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New Xbox Experience speed tests: HDD vs DVD

Posted Nov 13, 2008 at 3:09AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Xbox 360 Tags: Elite, Microsoft, The Orange Box, xbox 360 titles

New Xbox Experience: DVD vs. Hard Disk Face-Off - Image 1

As Xbox 360 gamers who've updated to NXE would know, copying games to the hard drive is now possible. Playing from the hard drive has two main appeals: it doesn't scratch discs (you know it), and potentially faster load times.

So the question now is, is copying games to the HDD really worth the trouble?

Eurogamer undertook the challenge of copying games to their Xbox 360s and comparing HDD play to DVD play to answer this question. It must have been terribly boring, but it seems the results are worth it. For the tests they used an Xbox 360 Elite, and a range of top 10 games.

The results show that loading from the hard drive is certainly faster, but only for certain games, and only for certain sections. For The Orange Box for example, loading Half-Life 2 from the DVD took 44.5 seconds, while HDD loading took only 25.5.

On the other hand, some games like Gears of War 2, which have been optimized to run from the DVD, hardly have any changes at all. The most they shaved off for GoW2 was eight seconds from the initial loading time. The same goes for Grand Theft Auto IV - HDD loading took off only 13.5 seconds from initial loading.

So what's the verdict? It depends on how you interpret the data. Playing from the HDD is beneficial if extra seconds of load time is essential for you, especially for games whose load time between mediums are significantly far apart. You can check out their entire data set after the source link below.

Via Eurogamer

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who doesn't want faster loading games...

even 8 seconds is substantial when you consider how many times games load data...

now we have also have the issue of drive wear...

all optical disc drives are prone to failure because of the laser lens, any amount of work that can be off loaded to the hdd should be to preserve the dvd drive...

and finally the issue of stupid users...

for some reason people have chosen to ignore the warning stickers AND common sense. i have seen many people try to trade in a game with telltale rings scratched into the disc. if the disc isn't spinning it can't scratch a ring into the surface... so it's also a small measure of idiot-proofing if you choose to take advantage of it.

# Kewl — MARTINSTATIC 2008-11-13 06:14

lol 5th line down it says "is copying games to the DVD really worth the trouble?" I think it was meant to say HDD.

Anyhoo's, how does this affect piracy? Like, people just renting and copying games? 0_o

# d'oh! — Guest 2008-11-13 06:34

You're right! Corrected now.

As an anti-piracy measure though, you'll still need the original disc in your system to be able to run it on HDD.

# shorter load times is good yes... — Shizomou 2008-11-13 08:56

but installing my games to the hdd and still having to get up to switch disks is a bit of an annoyance. Of course, I rarely switch disks in one gaming session.

Still though, I'm sure pirates will find a way to get around the issue of having the original disk in the drive and the non-pirates will be the only ones left with the annoyance.

# I in the NXE Preview — Binary 2008-11-13 12:01

Call Of Duty 4: 6.7GB

Crackdown: not suppurted

Gears Of War: 6.5GB

Grand Theft Auto 6.8GB

Halo 3: 6.3GB

Halo 3 is slower on HDD.

# Or... — FreePlay 2008-11-13 15:34

An original backup, if your drive is modded :) It really doesn't help anything but your laser.

# I don't know why you're saying it's slower — teh not so 1337 g@m3r 2008-11-13 15:40

Halo 3 I mean. I am part of the NXE preview program on Microsoft Connect and I can tell you it is not slower. It's the same, or maybe even a bit faster.

# well — Binary 2008-11-13 20:12

to me it didn't

maps on games still take forever to load.

but oh well silent is good

# halo 3 — djinc 2008-11-15 09:13

i find that sometines it loads really slow for some reason

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