540°

Digital Foundry: Can SSD Upgrades Boost PS3 Performance?

It's impossible to upgrade the in-game performance on your console, right? Every unit is the same, so the gameplay experience should be identical on every machine out there. While this is true for virtually every games console out there, PlayStation 3 is unique in that you can upgrade the stock hard drive with any kind of replacement you like - and that includes state-of-the-art SSD (solid state disk) technology.

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eurogamer.net
Mr2Good34831d ago

Yea a buddy of mine put a SSD into his ps3, he said it is kinda of faster. I just dont feel the extra money is worth it, they are just to damn expensive. I pulled my 80 gig out of my ps3 and put a regular 320 in.

decrypt4831d ago

Well first they are expensive and second how much percent of game time do we spend at a load screen. Its a very small percent. Hence its a waste of money imo.

It makes better sense on a PC where people need to run a heavy OS.

ChrisW4831d ago

Aside from texture pop-in, don't forget there's area loading as well. Remember Oblivion and the 1 or 2 second load screen every 5 mins when walking through a forest? It's barely even noticeable with a SSD.

So, it's all about what kind of immersion you want and how much you're willing to pay for it. IMO, it's not a waste of money.

RevXM4830d ago (Edited 4830d ago )

Very true but If current gen consoles somehow were launched with SSD of todays standard then games would be designed around and take full advantage of it.

Current gen games arent made with that in mind, but hopefully next gen consoles will come with SSD's and the games and OS will benefit from it.

SSD's should in theory contribute heavily to reduce popins and late streaming to zero loading on models and higher res textures in distances etc with no stress at all.

Also installing, saving and loading games would just take 1/4-5th of the time it does on a HDD depending on the SSD. 500+MB/s perform that well compared to standard Laptop HDDs wich have a max read of 120ish MB per second, but they are also held back by longer access times.

IMO next gen consoles must have SSD's as main drives and perhaps have a secondary slot for expansion.
But I for one would be content with a 240GB SSD for some years even if I downloaded a few games, as time goes on I would need to uppgrade but by then I hope SDD's will be cheap.
FULL AAA games ranges in sizes from 4GB to 15-20GB and that is a lot of games.

Some ps3 games are really big though, but if we can choose a partial or full install then even the biggest games shouldnt take all that much space.

steve30x4830d ago (Edited 4830d ago )

@ Mr2Good3 : In GT5 you spend a lot of time on the loading screen especially with Spec II and starting a race seems to take forever. GT5 is the only game I play on the PS3 so an SSD still wouldn't be worth it for me.

@ RexM : You will only get 500mb/s through SATA III connection. The PS3 is not SATA II so you will only get 250mb/s max.

RevXM4830d ago

@ steve30x

I know the ps3 uses the old sata, If it wasnt clear enough that everything after "SSD should in theory" is about "Next gen" hardware and possibilities and some of my thoughts.
But about the latest SATA it has a 6Gb/s transfer speed which is 750MB/s. Ps3's old sata if Im not mistaken allows only half of that, 3Gb/s.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 4830d ago
mac_sparrow4831d ago

6 months ago I put a 750 in for £40 delivered. Solid State drives are nice, but it's hard to justify the price compared to that.

Series_IIa4831d ago

But now its getting hard to justify the cost of a mechanical drive in general too since the price of a HDD are creeping slowly back up to the £100($150) mark for 1TB again due to the floods in Thailand.

Compared to the £40 I bought mine for beginning of last year.

mac_sparrow4831d ago

Hadn't realised they'd gotten that high again. The only drives I've dealt with recently are at work and bought at education prices.

Tough choice, I think I'd still go with the mechanical though, but then I have used over 300GB on my ps3 through games alone.

KUV19774831d ago

Well the loading of ingame assets as demonstrated in the videos in the article is pretty nice but i agree that it is not worth the price of admission.

kaveti66164831d ago

For PC the load times are unbelievably fast with SSDs. I spent the last two years on a netbook so for me load times were very slow. But recently I got a high end PC with an SSD and I press the the power button and in 6 seconds my computer is on and ready with all start up programs like Trillian already on. Only drawback is that it's so fast my internet doesn't have time to power on before all my internet related programs do.

