62
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by recursive_recursion@piefed.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca

TL;DW:

  1. You'll want a PCIe 3.0 NVME drive at minimum for an optimal gaming experience. Anything beyond PCIe 4.0 is excessive and is a poor use of your money.

  2. SATA SSDs are still viable but on the cusp of unplayable.

  3. And lastly no one should game on a HDD/harddrive as the performance is beyond abysmal.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Poopfeast420@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 week ago

As I said, the video is about general types of SSDs, not specific games. It's also mixed between first load after launch, reload of a save and sometimes fast travel, no real methodology.

When the game uses DirectStorage, a PCIe SSD will be a lot faster than SATA or HDDs. Games like Last of Us Part 2, Spider-Man 2 or Ratchet & Clank were shown. Indiana Jones doesn't use DirectStorage, but still shows this kind of behavior.

Without DirectStorage, it mostly doesn't matter, as long as it's an SSD, although PCIe drives were almost always faster. If you reload a save, a lot of time, it often also doesn't matter if you use an HDD, although you might still get the glitches and pop-ins from slow asset streaming.

Here's a list of Steam games, that use DirectStorage. It's not a lot right now, so you definitely don't need to switch right this second, especially if you already have a SATA SSD, and you're not playing the latest AAA games constantly. It is something to keep in mind, when you're upgrading though.

this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
62 points (90.8% liked)

PC Gaming

12065 readers
1180 users here now

For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki

Rules:

  1. Be Respectful.
  2. No Spam or Porn.
  3. No Advertising.
  4. No Memes.
  5. No Tech Support.
  6. No questions about buying/building computers.
  7. No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
  8. No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
  9. No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
  10. Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS