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Xbox 360 HDD loading gives minimal benefits
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 12th November 2008
The New Xbox Experience may offer the option to run games from the hard drive, but speed isn't massively improved by it.
The New Xbox Experience is part of a major Xbox 360 update that will soon be released by Microsoft. The update will completely overhaul the Xbox 360 interface, as well as bringing wholly new features - most importantly the option to run games from the Xbox 360 hard drive. Oh, and there''s also that avatar system that Microsoft claims to have invented as well.
With many gamers getting regular disc read errors from their noisy old Xbox 360 disc drives, the option to run from the disc is eagerly awaited.
Unfortunately though comparisons from Eurogamer reveal that the load times for most games aren't massively improved. While some titles like Valve's Orange Box have load times that are substantially decreased, the bulk of games show little to no improvement - including titles like Halo 3.
The reason for the lack of improvement is, we reckon, quite simply that many Xbox 360 games (particularly exclusives) were designed to run only from the optical drive and are therefore unable to take advantage of any speed increases the hard drive might offer. Games that were ported from PC however, such as The Orange Box, are more adaptable to running from the hard drive and can therefore harness the extra power.
The comparison did note however that running from the hard drive eliminated the noise coming from the revving disc drive, so it isn't all bad.
Have you had disc read errors and red rings on your Xbox 360? Let us know in the forums.
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All that matters..
to right........ as long as i can store 3-4 games on there that i play the most.... i dont really care about loading times
Shouldn't that be decreased?
yeh i read fable 2 took up 6.8GB when it was loaded.
all i want is a quieter 360 any decreased load times would be a bonus.
Would people assume that for games that were designed to run from optical drives it would be at too basic of a level for an update to change (ie would an update make them run off the hard drive faster)
Quieter drive is all I was after with this update. Which has been delivered. Win-win for me, at least.
Odd how Crackdown doesn't support it.
After the 20gb is formated im sure I only had around 14gb to start with anyway.
I have loads of games on mine from the live arcade, inc map packs, GH III tracks etc for example R6V is £1.2gb Halo 3 over 1GB.
Im trying to free up enough space to download GTA SA which aint going to happen. Installing a game on my HD is not going to happen. I dont see the point anyway.
I think its great about it making it not sound like an aircraft taking off but I just wonder about the heat.
Wasnt RROD often caused by overheating? The DVD drive just made noise. It doenst really produce heat. But constantly reading off the HDD will produce alot of heat. Would this not greatly increase the chance of RROD?
the hdd is nowhere near the chips, off in it's own little compartment on the top. shouldn't affect system temps at all.
anyone else having this problem?