NXE Game to Hard Drive Install Chart - So how much time are you saving?

Rather than put credits at the bottom of this, Binge Gamer would like to give full thanks right here at the top to: Spidey987 at The AVForums, SynGamer at CheapAssGamer, Sean at NeoGAF, and any gamers in those threads who help contributed information.

All that was done here is put their collected information chart form. The chart will be updated as much as possible, drop a comment if you know how much time is saved on a particular game.

[PirateThom]

Halo 3 - "Load times are apparently worse (10 seconds longer) when installed"

lol

I think this is because Halo 3 creates a cache on the 360 anyway, so it's effectively trying to run the data from two portions of the hard drive.

[gaffyh]

Why the f*** is every website talking about installing games on 360 all of a sudden? It's annoying, I have a 20GB (or 13GB really), with something like 7GB free, I'm NOT going to install a game on that, and even if I was going to I'd only be able to install one game.

I expect that most 360 owners are in the same boat (well everyone with an old Premium 360). If that is the most major feature of NXE I don't give a sh*t, and I really don't care about Avatars either.

[HighDefinition]

The irony.

[Gandhi69]

As a ps3 owner, I don't think we can give X-Box fans are hard time about this.

reason 1: They have a choice to install or not, they can decide if the benefit of installing is worth it for themselves, where we do not have a choice.

reason 2: One disadvantage of Blu-Ray (in terms of installing on the HD) is that it might end up being that the games will be much larger, and the option to install becomes less and less viable (50 GB install for MGS4? No thanks..).

[FantasyStar]

That is where I would decide to upgrade my HDD Gandhi. That's one thing PS3 has over 360 no matter what: The choice of HDD. Even though BR is destined to bring bigger games, we can definitely fit all of them on our 320GB HDDs or better yet, SSDs. Yes the PS3's memory controller definitely supports it and the dramatic increase in speed is welcomed. As of now, I consider 360's optional installs better than PS3's mandatory installs. What leaves me bitter was that Sony had 2 years to bring us the full-game install promised before PS3 Launch, yet I haven't seen any game, other than launch titles: give us full-game installs.

I love my 360 that much more. TBH

[Richdad]

You are right abt full installs, but the new technique developed are favourable for Disc, using highly compressed textures and geometry and that is directly given to the renderer and it gets you result which would have seen with 4 GB of RAM on current consoles. Soon most games will have really high res textures and details and huge open world even while streaming from Disc.
But the positive point of full game install is safegaurd of game and disc also if a disc gets a little scratched and is not proper for high speed streaming used now a days, HDD install is a boon.

[JOLLY1]

It would have been nice if they had more games tested

[Pennywise]

The load time you are saving does not seem like it is worth the HDD space it will take up. 3-9GB......

Some of the load time saves are impressive like Lost Oddesy, but come on... Lost Odyssey 23.2GB 2 times faster playing off HDD

23.2GB INSTALL????? wowzers.

[whoelse]

Yes some games its more worthwile than others.

[joydestroy]

Mass Effect is definitely a game i'll be installing. i stopped playing it because of that lame loading crap. it just got soooo annoying.

[Heldrasil]

4 DVD's...huge game, but install would be worth it!

[Charlie2688]

@joydestroy: Read the Eurogamer test (that so far has been the best since they actually know what they are talking about) for Mass Effect that while the load times were slightly reduce NON of the technically problems were fixed or reduced (as some people magically hoped they would)

[joydestroy]

From the Teamxbox Forums:

Mass Effect Install Test

Credit: Emenis

Disc Test:

Loading Final Boss Battle:

Load One: 11secs
Load Two: 11Secs
Load Three: 11secs
Load Four: 11 secs
Load Five: 11 secs

Texture Load:

Load One: 3 secs
Load Two: 3 secs
Load Three: 3 secs
Load Four: 3 secs
Load Five: 3 secs

Mass Effect Install Test:

Install Time: 11 Minutes

Loading Game:

Load One: 7secs (-4 Secs)
Load Two: 7secs (-4 Secs)
Load Three: 8secs (-3 Secs)
Load Four: 7secs (-4 Secs)
Load Five: 6secs (-5 Secs)

Texture Load:

Load One: 3 secs
Load Two: 2 secs (-1 Sec)
Load Three: 2 secs (-1 Sec)
Load Four: 2 secs (-1 Sec)
Load Five: 1 sec (-2 Sec)

Presidium

Presidium Save Load Time:

Disc AVG: 12 Secs
Install Avg: 9 Secs

Presidium Save Texture Popin:

Disc Avg: 4 secs
Install Avg: 2secs

FROM EUROGAMER
Initial Loading 25.5 seconds TO 20.5 seconds
Starting New Career 14 seconds TO 10 seconds
Normandy Quarters 12.5 seconds TO 10 seconds
Citadel Upper Wards 16 seconds TO 14 seconds

Ever since the concept of installing Xbox 360 games to hard disk was first mooted, the big "what if" has always been just how much better Mass Effect would be were it running from a medium faster than optical disc. The game's infamous for its protracted elevator rides (aka background disc loading), texture pop-in and gameplay glitches seemingly concurrent with DVD reading. Unfortunately of all the games tested in this feature, Mass Effect is the only one I've not really played before at all. Therefore, in the schedule allotted, the best I could do was to play the beginning of the game from both DVD and HDD.

Like Fable II, Mass Effect has tangible advantages running from hard disk, but unfortunately the NXE installation feature isn't the all-powerful Elder Wand required to magically erase Mass Effect's many technical issues. To begin with it's basically the same game with identical performance - texture pop-in doesn't seem so much removed, as relocated. I was unable to quantify this aspect of the game between the two video captures I recorded; when and where the pop-in occurred remained entirely arbitrary between both versions. I'm told that the texture pop-in becomes far more of an issue the further you play the game, so my observations here are far from conclusive - but I can't see running from HDD actually having a detrimental affect, and the advantages are well worth the installation.

First of all, in several occasions during my playtest, it became obvious that the DVD couldn't keep up with the player's progress. This would manifest in on-screen pauses and glitches accompanied by a mechanical form of protest from the DVD drive, at worst resulting in the game momentarily freezing with a 'loading' prompt helpfully explaining what was going on. In the same places, the HDD-installed version proved to be flawless. Unfortunately, there are no differences in the duration of the teeth-grindingly annoying elevator rides - clearly these were hard-coded in as opposed to being measured based on the data rate of the streaming.

So the jury's still out on Mass Effect, and it'll be interesting to see what kinds of improvement you guys who've got the saved games I wish I had see with this release. In the meantime, these meagre loading time observations will have to do...

the loading pauses that happen while playing is what i'm hoping to get rid of. everything else is fine with me. there just shouldn't be any CONSTANT in-game loading like there currently is in this game.

[Richdad]

I dont know exactly how Eurogamer tested the game when I did I found that textures popins and menu loading time and sudden load time where substantially reduced. They might be talking abt the technical flaw of the game like characters blocked in a wall or sudden frame rate drops in heavy action sequences.

[Charlie2688]

@Richdad: I think I and Eurogamer are talking about the constant mention of people in various gaming sites saying that the use of a HDD for mass effect will magically fix all of the problems like the already debunked elevator ride reduced times the non disc search framerate issues or brutal slowdowns (for example how the game becomes a slide show when you fight those "dogs" in that colony) or the fact that you can only do so much for the texture pop in for UE3 games (hell even the PC version of Mass Effect and Gears of War has occasional texture pop in and that is with REAL installs) same goes for the peple that keep on insisting that the 360 ISO loader magically improves graphics or adds/upgrades textures >.>

cuz at the end there is so much an ISO loader can do without a real install being made by the dev with the specific needs of a game by game basis in mind

[GUNS N SWORDS]

don't really care what they compare, i got some of my own games that i want to test.

7 more days till NXE.

[Richdad]

Load times are not reduced incredibly but some things are really good about this feature first that install is fast and doesnt takes much time . Also my 2 game GTA4 and NG2 were heavily scratched due mishandling NG2 load times where gone high and a lot of hicccps was there in the gameplay and audio felt to be lagging at cutscenes. GTA4 it gave me nightmares the textures of roads and buliding where not there sometimes.
Then I did this install thing with early preview update that came a week or sometime back and loaded these games, GTA4 is running with very low popins which are not noticeable and the game runs smooth and NG2 wow, the load times are gone down to half the orignal and the game runs without any hiccups or so, menus and cutscenes are seamless now. Also I have noticed that some fine details like stains on walls and similar details are now visible, these details where not visible earlier.
Also one more good thing is that your DVD drive is not running all the time so its life is prolonged.
I think seamless games or games with complex level design which stream continuosly should be installed. But games which load a level at once time like SC4,DMC4, Dark Sector and stream only momenterily are good enough with Disc.
Also I have tried Mass Effect via install and the improvements in that game are remarkable. The texture popins and frame rate hiccups are significantly reduced.

[ActionBastard]

Just doesn't seem worthwhile to me.

[v1c1ous]

doesnt seem worthwhile?

[ActionBastard]

Correct. The OPTION to eat away 3-20GB of HDD space to shave 6-12 seconds off a game load doesn't seem worthwhile. Being optional is irrelevant.

[Richdad]

YOur drive life is incrased by 3 folds atleast and also the DVD spin sound is gone. Current games save only 4-5 secs since they where not made with this feature in mind, but in time the upcoming games will be doing it much better, and games runing from HDD will be loading much faster than from those running from disc.

