Gran Turismo 5 Loading Slow? Meh... Just Install an SSD Hard Drive

[Steve_OS]

A lot of people are frustrated by the long load times in Gran Turismo 5. One particular user has installed an SSD hard drive in his PS3 and posted the results. You may be surprised. Are you up for this upgrade?

Quote:

"Installing an SSD flash drive to your PlayStation 3 can radically cut down the loading times in Polyphony Digital's PS3 magnum opus, Gran Turismo 5. Testing by "Phil" on the Beyond3D forum reveals that in many cases pre-race loading is cut by more than 50 per cent, making the lengthy wait between events that much more tolerable. In all test cases within GT5, there is a considerable improvement. The experiments were performed on two PS3s - the SSD (a state-of-the-art Corsair F120) was installed into a standard "fat" PlayStation 3, while the hard drive measurements were carried out on a stock PS3 Slim. The improvements in loading performance are somewhat significant, as Phil's results reveal."

[EnigmaNemesis]

My load times for the game have greatly reduced as well when I switched from the 80GB 5400RPM Seagate to a 500GB Western Digital 7200RPM Scorpio Black.

Install for GT5 went from 53 minutes on the old drive, to 29 minutes on the new one.

My load times are much improved too, and almost identical to those numbers. Smoother menu performance, as well as the little "loading blips" no longer cause a stutter and are lightning fast now.

I love that the PS3 allows for faster options in the storage arena. And they also update support for them in the firmware updates. 7200RPM drives and SSD were not too much faster on older firmware, but since newer firmware updates, they have increased the performance substantially. Best of all, fully supported by Sony to upgrade, and no voiding of the warranty.

(I am so glad I only really come to this site... some of those comments on that site, and most others are just sad)

[Steve_OS]

Wow, really? That's pretty damn good actually.

[EnigmaNemesis]

Quote: Originally Posted by Steve_OS

Wow, really? That's pretty damn good actually.

It surely is.

I was not expecting too much of a performance increase, I figured why not get the better drive since I only paid $50 for it, brand new and free shipping.

But I was shocked to see the huge performance increase in GT5. A massive increase in Home, as well as increases in PSN games like WipeoutHD, Joe Danger, Uno, etc. All load times were reduced on them.

Now I am sure not all games will greatly benefit, but ones that use heavy HDD caching I am sure will... such as GT5.

I am going to go and play through MGS4 again soon and see how that fairs with it's original 20 minute installs, and see the times on them now.

[ps3veron]

First disable PSN now install a SSD? Sorry for being a grouch but come on this should have all been sorted before the game was out.

6 Years is a long time for any project, in context, the tallest building in the world took less time to construct than Gran Turismo 5.

I may be an old timer but in the 80s we had no patches and whatever we got out of the box was perfect. Software may have been a lot simpler but quality was also a lot higher. Seriously thinking of just ditching consoles and just grabbing an IPAD for simplicity. And you know what? That IPAD racer comes with damage unlocked!

/RANT

[EnigmaNemesis]

SSD is a speed upgrade ... it would be the same on any system it is used on, especially a PC.

Has no reflect of "quality" of the game.

Not a fair argument.

And the games in the 80's had issues too, and some game breaking bugs or lock ups, only problem, is we did NOT have patches to fix it... we just dealt with it.

[Steve_OS]

[EnigmaNemesis]

Nice, thanks for the video Steve.

My next gaming rig build early next year I think I will go with SSDs.

They are coming down in price fast, and was going to go with the newest VelociRaptors, but just might get SSDs.