Emulation Why the lifespan of SSD decrease when you load Cemu on it?

[Kuad]

Im about to buy a SSD for eventually running some games and also try to gain some performance improvement on BotW.
But while researching, got some information that said if you run Cemu and BotW on a SSD will decrease exponentially the lifespan of the drive. Because the constant read and write operations, which shortens the lifetime of SSDs.
Is that true?
If it is, there is a way to dodge this problem? Like prevent the creation of pagefiles on it or something.
Also, jumping from 8gb RAM to 16gb will help in the solution of this problem and also offer some performance boost in the game?

 

[OfficialBrony]

Why an SSD and not a HDD?

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[OfficialBrony]

Never mind. Thought you meant for your wiiu

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[Youkai]

Im about to buy a SSD for eventually running some games and also try to gain some performance improvement on BotW.
But while researching, got some information that said if you run Cemu and BotW on a SSD will decrease exponentially the lifespan of the drive. Because the constant read and write operations, which shortens the lifetime of SSDs.
Is that true?
If it is, there is a way to dodge this problem? Like prevent the creation of pagefiles on it or something.
Also, jumping from 8gb RAM to 16gb will help in the solution of this problem and also offer some performance boost in the game?

No idea how Cemu actually does read and write the files but reading doesn't damage the SSD only writing as (if i remember right) each bit can only be rewritten a few times times.
So if it really constantly generates new files and deletes old back and forth it could hurt your SSD in long term.

 

[Mr. Wizard]

Im about to buy a SSD for eventually running some games and also try to gain some performance improvement on BotW.
But while researching, got some information that said if you run Cemu and BotW on a SSD will decrease exponentially the lifespan of the drive. Because the constant read and write operations, which shortens the lifetime of SSDs.
Is that true?
If it is, there is a way to dodge this problem? Like prevent the creation of pagefiles on it or something.
Also, jumping from 8gb RAM to 16gb will help in the solution of this problem and also offer some performance boost in the game?

All myth... SSDs are no worse than your ol' platter drive. Best case scenario it will outlive you...
In fact I've had 4 Seagate Black Barracuda drives fail on my array in the last 2 years yet my SSDs are still going strong...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2856052/grueling-endurance-test-blows-away-ssd-durability-fears.html

 

[g00s3y]

What was said above. The SSD will very likely outlast whatever PC you have, even with running CEMU. Technology has come a long way

 

[TheTechGenius]

The constant writes will damage the drive over time, but the reads won't. However, I have been using SSDs for years and years now, and I never had an SSD fail on me. Even when there was a power surge in my house that fried most of my gaming PC parts, my SSD survived and still running strong. Lol

(Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ using Tapatalk)

 

[Xalphenos]

I know it's really all been said at this point. But here is my 2 cents. Yeah putting your page file on the ssd will decrease it's life expectancy. SSDs have a finite number or writes and a page file can use a lot of writes. Like you asked though. Having more ram will mean the system uses the page file less. My system with 16gb of ram rarely uses the page file. Like all things in life, YMMV based on what you do . That said the best place for your page file is on the ssd. At least as far as performance goes. Think of the page file as ram when you run out of ram. You want access to that to be as fast as possible.

Ask yourself this are you buying an ssd for performance or to say you have an ssd. Yeah using one as a boot drive only is an option but I say really use the thing. Get your money's worth out of it.

The thing to note about SSDs is that they don't fail like mechanical hard drives. Your performance will degrade long before the ssd dies. And modern ssds should basically get to a state where you can no longer write to them but you can still get all your data off of them. So when performance degrades or you can no longer write to it just clone it over to a new ssd.

 

[Kuad]

I know it's really all been said at this point. But here is my 2 cents. Yeah putting your page file on the ssd will decrease it's life expectancy. SSDs have a finite number or writes and a page file can use a lot of writes. Like you asked though. Having more ram will mean the system uses the page file less. My system with 16gb of ram rarely uses the page file. Like all things in life, YMMV based on what you do . That said the best place for your page file is on the ssd. At least as far as performance goes. Think of the page file as ram when you run out of ram. You want access to that to be as fast as possible.

Ask yourself this are you buying an ssd for performance or to say you have an ssd. Yeah using one as a boot drive only is an option but I say really use the thing. Get your money's worth out of it.

The thing to note about SSDs is that they don't fail like mechanical hard drives. Your performance will degrade long before the ssd dies. And modern ssds should basically get to a state where you can no longer write to them but you can still get all your data off of them. So when performance degrades or you can no longer write to it just clone it over to a new ssd.

