What is the best SSD for Arma 2 OA

[crot]

I'm considering on getting a 120GB SSD since it finally fits into my budget. I'm planning to use it mostly for gaming(BF3, Arma 2, PR), the HDD for work and multimedia. So can anyone suggest an optimal 120GB SSD specifically for Arma 2 OA within a roughly $100-$170 price range?

And is it like the same basic OS installation process as on HDD?
Thanks.

[Knallkopp_02]

I have got this SSD

OCZ Vertex3 2,5" SSD 120 GB

and i am very happy with this "monster".

read/write: 550 / 500 MB/s

Installation ist the same as with a normal HDD, only a little bit faster. I have got my OS on the SSD and it took me 20 minutes to install Win 7 with all drivers.

regards Knallkopp_02

[LITOralis.nMd]

You are asking specifically for an ARMA 2 SSD.
You want a few things from your new SSD,
1. reliability.
2. sustained IOPS.
3. Toggle NAND is best, synchronous NAND 2nd Best.


For now, Samsung 830 SSD 128 GB and the Plextor M3 128 GB is the optimal of all three. The Crucial M4 128 comes in a close third.
If you care less about the possibility of the SSD suddenly crashing, you can switch to any of the 120 GB second-gen SandForce SSDs with Toggle NAND or synchronous NAND, and get better peak IOPS performance and slightly noticeable lower average sustained FLOPS..

Then you can move to the asynchronous NAND SSDs that are cheaper but will cause some stutter if you fly in Arma2. This is a good value solution if you do not have a CPU and GPU that can max Arma2's settings. This is the solution I use, I also have a Vertex3 for Arma2.

Keep this in mind, Arma2 OA will peak at ~120,000 IOPS, which can only be achieved by using SEVERAL SSDs in a RAID 0 solution. That is freaking expensive, I doubt many of the PRAA guys are doing this. Keep in mind, no matter how much money you throw at a gaming PC built for Arma2, the Arma2 engine benchmark utility will make you cry.

[crot]

Thanks a lot guys for the suggestions. Initially I was looking at the wrong ones. Thank God for PR forums.

Just out of curiosity, Litoris, what's your PC specs? And how smooth do you run your arma 2? I know that SSDs don't improve FPS, but I heard something about the HDDs bottlenecking the full potential of the video card, even if its pretty decent.

I have i5 2500K 3.3 ghz at 4.3 ghz
8 GB DDR3
GTX 460

[MaSSive]

I cant say about SSD, but I can for Ramdrive which is somewhat related. I practice using it to place most used world pbo's to it before I start up the game. I can say I got 15-20FPs boost with ramdrive on takistan/chernarus a bit less.

So youre right that HDD is bottlenecking, and is causing FPS drops, and in some worse scenarios stuttering. I dont have machine as powerful as you do, but I do see the difference when I play. In future I will invest in more RAM rather than SSD ( too much expensive still here ) to further improve performance.

[LITOralis.nMd]

When playing Arma2 I am running:
on HDD:
win7x64
Teamspeak/Vent

on Vertex 3 64gb:
Arma2

CPU: Q9550 stock speed.
GPU: Radeon HD5770 slightly overclocked 920/1320
8GB DDR2 RAM.
I have a 1920x1080 monitor but play at 1440x900 to lower the demand on my video card.

My Arma2 is NOT that playable. I get weird rendering problems that make it very hard to locate enemy targets. Textures randomly change tone and shade, enough so that it steals my visual attention. This has to do with my GPU.

I do get a sustained 30 FPS. Only under the most complex firefights in urban settings do I drop under 24FPS at moments.

The bottleneck issue is real, and very very noticeable. On my PC I first installed Arma2 on a 3rd HDD a older WD Raptor 10,000rpm 150GB , crazy amounts of stutter and terrain warping during rendering, especially when driving/flying at full speed.

On your PC, if you buy a SSD, you will be able to max out the gtx 460, which will give you very enjoyable level of smoothness during rendering.

Massive does have a good point, if you have a motherboard with 4 RAM slots, you could go about buying 16GB, 24GB (not optimal as it's not paired), or 32 GB of RAM, and buy a RamDisk software. That can provide something like 200,000+ peak IOPS and over 120,000 (or even significantly more) sustained IOPS. RamDisk also has almost no latency if ou buy a good Ramdisk software pacakge, the SSD I/O read latency does cause very slight stutter, not enough that it affects gameplay. I am NOT an expert on this, you should read these threads if you decide to investigate this idea:

Here's how I got ARMA2 to perform smoothly using RAMDISK
ArmA 2 I/O analysis results

You should definitely download the Arma2 IOPS testing tool here if you buy the SSD or more RAM:
ArmA_2_IO_Analysis_v0.22.zip

On the internet there are extensive testing reviews of different RamDisks to use for Arma2, I haven't looked at that for almost 8 months, so not sure which Ramdisk software is now the best available.

[mangeface]

litoralis, how good is this Kingston Hyper X (I'm probably going to go with the Upgrade Bundle Kit, the $150 one)? It has a high IOPS and great feedback

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239049http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%2050011776%20600038484&IsNodeId=1&name=Kingston%20HyperX

I'm thinking of putting 2 of them in my desktop once I get the cash together to get rid of my FX-8150 (unhappy with the performance) and put in a i5 or i7 (I'm thinking of i7-3930K for some killer ultra killer performance when ARMA 3 comes out) and Crossfire 2 7970s. I'll be using 1 for OS, the other for A2 and DCS: Black Shark (since they are the 2 most graphic intense games I have and A2 uses a lot of space once you start putting in all the mods) and then using my 60GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD for PR:BF2 and other little things.