V0LT4831d ago (Edited 4831d ago )

Agree. I just installed a Crucial M4 128gb (Sata 6gb) in mine for a boot drive with a fresh copy of WIn 7 64bit now that the prices have came down. It is still a bit pricey per gb that you get but I think it is well worth it. From the time I press the power button im in Windows in 6 seconds ready to roll. Programs load so much faster too.

ChrisW4831d ago

Also agree. I have an Intel 80Gb for my C: and an Intel 160Gb for game drive. Oh, don't forget that SATA3 cables can help with transfer rates... Of course if your motherboard doesn't support SATA3, you can still use them but you won't get the 6Gb/s transfer rate.

SATA1 = 1.5Gb/s transfer rate. (standard)
SATA2 = 3Gb/s transfer rate.
SATA3 = 6Gb/s transfer rate.

dedicatedtogamers4831d ago

I have a pair of SSDs in RAID on my PC and it's hella fast. It's too bad that consoles don't have the power to take advantage of the technology, and they probably won't be able to take advantage of it next gen, either, not unless 5+ GB installs become a standard.

Conzul4831d ago

I just bought a Seagate Momentus XT (hybrid drive, is part SSD part HDD). Supposedly just as good as an SSD but with 750gb capacity. ~$180, replaces the 160gb that came with my limited edition Ps3.

Was going to get a 120gb SSD but they end up costing the same, and tests done so far indicate that the hybrid drive has like 90% of the performance of a straight up SSD (probably due to the fact that there's actually 6gb of actual SSD in it).

ChrisW4831d ago

So how do you use the 6Gb SSD? Games like Skyrim take close to 9Gbs.

davekaos4830d ago

The 6Gb is a storage cache for writing data so instead of the disk being hammered it will queue its jobs in the cache. Nothing is installed on that 6gb

Miacosa4831d ago

These tests have been done to death since the advent of SSD. The result is always the same for the amount of money you spend and the limited amount of storage they provide versus the few milliseconds if any of benefit makes this entire endeavor futile.

Conzul4831d ago

As far as the ps3 is concerned, yes.

PC is a whole 'nother ball park.

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130°

Why Dark Souls 2 Deserves a Second Chance in 2025

As difficult and frustrating as it is, people should consider reliving the Dark Souls 2 experience, especially because of what's coming to the game.

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gamerant.com
PrimeVinister1d 10h ago

Many of those who hate Dark Souls II hate it because it's not Dark Souls. The same people love Dark Souls III because it isn't Dark Souls II.

And so many of the issues at the centre of common complaints about DS2 are present in DS3 and sometimes even DS1. The hatred and bile spewed over this perfectly decent game is ludicrous.

CrimsonWing691d 9h ago

I don’t think it’s a terrible game, but like a movie sequel by a different director, for me, it does NOT capture any of the “magic” felt from the Miyazaki entries. Boss battles don’t feel epic, environments don’t have the same sense of awe, the enemy variety isn’t particularly interesting, the art direction just feels bland, about the only thing I can give it praise for is some of the music.

Now, again, this is only how I feel about it, so I’m not trying to invalidate his you feel about the game, but it is the worst entry in the series due to those factors and it’s the least re-visited entry, for me.

Is it decent as a game on its own? Sure. But in comparison to the Miyazaki entries, it does not stack up and I believe that’s where many were disappointed with it.

PrimeVinister1d 6h ago

Completely fair. I cannot disagree either, mate.

MrWood1d 7h ago (Edited 1d 7h ago )

You can also play it in VR flawlessly on PC & controller with the LukeRoss mod so… another reason to jump back in with extra immersion.

jznrpg1d 7h ago

It’s not a bad game it’s just not as good as the others

Shadow Man18h ago

The controls felt very clunky to me, I tried playing it after beating Darksouls 3 and it didn’t feel fluid, obviously the hit detection is less superior for been an older game.

