently I had the Open Beta installed on my D SSD and I can’t say this had any issues either or behaved differently. Maybe it was a bit slower to load since this wasn’t as fast of a drive but otherwise no difference. I can’t recall seeing the issue of separate or same drives mentioned by ED as a solution in any of the bug reports or troubleshooting posts either. 

[kksnowbear]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

I can’t recall seeing the issue of separate or same drives mentioned by ED as a solution in any of the bug reports or troubleshooting posts either. 

That has nothing to do with anything, and no one's arguing that.  Straw man.

I'm telling you - factually, whether anyone likes it or not, and regardless of what anyone is observant enough to notice, it absolutely *does* take place, and it absolutely *does* impact the performance of any resource (drives or otherwise).  To suggest otherwise is completely stupid.

I can't believe those actually arguing this point, when people - even novices - have known better for many years now.

(PS: ED does state that for certain levels of performance, an SSD is required.  Anyone familiar with games knows that this is because of the increased performance SSDs provide.  That being the case, it follows logically that any increase in drive performance will help DCS run better and any decrease is going to have an adverse effect.  Hence the ED system requirements.  Multiple processes accessing the same storage device *will* experience delays and thus reduced performance. Therefore, single drive systems *will* create an environment adverse to best performance, period.)

Edited February 25 by kksnowbear

[SharpeXB]

14 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

factually, whether anyone likes it or not, and regardless of what anyone is observant enough to notice, it absolutely *does* take place

So this causes problems that nobody can notice? Then how is it a problem? Honestly some of the stuff you post makes no sense

16 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

ED does state that for certain levels of performance, an SSD is required.

Yes, that’s well understood. That wasn’t the question here.

[Baldrick33]

17 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

it follows logically that any increase in drive performance will help DCS run better and any decrease is going to have an adverse effect.  Hence the ED system requirements.  Multiple processes accessing the same storage device *will* experience delays and thus reduced performance. Therefore, single drive systems *will* create an environment adverse to best performance, period.)

 

Yes it is logical, however, the law of diminishing returns may make any change in drive performance at most negligible. Moving to a SSD drive has a noticeable gain. In my experience moving to a faster nvme drive had no noticeable gain, having DCS on a separate nvme drive compared to running on a SSD with the OS again made no noticeable gain. Things like increasing/faster RAM, CPU & GPU upgrades and optimising Windows to not use those things whilst DCS is running all make the big difference. Once you have DCS on a SSD be it shared with the OS or not the chances of it ever being a bottleneck seem most unlikely.

The theory in general is sound but my experience is it makes no difference to DCS

[kksnowbear]

14 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

Yes it is logical, however, the law of diminishing returns may make any change in drive performance at most negligible

The fact that you used the word "may" here indicates you understand that it being 'negligible' is not given.

16 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

Things like increasing/faster RAM, CPU & GPU upgrades and optimising Windows to not use those things whilst DCS is running all make the big difference. Once you have DCS on a SSD be it shared with the OS or not the chances of it ever being a bottleneck seem most unlikely.

Again, no one's arguing any of these points.  Straw man.

28 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

So this causes problems that nobody can notice?

Didn't say that.  Please read before posting retorts to things I didn't say.

Look, this is really, really simple:  A computer system - any system - absolutely cannot perform any task (even DCS) better if it experiences more resource contention rather than less.  This is an indisputable fact, recognized by the entire IT industry for decades.  If you design/build/buy systems with resource contention 'built-in', then factually you are causing (or worsening) performance issues.

No one's arguing why it might be necessary for someone to only have one drive, or whether it's more economical...that's a totally different matter.

Just because someone - anyone - doesn't notice something does not mean it isn't happening, and it sure as hell doesn't mean it's not causing problems.

This is the problem: People with zero formal training, nor professional experience, acting as if they're experts.  Just because you cannot recognize/admit/understand the issues doesn't mean they aren't there.  Plenty of people died from heart attacks without 'noticing' anything, where having a professional involved would certainly have saved (at least some of) their lives.

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Baldrick33 said:

Moving to a SSD drive has a noticeable gain. In my experience moving to a faster nvme drive had no noticeable gain

An SSD is just going to load the game and/or missions faster. A faster SSD or NVMe more so. That’s really all. 

[Baldrick33]

33 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

This is the problem: People with zero formal training, nor professional experience, acting as if they're experts.  Just because you cannot recognize/admit/understand the issues doesn't mean they aren't there.  

Having worked in IT for many years it is a given you separate the OS and application data on server drives with data intensive applications. Most games aren’t disk io intensive and once you have sufficient performance adding more has zero gain. Of course it doesn’t hurt to separate them just in case but the chances that DCS will be impacted by disk access shared with the OS on a semi decent SSD seem most unlikely based on real world experiences I have seen reported and my own testing.

[kksnowbear]

5 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

An SSD is just going to load the game and/or missions faster. A faster SSD or NVMe more so. That’s really all. 

No that's not all.  You sound just like the "haters" who for years insisted that SSDs were only good for increasing game and level (mission) load times.

Not accurate. And technologies like DirectStorage exist specifically because your assessment is inaccurate. If you were correct, there would be no need for faster drives and newer technologies. Yet they do exist, and they've been developed *because* it is not just about load times.

Been going on for years. Nowadays, even novices know SSDs perform better and it's *not* just about game and level load times. That thinking was wrong 20 years ago, and it's more wrong now.

