NXE Game Installs Question

chavezychavez

Lads,

Does anyone know off hand if installing games to the hard drive ala NXE will aid in reducing lag in games.
I know the connection/ping count is the main source of trouble for lag, but will the fact that there is less time for the game to read/write to the system go anyway to help this?

Gunmonkey

Im not sure. While Eurogamer did a feature comparing the load times HDD vs DVD and gave good results for installs, I would say most online games are optimised to have everything loaded fast.

Any NXE testers care to shed a little light?

dazftw

I seriously doubt it. Ive never heard/read anything about installing a game to reduce lag. Its all down to your net connection and the hosts connection.

Skippy65

This may sound stupid but when you install a game to a hdd do you still need the actual disc or can you trade it in and play the game totally off the hdd. I know its slightly off topic, hope you dont mind!

Batesy

No, the system checks that the original disc is in the tray before loading.

The advantage of saving the game to the HDD is that the disc won't be constantly spinning hence cutting down on the noise and also the load times will be slighty quicker.

Have to admit the noise of the dvddrive does my head in so I'll definetly be installing my games!

ShaneU

Unless you have the 60gb or 120 gb, you'll only be able to install 2 games, max.

Batesy

Correct!
I upgraded my 20GB to 120GB this week just so I can install more games.


*shameless plug*
Selling my 20GB HDD on adverts if anyone needs one for their arcade version. €30 asking.

thebman

Batesy wrote: »

No, the system checks that the original disc is in the tray before loading.

The advantage of saving the game to the HDD is that the disc won't be constantly spinning hence cutting down on the noise and also the load times will be slighty quicker.

Have to admit the noise of the dvddrive does my head in so I'll definetly be installing my games!

and also your DVD drive might last more than a few years since it is constantly spinning at 12 speed at the moment when playing games which I doubt they were ever designed to do (spin full speed all the time I mean, it should only be bursts to 12 speed).

quad_red

I've a 20 gig HD and given the negligible decrease in loading times, I'm no longer tempted to pay ridiculously way over the odds for an MS branded standard HD.

But my question is this - does uninstalling the game affect your saved games?

I usually go through a period of playing one game intensely for a few weeks before moving onto another. I suppose installing the game would at least reduce the noise.

So it'd be great to install the game for that period BUT to uninstall at the end whilst retaining the game saves, so if I want to play it again.

Is that what happens?

rizzla

quad_red wrote: »

I've a 20 gig HD and given the negligible decrease in loading times, I'm no longer tempted to way ridiculously way over the odds for an MS branded standard HD.

But my question is this - does uninstalling the game affect your saved games?

I usually go through a period of playing one game intensely for a few weeks before moving onto another. I suppose installing the game would at least reduce the noise.

So it'd be great to install the game for that period BUT to uninstall at the end whilst retaining the game saves, so if I want to play it again.

Is that what happens?

Yes it retains game saves. Also, any additional DLC you may have for a game will not be affected by uninstalling a game fom the HD.

Fingleberries

Yeah. Bascially it rips an ISO image of the game DVD to the Hard disk with a few little tweaks to ensure that it checks for the DVD when you start. You can safely delete this image if you are finished with it without affecting game saves or DLC.

Fol20

Iv had the nxe preview for about a month now and yes load times are quicker and the best thing about it is that the 360 is quiet when playing games now

Doomofman

Fol20 wrote: »

Iv had the nxe preview for about a month now and yes load times are quicker and the best thing about it is that the 360 is quiet when playing games now

How much space does a game take up on the harddrive?

Captain Chaos

Depends on the game, GTA4 for example takes up 6.6Gb. Others will be less and others more. Big open world games will be bigger in general than a shooter like CoD 4 but it also depends on the amount of textures and how high the quality is that were used in the game.

Doomofman

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Depends on the game, GTA4 for example takes up 6.6Gb. Others will be less and other more.

So it's probably not feasible from someone with the 20gb drive?

Captain Chaos

Not really, thats why MS changed the spec on the Pro from 20-60Gb.

You might get about 2-3 games on the 20gb plus a demo or two. Still worth installing if its a game you play alot or one that has alot of loading screens.

NiSmO

This post has been deleted.

AdMMM

Couldn't have come at a better time. My disc drive is starting to throw out unreadable errors mid-game. Hopefully I'll be able to play GTA4!

bucks73

Im upgrading myself tomorrow. Have Gears 2 installed and along with arcade games and game saves I have only 1gb left on my 20gb drive.

Going to check out the offers for a trade in for either the 60gb pro or an elite.

Doomofman

I'm hoping I'll be able to get the first Farcry game for 360 on it.. I get read errors sometimes so hoping it'll install and be fine...

ROC1977

Installing on the HDD is pointless if you ask me if you have to have the disc in the drive. Everytime you want to play a different game you'll have to get off the couch, walk to the xbox eject the game, walk to the new game, stick that in the 360, and walk back to the couch. lol
So can some explain the difference between that NEW xbox experience and my OLD xbox experience when wanting to play something else? lol:D
I mean in fairness add together the time it takes you to install a game, and divide that with the 5 or 6 seconds you save on load times per game. Plus add in the cost a larger HDD. I know its a choice, but when the HDD's are 7x more expensive than they should be, it becomes less of a choice for me anyway. If you want your games to load quicker just flash the firmware to a quicker speed, and if you want it quiet flash it to read at a lower speed like x5. Now if the NXE was to let us use any USB HDD that would be nice. Imagine a nice 1TB external drive with every game you have on that, and not having to have the disc in the tray. Now that would be cool.

bucks73

Im my case the DVD drive is knackered and can take 15-20 minutes of opening and closing the tray until it reads the disc. Games installed on the hard drive will mean the DVD drive is being used less and therefore less chance of crapping out like has happened to mine. And of course less noise when playing a game.

ROC1977

Laser pot adjustment is what you need but. Google it and you can fix that read disc error / open tray error.