[LITOralis.nMd]

I have no hands on experience with the Kingston Hyper X. Your google search will give you the same search results I'll get.

Make sure to search online for stability on the latest firmware, it is using a Sandforce controller.

[zamani532]

Don't waste your money on making a Ramdisk, SSD's perform the same in ArmA2 and are cheaper per GB.

[MaSSive]

Don't waste your money on making a Ramdisk, SSD's perform the same in ArmA2 and are cheaper per GB.

Thats quite brave statement. Have you been reading though thread?

You can get ramdisk software for free to create up to 4gb size ramdisk, and only thing you need to buy is 4gb of ram. Place only most used PBOs there and you will see performance increase, and ram is way faster than any SSD on the market.

Free ramdisk software has no feature of save at shutdown so make sure you move your files back at shutdown, not to lose anything, or make copies when you move them to safe location.

Moving this to hardware support.

[LITOralis.nMd]

FYI: DataRam RamDisk has a save on shutdown feature, and a 4GB max ramdisk size in the free version.

[zamani532]

Thats quite brave statement. Have you been reading though thread?

You can get ramdisk software for free to create up to 4gb size ramdisk, and only thing you need to buy is 4gb of ram. Place only most used PBOs there and you will see performance increase, and ram is way faster than any SSD on the market.

Free ramdisk software has no feature of save at shutdown so make sure you move your files back at shutdown, not to lose anything, or make copies when you move them to safe location.

Moving this to hardware support.

120GB ssd's are really cheap, he should just get a SSD.
There is hardly any difference in OA with ramdisk to SSD.

[LITOralis.nMd]

A DDR3 1333/1600 RamDisk that is holding all the texture files is much faster than two of the better consumer level SATA6 SSDs in RAID 0.

Anyways, to the Original Poster, go with the SSDs, you'll get more use out of the hardware over the long term than the extra RAM option.

[MaSSive]

FYI: DataRam RamDisk has a save on shutdown feature, and a 4GB max ramdisk size in the free version.

Well Ive been using Ramdisk from Super Speed and it has no this function. Thanks for info Ill check this one out.

[zamani532]

I don't think ramdisk will make much of a difference from an SSD since for some reason servers cap view distance at 3000m in PR.

[Sebolatius]

Hey guys,

Sorry for posting in this old thread, but I think you guys could help me with your experience.
I currently think about buying a new SSD for Arma. The Problem is, there is no native SATA3-Controller installed on my Mainboard (Gigabyte 790FXTA-UD5), there is only a third party chip from marvel installed which doesn't provide full SATA3 bandwidth/speed.

That are my system specs:
AMD Phenom II 965 (C3) @ 4012 Mhz, (NB: 2596 Mhz, HT: 2360 Mhz)
2x2GB Kingston DDR-2000 CL8 @ 1573 Mhz (6-6-6-18-CR1T) | Thermolab Baram + 2xScythe SY1225SL12HPVC
Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5 | HIS HD5870 2GB Eyefinity6 (@ 900/5200 Mhz)
Intel X25-M G2 Postville 80GB | Corsair VX 550W | LG Flatron W2452V

I know think about buying either a second-hand OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 240GB drive on ebay because I will get a better bandwith via the PCI-Express Slot or a new SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD 256GB which has better 4K read speeds than the OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2. But the OCZ RevoDrive has a better 4K-64Thrd read and also a better sequential read Bandwidth.
The sequential read speads of the SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD would probably be limited to ~380 MB/s sequential read speeds and ~200 MB/s 4K-64 Thrd speeds because of the non-native third party sata3-marvel-chip on my mainboard.

Which SSD will provide me a better performance in Arma 2/3 your perspective? Should i get a new SanDisk which is cheaper and has probably a better 4K read speed or should i get the OCZ RevoDrive 3 which is even if I buy it used in ebay more expensive and has probably only better sequential and 4K-64Thrd read speeds?

Which specifications are better for Arma 2/3 performance?

Thanks in Advance!

Cheers,
Sebolatius

[LITOralis.nMd]

simply put, it depends on your price sensitivity.

Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5
Gigabyte 790FXTA-UD5 (Samsung SSD connected on Marvel 88E9128 + Microsoft AHCI Driver causes games to freeze)

Your Marvell SATA is no faster than onboard Sata2.

I think you are on the right track, the OCZ RevoDrive OCZSSDPX-1RVD0230 PCI-E 230GB or an equivalent model is probably your best bet if you can justify the extra cost.

[Sebolatius]

[removed text]
What do you think about the OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2?

Maybe I will just wait until some more good PciExpress SSDs are released... Some companies just released some Enterprise models, but they are still very expensive...

[Fighting17]

I have got this SSD

OCZ Vertex3 2,5" SSD 120 GB

and i am very happy with this "monster".

read/write: 550 / 500 MB/s

Installation ist the same as with a normal HDD, only a little bit faster. I have got my OS on the SSD and it took me 20 minutes to install Win 7 with all drivers.

regards Knallkopp_02

I got the exact same SSD for my C:\ to run the OS then run ArmAII OA on a Samsung 250gb that has a bit faster read/write and a larger cache.