In order to do it, ill have to change the destination of the page file manually? Or when i put the game and Cemu in there it will save on ssd automatic?
Also, is it still worth buying a 8gb ddr3 considering the ddr4 technology is already out? And ill have to change my gear like next year or before.
Im planning to soon buy a Gtx 1070 too. But im afraid my cpu will bottleneck it, so ill have to change my gear and discard the memories combs, including the recently bought 8gb.
Sorry about many questions. Im just so confused about what to do.

 

[DinohScene]

You'd have take in consideration that before your SSD significantly drops in performance that you'd already have upgraded to a newer machine, possibly with a bigger and better SSD as well.
SSDs themselves also counteract this by writing data at random spots each time.

It's quite hard to decrease the lifespan of an SSD these days.

 

[Xalphenos]

In order to do it, ill have to change the destination of the page file manually?

By default the page file will be on the drive where windows is installed. If you're planning on making the ssd your os drive then the page file will be there without any user intervention. I suggest doing it this way. No point in buying an ssd and not getting the benefit of having your os on it. If you don't then you will have to go into virtual memory settings and manually select the drive to put it on.

Also, is it still worth buying a 8gb ddr3 considering the ddr4 technology is already out? And ill have to change my gear like next year or before.

Honestly this is really up to you. If you can get 8gb used for usd30 I would say go for it. If it's going to cost you more than 50 or 60 you may want to put that money toward a new platform.

Some things to consider though is that am3+ is a dead platform at this point. There will be no new cpus for it and you're already pretty much at the max as far as cpu goes. When you decide that you need more cpu performance you will have to move to a new platform. All new platforms are ddr4. So any money invested in ddr3 can't be carried forward to a new build. If you wanted to keep your ram the most recent platform you could go to would be haswell(socket 1151). Certainly not a bad platform but discontinued as well and you would be buying used.

Im planning to soon buy a Gtx 1070 too. But im afraid my cpu will bottleneck it, so ill have to change my gear and discard the memories combs, including the recently bought 8gb.

There will certainly be situations where your cpu will bottleneck the 1070. But like I said in the other thread pc games are primarily gpu bound. Most games will see a benefit going from the 970 to the 1070. The 1070 outclasses every 900 series gpu made so it is a great buy. If you get to a game that is cpu bound though and can't utilize all 8 of the fx cores then it will hold back the 1070. Cemu is an example of this for sure. You will realistically get no improvement in cemu. Unlike the ram though money invested in a GPU will carry over to your next build assuming it isn't two years away or more.

 

[GerbilSoft]

There is the potential for a read operation to affect the contents of neighboring cells (READ DISTURB), but this shouldn't be that big of an issue. I wouldn't think Cemu would cause more wear on the SSD than, say, the typical PC game.

Regarding page files: If you have 16 GB RAM or more, I'd recommend just turning it off entirely. (Or at least reducing it to the minimum amount required for crash dumps. Windows will tell you what the minimum is if you try setting it to 0.)

 

[Kuad]

By default the page file will be on the drive where windows is installed. If you're planning on making the ssd your os drive then the page file will be there without any user intervention. I suggest doing it this way. No point in buying an ssd and not getting the benefit of having your os on it. If you don't then you will have to go into virtual memory settings and manually select the drive to put it on.

Honestly this is really up to you. If you can get 8gb used for usd30 I would say go for it. If it's going to cost you more than 50 or 60 you may want to put that money toward a new platform.

Some things to consider though is that am3+ is a dead platform at this point. There will be no new cpus for it and you're already pretty much at the max as far as cpu goes. When you decide that you need more cpu performance you will have to move to a new platform. All new platforms are ddr4. So any money invested in ddr3 can't be carried forward to a new build. If you wanted to keep your ram the most recent platform you could go to would be haswell(socket 1151). Certainly not a bad platform but discontinued as well and you would be buying used.

There will certainly be situations where your cpu will bottleneck the 1070. But like I said in the other thread pc games are primarily gpu bound. Most games will see a benefit going from the 970 to the 1070. The 1070 outclasses every 900 series gpu made so it is a great buy. If you get to a game that is cpu bound though and can't utilize all 8 of the fx cores then it will hold back the 1070. Cemu is an example of this for sure. You will realistically get no improvement in cemu. Unlike the ram though money invested in a GPU will carry over to your next build assuming it isn't two years away or more.