[jkoz]

Unless you install all four discs of Lost Odyssey or any other multi-disc game (which you don't need to, you only need to install the disc you're using atm), there's no way a game would take up 20GB. The most it would take is ~7GB and even then we see a lot of games that are less than this. It's absolutely worth it, as mentioned above it saves your drive speed, and in data intensive games like LO, it does make a difference in loading. If you want your DVD drive to die faster and have M$ charge you to replace it, then have fun. The rest of us will play our games like they were meant to be played.

[ActionBastard]

The whole drive speed argument doesn't matter to me. No one cared about saving DVD drives or reducing drive noise last year...or the year before.

"The rest of us will play our games like they were meant to be played."

If that were true, this feature wouldn't have been added 3yrs later. Regardless, if spending 11 minutes installing a game that only saves you a few seconds of loading is your thing, go for it.

[jkoz]

I'm not "spending" any time installing. There's this thing called the world. I don't need to do anything for it to install, I can walk away and let it do its thing and come back whenever. I can make a sandwich or do whatever else I was already planning on doing. Obviously they saw a need to offer the option and plenty of people are embracing the feature with open arms. I'm sure they didn't just decide to do that this year; the complaints have been many and they developed a solution, which took time. Yes, it's too bad that it took so long, but I don't understand how you can say that nobody complained about drive speed or noise in the past, because I've definitely heard plenty.

[bigman7387]

Wow look at Halo 3 and PGR4. Thats weird for that to happen.

Any idea why this is?

[xhairs9]

You must give in order to receive.

[Bnet343]

I don't care for loads time. I have my PC next to me checking out N4G while loading occurs so I always have something to keep me busy. Anyway, I don't think I'll be doing this. Maybe for a big game like Oblivion or Fallout 3 I can understand.

[Arsenal4Ever]

so these are the sizes for all the 360 games? If COD4 and the like were exclusive to PS3 I wonder what the sizes'll be.... probably like 15GB+.

Anyways what does XXX mean?

[joydestroy]

means not tested so no information can be given.

[Si-Pie]

Yeah doubt I will bother with most games. Maybe put 1 or 2 on like Oblivion or Fallout 3 but thats it. What I find interesting is the size of most of the games. Most are under 7GB.

[joydestroy]

how the f*ck is crackdown not supported!?!? takes for ever to load that b!tch and i STILL love playing that game.

EDIT: and i know a lot of PS3 people don't like installs, but i wish they let us do a full install as well. prolonging the rom drive is a really huge benefit.

[rev20]

Just bought a 360 today with GoW2 :o

[joydestroy]

XBL: joydestroy

[rev20]

Kool ill add you my xbl: seanb21

[anubis12]

personally for me load times are find i have never had problems waiting....for me its great for the quieter drive...and netflix. i will only install a few select games though. and then beat and delete. lol

its been a great year for gamers..

as that left is lame and pointless screen/video comparisons lol

[Aclay]

To me it seems like anyone with a 360 that plans on installing most of the games they already have or most of the games they plan on getting might as well get a 120GB Hard drive because the hard drive space will get eaten up quick.

LOL, I can't even imagine how big the optional install will be for Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360. If Lost Odyssey is a 23GB installation, I'm thinking that FFXIII on the 360 will be at least 25GB-30GB or more. SE said that they are taking full advantage of the Blu-ray on the PS3, so I'm pretty sure that FFXIII will be a 50GB game on a Dual Layered Blu-ray and that will translate to a large optional install for the 360.

[tk]

Not so long ago the PS3 was heckled for a 5GB install...
Now the XB360 has 23GB installs...
So it is all OK now?
Oh... all right then...

[joydestroy]

i personally like the required small installs for the PS3 and wish they had optional FULL installs like the 360 will now because i'd upgrade my PS3 hard drive and install every last game i own on it.

[Richdad]

Giving PS3 mandatory installs was a good idea some games really show the differnece. I purchased PS3 near about 2 weeks ago and played some games , although the games looked similar to 360 but the frame rate hiccups where not there which is present ( although momentarily) in most of the games which have large seamless world in 360 (except GTA4).

[The Lazy One]

it was heckled for MANDATORY installs.

[ud]

?

[HighDefinition]

23GBs.

I`d say atleast a HR, for that one.

5Gbs is about 15mins usually.

[Richdad]

6.8 GB thats the maximum space taken by anygame of 360 and it takes near about 10-11 mins to install a game of that size. Also why are people going crazry for 23 hours LO. It is 4 disc so install disc one by one and deleting the old installs, you can play it if you even have 7GB space left.
4 discs are separate right and boot on there own and all are 12-16 hr long.

[Socom]

But in reality, their fking library of loading times are HORRENDOUS.

See people, the truth comes out eventually.

40 seconds load times just to play a subpar...rofl MISERABLE experience confirmed. Load in.