Of course you wouldnt have "noticed", so obviously the entire PC industry must be wrong (oh, and even consoles, which also benefit from faster storage, newer technologies and eliminating stupid bottlenecks rather than causing or worsening them).

[kksnowbear]

17 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

seem most unlikely

Again, the fact that you continue to use indefinite phrases like "seem most unlikely" means you understand that there's more to it.

Not sure what "IT" you worked in or how long, but if you don't understand resource contention in computer systems, then it's difficult to imagine what exactly your training and experience involved.  I mean, sure, we had guys who "worked in IT" whose job was pretty much changing backup media... sorry if it wasn't clear but I don't think any of them ever gave a moment's thought to things like resource contention. I guess I'm referring more to people who are in a professional capacity responsible for systems design, commissioning, and maintenance.

But here's my favorite part...just to be safe, you turn around and say this:

17 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

Of course it doesn’t hurt to separate them just in case but the chances that DCS will be impacted by disk access

LOL if it's not an issue and zero gain..then why would anyone ever have to worry about it?

Either it's a problem or it's not.

Edited February 26 by kksnowbear

[SharpeXB]

4 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

You sound just like the "haters" who for years insisted that SSDs were only good for increasing game and level (mission) load times.

How is that observation “hating”?

If you could just post calmly in plain language and not go into some off topic rant on everything maybe people could understand you. 

The question here was about any real benefit from putting Windows and DCS on the same or different drives. Thats all. 

[kksnowbear]

The haters were called so because they said people who were early adopters of high speed storage (like me) were wasting money for no benefit. They were wrong then, and now they're the first ones to squawk "Get an SSD"

Just because you don't understand what I'm talking about doesn't mean I'm on some "off topic rant". You hide behind "off topic" every time it's shown you have no idea what you're talking about. Nothing I've said here is off topic, you just don't like it because it shows you're wrong.

Case in point: I noticed your lack of response to the points I made concerning fast storage being about more than just load times.  I showed why you were wrong, and you start with "off topic" again. 

[SharpeXB]

30 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

The haters were called so because they said people who were early adopters of high speed storage (like me) were wasting money for no benefit.

See there you go again. Nobody questioned the value of having an SSD here. That’s not the topic. Not everything needs to be a rant. 

[LucShep]

Fellas, I don't think anyone contests some points being debated here. Some are not even debatable, they're just facts.

Such as "the faster the drive, the better". Or "keeping intensive games in a separate drive" (to avoid the so called "resource contention" mentioned above).
These are all true, as of "being better" strictly speaking, that has not been the point.

The point is.... the debate, for the actual "real life usage and gaming" results, turns into splitting hairs. It really does.
It's like those hot debates about sky high overclocking and refresh rates - diminishing returns ensue.

At a certain point, as of today, it really makes no difference to your gaming experience.
So long as it's a good system, with a good NVME PCie 3.0 and above, it's really hard to see/feel any game choking just because it's installed on same drive as the OS.
Even with the "heaviest" stuff available to the gaming public (DCS is not the only one), this won't be an issue. It won't hamper the experience.

Perhaps in the future, with (even) more intensive game titles it will make a real difference? Who knows?

If you're very strict and anal about your system, willing to have the "the bestest" then, sure. Get a separate (fast) NVMe drive for your intensive games, keep those off the OS drive. That is technically the superior solution.

But does it really make a difference?   
Not for now, it hasn't made any difference in my experience. Similar to what @Baldrick33 and @SharpeXB mentioned above.

I'm sure some logged data may appear disproving it, but it's not something you can empirically notice, really.
And no, one way or the other, it's not a solution or otherwise guarantee for DCS' ocasional stuttering issues (a particularly sensitive aspect in VR) as some may wish to dissect. The problems lie elsewhere.

Edited February 26 by LucShep

[kksnowbear]

52 minutes ago, LucShep said:

Get a separate (fast) NVMe drive for your intensive games, keep those off the OS drive. That is technically the superior solution.

This is really all that need be said.

Simple.

[kksnowbear]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

See there you go again. Nobody questioned the value of having an SSD here. That’s not the topic. Not everything needs to be a rant. 

Dude everything is "off topic" whenever you don't agree...

I was explaining to you what "haters" meant and how it does apply here. You acted just like they did back in the day. You said this:

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

An SSD is just going to load the game and/or missions faster.

And the fact is, that's not correct. I went on to explain that, if it were correct, faster drives would not have evolved as they have, nor would we have newer technologies to improve gaming beyond simple load times, as you stated.

What you said is inaccurate, and the old argument that faster storage only speeds up load times is just not true. (Tell that to the real games, already using DirectStorage right now, today.  Tell the consoles, where its been in use even longer...)

That's what the haters used to say. Those who didn't want to accept they were wrong constantly "hated" on people who knew faster storage was more than just faster load times. "An SSD is just going to load the game and/or missions faster."  Exactly what you said. So, you sound exactly like the haters did.

Funny thing, fast forward a decade, and there's the same people...only now, telling everyone to get SSDs

[SharpeXB]

5 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

And the fact is, that's not correct.

Can a faster SSD give you better frame rates? I’m going to guess no. 

[The_Nephilim]

Hey What would be a good thing to do with the Saved Games folder, put that on a 2nd SSD then the OS Drive?