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80°

15 Years Ago, Skate 3 Marked the End of an Era

Today marks the 15th birthday of Skate 3, a truly special entry in EA's seminal skateboarding trilogy, and the last true AAA skateboarding game.

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gamerant.com
Abear2122h ago

Best skateboarding game ever made

Yi-Long1d ago

Agreed. Skate 3, Def Jam FFNY, Black, Burnout 3, NBA Street v3, TimeSplitters FP, SSX3, Mirror’s Edge, etc etc. Fantastic era, and after that EA just dropped off completely.

90°

How Sony Fixed Their PS3 Launch Mistakes

This is the story of how the creators of the all-time best selling console almost crippled its own successor’s early life.

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culturedvultures.com
ABizzel12d ago

They retired Ken Kutaragi, moved away from overly expensive custom hardware, and went with more traditional hardware available to the market and listened to developer needs.

Profchaos1d 3h ago

It's true but also PlayStation publicly came out and stated third party wasn't important to them.

ironic that what worked for them the previous generation caused them significant pain in the subsequent one.

The PS2 was actually a significant challenge to develop for far worse than the PS1 ever was but the competition at the time was struggling so much they couldn't make up the ground Dreamcast had a stigma of being a last gen console by the time the PS2 came around and looked inferior compared to games like grab Turismo 3, the GameCube and Xbox were still a ways away and PlayStation had the reputation as being the place to play it was a perfect storm for them and the GTA games not coming to Dreamcast and Sony's embrace really helped.

Third party basically drove PlayStation yi success over more capable consoles Xbox may have looked better at the time but it didn't have GTA 3, vc, Sa or the stories games the mainline entries didn't hit the Xbox until many years after being on PlayStation.

Then the PS3 with it's cell architecture ramped it up again and just hurt Devs they didn't focus on the GPU as much as they should have and they didn't realise their deals they made with IBM could have resulted in the cell architecture being shared with Microsoft which it was and it did help them develop the 360

But really the 90s and 2000s were a wild time for game consoles now it's a little boring it's all off the shelf components and everything is mostly the same

gunnerforlife1d 5h ago

After losing so many 3rd party exclusives, they buckled down and concentrated on amazing first party games! God of war 3, Killzone 2, resistance, uncharted, the last of us, MgS4, little big planet, demon souls and so many more games!! They won the gamers back by playing smart! Even though the media and all big gaming websites from ign, gamespot, kotaku etc were all against it!! I had fun with ps2, but it's ps3 where I really grew up and had the time of my life.

BlackCountryBob19h ago

It’s weird to look back on how even today the games media narrative was stuck in 2006 to say it was overpriced and had no games which was outsold by 360 (all incorrect).

In many ways, it’s similar to how the Xbox One was never really able to move past the launch even though after a year or so it was an entirely different proposition (but Microsoft didn’t do nearly as good a job as Sony did to recover IMO).

gunnerforlife2h ago

I'm glad it received the hate from western media! It humbled them quite a lot and forced them to buckle down and concentrate where it mattered most! Games games games!! And they learned a lot from their mistakes with ps3 and they made one of the greatest consoles ever in ps4!!

So true! Where Sony realised their mistakes and corrected everything, MS were either too arrogant to change course or just didn't have the tools/capabilities to correct course and get back to basics! Games games games! Which is sad because with no rival, Sony this generation has stagnated a lot!! This generation is a write off in my books!!!

OhReginald15h ago

I was committed to that whole generation. What turned Ps3 around from being a failure to a success was in 2009 with the releases of the first ps3 slim model with a cheaper price tag, the kevin butler marketing campaign, and a ton of 1st party AAA games that were critically acclaimed and loved by the fans like Uncharted 2 (this was a bigger deal than the first game), Killzone 2 (91 on metacritic), inFamous, LittleBigPlanet (a serious threat to mario at the time), Demon's Souls( it was very niche but the word of mouth and gamespots goty award helped it and helped ps3). The big game everyone that bought a ps3 was waiting for was mgs4 in 2008 and GT5 in 2010. Anyways I think the ps3 was way ahead of its time with the games I mentioned above and breakout hits like the last of us.