Interesting, man...
So, If i choose to keep my recently bought SSD "fresh". Only in the beginning, just to avoid using it too much. And choose to not put the OS neither the page file in there, but the Cemu AND the BotW, ill still get a performance increase in the game? Or only if i put the OS and page file in there too?
Keep in mind there ill be using 16gb ram this time.

 

[GerbilSoft]

With 16 GB RAM, you should just get rid of the page file (or set it to a low size like 128 MB to allow crash dumps to still work).

 

[FloatingFatMan]

In order to do it, ill have to change the destination of the page file manually? Or when i put the game and Cemu in there it will save on ssd automatic?
Also, is it still worth buying a 8gb ddr3 considering the ddr4 technology is already out? And ill have to change my gear like next year or before.
Im planning to soon buy a Gtx 1070 too. But im afraid my cpu will bottleneck it, so ill have to change my gear and discard the memories combs, including the recently bought 8gb.
Sorry about many questions. Im just so confused about what to do.

Save yourself a fortune and just get a WiiU. Then the game will run perfectly.

 

[Kuad]

Save yourself a fortune and just get a WiiU. Then the game will run perfectly.

I live on Brazil my friend. The country of theft and corruption. The cheapest console here is already a fortune.
Beside that, Zelda is the only franchise from Nintendo that i am interested, i rather expend a small fortune (1/4 the value of the console here) on some gear that give me the opportunity to play Zelda and have many other purposes, than buy a console to play just one game. Expensive game here too btw.

 

[FloatingFatMan]

I live on Brazil my friend. The country of theft and corruption. The cheapest console here is already a fortune.
Beside that, Zelda is the only franchise from Nintendo that i am interested, i rather expend a small fortune (1/4 the value of the console here) on some gear that give me the opportunity to play Zelda and have many other purposes, than buy a console to play just one game. Expensive game here too btw.

I don't see how effectively building an entire new PC to get an inferior game play experience is going to be less expensive than getting hold of a console.

 

[Biduleman]

I don't see how effectively building an entire new PC to get an inferior game play experience is going to be less expensive than getting hold of a console.

Nintendo stopped the distribution of their stuff in Brazil because it was too expensive. I don't have numbers for the Wii U, but the PS4 is about 1,500 USD there.

That's a huge chunk of a PC budget, even in Brazil.

 

[Kuad]

I don't see how effectively building an entire new PC to get an inferior game play experience is going to be less expensive than getting hold of a console.

I will just buy some more 8gb of Ram and a 120gb SSD. Nothing more than that. Is this building an entire new PC for you buddy?
And as i said, this pieces is not ONLY to play BotW. They have many other purposes. So, the cost benefit relation is very very good to me. Ill never buy a brand new Wii U or a Switch to ONLY play BotW. And here where i live, nobody have the console to borrow me. So...

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Nintendo stopped the distribution of their stuff in Brazil because it was too expensive. I don't have numbers for the Wii U, but the PS4 is about 1,500 USD there.

That's a huge chunk of a PC budget, even in Brazil.

Exatly! Thats what i am trying to say to him.

 

[Xalphenos]

And choose to not put the OS neither the page file in there, but the Cemu AND the BotW, ill still get a performance increase in the game?

Very little if any IMHO. Speaking of pc gaming in general the benefit to having a game on an ssd is faster load times. Your not going to get an appreciable boost in framerates. Now to speak anecdotally about cemu. Prior to 1.7.3d I ran cemu off my ssd. Afterwards with the introduction to updates and dlc being stored in the mlc01 folder I moved cemu back to my mechanical hdd. I personally noticed no difference. I ran games from the mechanical drive in both cases.

Now if loading game data from the hdd was the bottleneck then moving the game over to the ssd would help. I do not believe this to be the case with BotW or with cemu in general. In fact I just ran some testing to make sure i'm not giving you poor information. Outside of the shader compiling at the launch of a game my hdd has remained under 10% usage. The usage happens just as you would expect. During loading. Running around in a given area hdd use is 0 most of the time with infrequent blips up to 3% to 5%. You would need to monitor this for yourself though to see if your system would benefit.

If you don't intend on putting the OS and the page file on the ssd I would not suggest buying one. Put that money toward a new cpu/motherboard/ram combo.

Also Gerbilsoft is technically correct. In general you don't need much of a page file with 16gb of ram. However it's been reported that BOTW with a >9k cache and an nvida card can eat up to 30gb of ram. If you disable pagefile then the moment you need more than 16gb cemu will crash. Using my own self generated 4.5k cache I get up to about 11gb ram usage during the shader loading at game launch.