Improve SWTOR Planet Loads?

Hey y'all,

I was hoping someone might have some ideas on ways to improve my planet loading in SWTOR as well as FPS... I can play the game without much difficulty but I am annoyed that loading planets like Alderaan take 2 to 3 minutes and loading the fleet takes 30 seconds, most of my friends say their loads are 1/2 the time of mine.. I've turned off a lot of "Auto run" processes, shut down extra things like malware scanning, auto-updates, went into Task Manager and set Priority for SWTOR to high and per a suggestion when I open the game I set up a dump file..

I apologize for not having all of my specs handy but it's a 2008 quad core Gateway from 2009, the only changes where that I installed a PNY GT 240 graphics card which allowed me to go from not being able to play Rift to being able to play it on High Def.

680G Hard Drive, 4G DDR2, Changed from vista to Windows 7.

HEAEAEALP!

A general upgrade will always help (ie updating CPU/Mobo/Ram/GPU) although is always expensive.

I'm not really sure whats causing the bottleneck with SWTOR, but if its caused by the HD loading speeds, then an SSD can help you. You can even get a cheap older version which will increase loading speeds.

If someone has SWTOR on an SSD currently, does it load faster than a HD?

If the bottleneck is caused by GPU/CPU then the only method is to upgrade those. However in any regard, I always reckomend that you get an SSD even if it doesn't help with this particular problem. An SSD is the largest improvement you can do to any computer currently. It will increase loading times for anything you have on it. It will increase SWTOR loading teams as well, but I am not sure if the bottleneck is caused by the drive or the GPU/CPU rendering processes.

If its caused by the HD, a good SSD will give you a phenomenal increase in loading times.

laterna wrote:If its caused by the HD, a good SSD will give you a phenomenal increase in loading times.

Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about getting a SSD. I will admit I know nothing about replacing a drive and I also don't have any idea what would be a good make / model to get.

If anyone has a good recommendation for SSD's would be VERY helpful. I have roughly

Also a "how to" resource to change drives would be amazing...

I only use my PC to play MMO's so I don't need any BIG DADDY ultra capacity 4TB drive:lol: just looking for something for great gaming speeds.

I've got $200ish available to spend give or take a little if theres a good reason to spend more.

Shyrtandros wrote:I've got $200ish available to spend give or take a little if theres a good reason to spend more.

200$ will get you a 120GB drive, which should be enough for your OS and your 5-6 current games.

I would confirm that it is the hard drive that's the issue before investing in an SSD to speed up the load time.

I will say that it is not the GFX card that is the bottleneck. Got a GTX 560Ti for christmas and my load times are still slow. But I also only have 4GB ram, an Athlon x2 6000+ and a 7200 RPM HDD.

Fridmarr wrote:I would confirm that it is the hard drive that's the issue before investing in an SSD to speed up the load time.

I think you should test to confirm it is the HDD by buying an SSD and trying it. If it isn't the HDD, at least you now have an SSD!

haha, touche!

Shyrtandros wrote:

laterna wrote:If its caused by the HD, a good SSD will give you a phenomenal increase in loading times.

Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about getting a SSD. I will admit I know nothing about replacing a drive and I also don't have any idea what would be a good make / model to get.

If anyone has a good recommendation for SSD's would be VERY helpful. I have roughly

Also a "how to" resource to change drives would be amazing...

I only use my PC to play MMO's so I don't need any BIG DADDY ultra capacity 4TB drive:lol: just looking for something for great gaming speeds.

I've got $200ish available to spend give or take a little if theres a good reason to spend more.

You won't be changing any drivers, you will simply be adding a 2nd one, same interface cables etc (SATA) but this one will just be a lot faster.

The best way to go about is to save your stuff, format your PC and install windows on the SSD, while keeping your other drive as storage. You will want to put your OS(Windows) on the SSD to make it load faster, WoW and whatever you deem importand to fit on there. Everything else goes to storage.

Where are you located? Do you have a preference in a website in which to pick the SSD? Newegg, Aria, OC etc?

I can load planets off of a 2tb 5400rpm drive in about 45-60 seconds, i doubt its your hard drive, or at least not just your hard drive. Moving the game over to my ssd did speed up loads, but not so dramatically that i would invest in an ssd just for that.

My guess is it's all about computer memory. I've got 8 GB and I'm loading planets in 20 to 30 sec max (from a 7200 rpm HDD).

And for FPS, try to disable light bloom and to lower shadow as this 2 options have the biggest fps impact.

Could you post your full pc details Ezharon ? I'd like to compare it to what my pc does in terms of loading times.

laterna wrote:Could you post your full pc details Ezharon ? I'd like to compare it to what my pc does in terms of loading times.

Sure: processor Intel Core i7 2.8GHz, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6970 graphic card with 1GB of video memory and 1TB Hard Drive (7200 RPM), with Windows 7 64-bits.

Which processor series ? First one or sandy bridge? by the Hz and series I assume the first one but which processor exactly?

laterna wrote:Which processor series ? First one or sandy bridge? by the Hz and series I assume the first one but which processor exactly?

Sandy bridge (i7-2600S)

Ezharon wrote:My guess is it's all about computer memory. I've got 8 GB and I'm loading planets in 20 to 30 sec max (from a 7200 rpm HDD).

And for FPS, try to disable light bloom and to lower shadow as this 2 options have the biggest fps impact.

Hmm.. my good loads (Republic Fleet & Ship) are 30 seconds, while my bad loads (Balmorra & Correlia) are 2 minutes sometimes.

Shyrtandros wrote:

Ezharon wrote:My guess is it's all about computer memory. I've got 8 GB and I'm loading planets in 20 to 30 sec max (from a 7200 rpm HDD).

And for FPS, try to disable light bloom and to lower shadow as this 2 options have the biggest fps impact.

Hmm.. my good loads (Republic Fleet & Ship) are 30 seconds, while my bad loads (Balmorra & Correlia) are 2 minutes sometimes.

Loading of planet Voss was 33 secs on mine a few minutes ago. Republic feet and ships are loading faster.

This weekend I purchased the Intel 320 Series 120G Solid State Drive, I loaded it up as primary with windows 7, made sure to update video drivers, chipset, yada yada..

I've noticed a huge boost in speed from Power on to "ready to use" but unfortunately no differences within the game itself.

*Le sigh*

Back to the drawing board..

Well, at least everything else loads way faster now!