Hardware question from a Newb to computer gaming

Malak'kai · Feb 12, 2015

Question: Is there any benefit to having an Ext. Hard drive connected while playing??
I'm playing on a Toshiba Satellite...yes a laptop.

bisador · Feb 12, 2015

Not if the game was installed on the internal drive, however, if you installed the game on the external drive, then yes, as it would probably be needed to actually load the game files...

Malak'kai · Feb 12, 2015

Ok. Thanks for the quick reply
So if I transfer the game to my ext.
will that free up processing power??

Rifter · Feb 12, 2015

Malak'kai said:
Question: Is there any benefit to having an Ext. Hard drive connected while playing?? I'm playing on a Toshiba Satellite...yes a laptop.

The game should be installed on the internal drive, Even USB 3 can't transfer data faster than your SATA connected HD.

Kalearne · Feb 12, 2015

^what he said

Use the external drive for storing music, photos, documents etc.

Malak'kai · Feb 12, 2015

Cool. Thanks Commanders. I'll be upgrading my sys soon.

Shads · Feb 12, 2015

The memory the game is stored on is completely different from the memory the game uses to run the engine. Google RAM and ROM memory

adoredtv · Feb 12, 2015

Shads said:
The memory the game is stored on is completely different from the memory the game uses to run the engine. Google RAM and ROM memory

RAM and ROM are a bit different from RAM and hard drive memory. Although both a hard drive and ROM are "non-volatile" memory, the ROM is read-only, obviously, which is not the case with a hard drive which can read and write.

So really what should be read up on is volatile (RAM) and non-volatile (hard drive) memory.

FiddenUK · Feb 12, 2015

External drives for storage and backup only. As others have explained, this is due to transfer rate limitations. If you wanted the game to 'load' faster, a solid state drive internally to replace the internal drive would be a good upgrade, but this is not something you'd want to do yourself. Additional RAM could also help with this, depending on the existing specification of the computer.

Storage on any of these mediums is unlikely to free up processing power; look to programs running in the background that may be consuming processing/memory unnecessarily to save yourself resources. Computers from manufacturers such as HP and Lenovo often have programs loaded that are of very little use, but still consume resources and slow the system down overall.

lukeeoin · Feb 12, 2015

As long as the time scrolls stored on the external are under 10 gigaflops you should be fine.....

But seriously, absolutely no requirement to have it plugged in if the game was not installed to it.

micky1up · Feb 12, 2015

FiddenUK said:
External drives for storage and backup only. As others have explained, this is due to transfer rate limitations. If you wanted the game to 'load' faster, a solid state drive internally to replace the internal drive would be a good upgrade, but this is not something you'd want to do yourself. Additional RAM could also help with this, depending on the existing specification of the computer.

Storage on any of these mediums is unlikely to free up processing power; look to programs running in the background that may be consuming processing/memory unnecessarily to save yourself resources. Computers from manufacturers such as HP and Lenovo often have programs loaded that are of very little use, but still consume resources and slow the system down overall.

lol not something you want to do yourslef swapping a internal drive on a toshiba laptop is easier than changing a lightbulb it really is

Malak'kai · Feb 12, 2015

You guys are awesome. I've recently switched from console to PC with Elite. Let me just say that there's no going back for new now lol.

Steve50 · Feb 12, 2015

Malak'kai said:
Ok. Thanks for the quick reply
So if I transfer the game to my ext.
will that free up processing power??

..I'm not sure if you're serious but I'll assume so.

No, it would only free up some HD storage space on you main HD which wouldn't affect the performance at all.

FiddenUK · Feb 12, 2015

micky1up said:
lol not something you want to do yourslef swapping a internal drive on a toshiba laptop is easier than changing a lightbulb it really is

Physically it is easy to do, but if someone isn't familiar with reinstalling Windows and all programs on the new drive (or is not comfortable with using migration software that some solid state drives come with), then it is introducing a world of headaches for that person.

micky1up · Feb 12, 2015

FiddenUK said:
Physically it is easy to do, but if someone isn't familiar with reinstalling Windows and all programs on the new drive (or is not comfortable with using migration software that some solid state drives come with), then it is introducing a world of headaches for that person.

ok whats hard put windows disc in drive start computer select cd drive as primary windows installs everything is logical and easy to do i showed my 8 yearold son how to do it after my ssd drive died on my new computer he laughed and said is that it