HDD vs SSD, is there an FPS performance difference?

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
1

Hi there,

I assumed that the difference between an HDD and an SSD was mainly load time. But I’ve read a lot of performance issue topics here and I’m starting to spot a trend that a lot of people with performance issues have the game installed on a HDD (just like me).
Of course this HDD/SSD scenario may not be the cause of all FPS problems, but it’s worth figuring it out.

I’m playing on a HDD (rolling cache on SSD however) but I have a constant bottleneck of “Limited by Main Thread” but also “Limited by coherentGTdraw”.

This guy says installing from HDD to SSD solved his FPS performance issue: Limited by MainThread - #8 by Sciaio10

1. Can you guys post below whether you have MSFS installed on a HDD or SDD.
and
2. If have a bottleneck of either “Limited by Main Thread” or “Limited by coherentGTdraw”.

Then we can maby spot some trends. Thanks!

1 Like
2

definitely SSD
dont know your other spec ?
I have
i9 9900k
GTX 1070( could be better, but it is ok )
32 GB RAM
500GB SSD
and important : install latest Win10 build ( 2004)

MSFS2020 runs on 50-60fps ( on RWY27 EGLC B787 )

3

Hi, of course an SSD is better. But I want to know whether it’s the HDD that causes either the “Limited by Main Thread” or “Limited by coherentGTdraw” bottlenecks. Do you have one of these messages when viewing the developer display FPS?

4

Mine is on NVMe drive.
R9 3900X
2080 Super

High Setings, with ultimate clouds.
Runs great, but FPS viewer switches between GPU and coherentGTdraw messages as bottleneck. Mostly coherentGTdraw

5

Hello Fabian,

sry but I don’t understand why you’re asking for this solution, simply use of SSD is must here for best general performance. I can’t imagine to have HDD for FS in this times generally…

6

Hi Fabian,

I have Microsoft Flight Simulator installed on my NVMe SSD.

Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus: Read: 3534 MB/s | Write: 2470 MB/s

My cache is on my SSD.

Samsung SSD 860 EVO : Read: 547 MB/s | Write: 485 MB/s

It seems that the game continues to constantly read and write. Having it on a SSD will show a big performance depending on the area you are trying to load.

I have not experienced any bottleneck.

7

Even though its better, I don’t think its good for the lifespan of SSD as it’ll be constantly reading & writing real world data, right?