[AngryTypingGuy]

Actually I've read many instances where 360 loading times are better, even without HDD installation. This is due partly to the slow loading times of Blu Ray. I'm personally excited for the faster loading times, but most of all having the 360 be super-quiet when playing it.

P.S. - You're a retard.

[Blades08]

Does anyone have load times for HD installs on Xbox Live for online play? I do notice at times when playing Gears 2 or Rainbow Six 2, that textures are still loading when your starting a level or map and it takes 5-10 seconds for it to catch up. I think HD installs it will make this go away, just curious.

At the minimum, installs will prevent discs from scratching up as much, quiet the box down, lessen the wear and tear on the dvd player. Just a good overall option, in my opinion.

[NaiNaiNai]

heres the other thing i pointed out last time with someone.
while this is good for some of the games loads. the best part is since its a full install, you dont read from the disk. well we already new that. heres what alot of people are overlooking

you ever lent a game to a friend or family member or something like that. you got it back scratched and messed up. so it wouldn't play. well if you installed it on the HDD all you need to do is have the disk in the tray and the game will still work.
T_T my sister did that to the Midnightclub 4 i had. i installed it the same day *by luck* i let her borrow it. she came back a day later with a drop ring on it. *drop ring is my def of the ring when someone moves the system with the game in it.* well i was pissed, but i wanted to see if it still worked, well sure enough it did. i wanted to see if it was because of the HDD. so i took it to my friends house and tried to load it on his. loaded up tried to race and it froze. 3 trys and it didn't work.
so not only will it increase most load times, but it will also make it to where your game is still playable if someone messes it up.
-nai-

[doshey]

ya a problem with 360s dvds, not with blu ray

[NaiNaiNai]

you fail. ever format of disk gets scratchs. protective layers only go so far. and a scratch on a ps3 disk *or cut* would wipe more data then it would on the a standard dvd.
-nai-

[lokiroo420]

Yeah protective layers go so far as to prevent dvd type scratches, hence not one scratch on any of my games.

[titntin]

Like most people my 20gig drive is simply not enough to justify the install, and the reduced load times hardly make it worth the while.

HOWEVER - one of the most annoying things about the 360 is extraordinary racket the drive makes as you are playing. Not an issue during the day when you can have the volume up, but when my wife goes to bed and I want to turn the volume way down, its almost impossable. HD install stops any DVD noise, and its quite appealing for that reason alone...

[danofpaco]

I'm looking forward to this feature just to not hear my dvd drive anymore. That sucker gets loud. The faster loading is just icing on the cake for me. But I have a 120GB HDD and I can see how the 20 gig owners wouldn't be too thrilled by this.

If I had a 20 gig and there was enough room, I would still install my "main" game at the time. Just so I can finally game in silence. Actually, if I had a 20 gig, I would mow lawns or shovel snow off driveways or do back-alley illicit deeds until I had enough extra coin to buy a bigger hard drive.

There are 3rd party solutions out there that back up your hard drive . . . ie you can delete stuff off it and always copy iit back later, essentially making the amount of stuff you can download to your XBOX endless.

Happy gaming everyone!

[Captain Tuttle]

No disc drive noise or wear and tear. Load times aren't that big of a deal to me.

[Immortal Kaim]

Question: Are HDD's compatible with any region? I want a 120gb drive but they are way to expensive here. Anyway know a decent price? Thanks

[supremacy]

off topic any one here knows how can i get a beta code for killzone 2? anyone?

[darthv72]

I am more amazed at the listed install sizes of these games.
GTA4 6.8gb
DMC4 6.7gb
SCIV 5.9gb
VF5 4.7gb

These are just a few of the higher profile multiplatform games. They all fit on a DVD9..WTF are sony doing with the rest of that high capacity blu disc? I know it isnt so much on sony as it is the devs but come on. I am expecting these companies to use at least half of a single layer disc to start with.

It would make me feel better if they were using uncompressed audio and uncompressed textures. Yet I get the feeling they arent. What are some of the bigger games that use the blu to better its capacity?

[tk]

1. When RRoD is sorted out
2. When disk scratching is a thing of the past
3. When the DVD's come with the same protective coating as BR

At that point I will consider the XB360. It has a great lineup of games... but I am not having scratched disks, a DVD drive that sounds like a DC10 on takeoff, and an overheating beast that will either set fire to the house or RRoD when the action picks up. With HD installs - a 300GB disk will be a must, and of course - controller with the Playstation button layout. Tried out the XB360 at some shops - and dunno - from PS2 to PS3 just got too used to the controller.

[Bullseye]

and you know it!

[Bullseye]

it's great news to have the option of hdd installs,the improvements in loading times looks pretty piss poor to me. Wouldn't you expect much greater reductions than suggested in this chart?