Eurogamer examines NXE's game installation

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Nov 11th 2008 at 9:50AM }

With two different storage mediums in hand, the fine folks at Eurogamer have done what any gadget-loving geek would and should do: pit them against each other and fill numerous tables with the numerical results. The scintillating statfest concerns the loading times of Xbox 360 games, most of which seem to show a notable, albeit unimpressive, improvement when installed to the hard drive via the New Xbox Experience.

Interestingly, it's The Orange Box's Half-Life 2 component which benefits the most out of all the test subjects, with initial loading time cut down from 44.5 seconds (wow, really?) to 25.5 quiet, whoosh-less seconds. Another notable game is shoot-teh-alienz epic, Halo 3 -- it actually fares worse when installed to the hard drive. Which is just as well, really, since we'd rather have the drive noise drown out the 13-year-olds killing us. Repeatedly.

Curious about the New Xbox Experience? Check out our ridiculously informative nine-video feature, covering everything from Avatar creation, Netflix integration, and the 8-player party system to installing games to the hard drive, the new Marketplace, the Blade-like "Guide" interface, and more!

Tags: Halo-3, HDD, Loading, New-Xbox-Experience, NXE, Orange-Box

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

reign-♥-of-♥-love @ Nov 11th 2008 9:59AM

i have the nixie and its ok. hard to find where everything is at first, and 75 percent of the tabs seem to be advertisments. 50 bucks a year and we have advertisments for movies and shit? not too crazy..
it re-updated lastnight and its even faster i noticed.

as for the dvd burning, i wish i had room in the harddrive. 3 gbs left after deleting all my south park episodes...

reign-♥-of-♥-love @ Nov 11th 2008 2:02PM

hey at this moment all the advertisments from nixie are gone!! it looks so much better not riddled with xbla games to buy. but i think they're fixing it so hopefully? less subtle commercials?

wow i wish i could comment on the hdrive games but i have no space.

Chase @ Nov 11th 2008 2:16PM

*hugs 120 GB HDD*

Zertoss @ Nov 11th 2008 10:03AM

Oh thank God Fable 2 sees improvements from the install. The noise from the constant seeking on the DVD drive was driving me insane.

LaughingTarget @ Nov 11th 2008 10:11AM

Same here. I'll also look Mass Effect over again. I had nothing but bad things to say about that game, most of which were generated by the horrible performance of the game. I can't stand poor performance and it may raise my opinion of the game up a few notches (shame the NXE won't fix the awful Mako scenes).

Ryan @ Nov 11th 2008 10:16AM

I'd really like to know how Mass Effect fares as well. Im really really enjoying the game so far, its my first playthrough (it's been a very very very busy year...plus an RRoD) but Im really concerned about how much the disc spins up so often between rooms/scenes/events/etc. The texture pop-in doesnt bother me so much, but hopefully this will make it less noticeable/frequent.

Bioware's games tend to have lots of loading screens, so anything that could lower the time spent staring at the loading screen is fine by me.

JJ Rooster @ Nov 11th 2008 10:37AM

I'm looking forward to reducing the noise myself. I forget about the drive noise soon after booting the game, but the silence will be nice.

Zertoss @ Nov 11th 2008 11:06AM

I normally don't notice the drive noise, but for some reason, it's really grating in Fable 2.

Pureshooter @ Nov 11th 2008 11:30AM

From the Teamxbox Forums:

Mass Effect Install Test

Credit: Emenis

Disc Test:

Loading Final Boss Battle:

Load One: 11secs
Load Two: 11Secs
Load Three: 11secs
Load Four: 11 secs
Load Five: 11 secs

Texture Load:

Load One: 3 secs
Load Two: 3 secs
Load Three: 3 secs
Load Four: 3 secs
Load Five: 3 secs

Mass Effect Install Test:

Install Time: 11 Minutes

Loading Game:

Load One: 7secs (-4 Secs)
Load Two: 7secs (-4 Secs)
Load Three: 8secs (-3 Secs)
Load Four: 7secs (-4 Secs)
Load Five: 6secs (-5 Secs)

Texture Load:

Load One: 3 secs
Load Two: 2 secs (-1 Sec)
Load Three: 2 secs (-1 Sec)
Load Four: 2 secs (-1 Sec)
Load Five: 1 sec (-2 Sec)

Presidium

Presidium Save Load Time:

Disc AVG: 12 Secs
Install Avg: 9 Secs

Presidium Save Texture Popin:

Disc Avg: 4 secs
Install Avg: 2secs

Sinister Rouge @ Nov 11th 2008 1:53PM

@LaughingTarget

It didn't run THAT badly performance-wise and considering how immersive and downright fun Mass Effect was, I honestly didn't notice that much.

n1g2t3s4 @ Nov 11th 2008 5:22PM

I installed Mass Effect last night. I don't think it did anything for the load times. stupid elevators.

It did reduce the texture pop-in when scenes first load. And of course, the dvd drive isn't constantly churning during cut scenes.

Erluti @ Nov 11th 2008 10:04AM

Although, most "load times" are decompressing data. And if "installing" a game is merely copying the image of the DVD to the harddrive, then you will have no gain in decompression, just in data access times. And then if you have a game that saves to the disk the decompressed data, it has to share time with reading of the data and can offset the decreased read time.
It sounds like this is more a solution for disk noises and RRoDs then it is for speeding up load times.

LaughingTarget @ Nov 11th 2008 10:12AM

So, the solution would be to decompress the data when putting it on the HDD.

Erluti @ Nov 11th 2008 4:49PM

But then that inflates the install size and I'm sure each game has a proprietary decompression algorithm they use and it's not exposed in any standard way for the install feature to use it...
However it could be added to games in the future...

Dirty @ Nov 11th 2008 10:05AM

I would like to put Gears 2 on it. How big are the installs?

reign-♥-of-♥-love @ Nov 11th 2008 10:11AM

havent checked gears 2 yet but CoD 4 was a massive 6.7 gbs.

Ryan @ Nov 11th 2008 10:19AM

The article says the Gears 2 install is 6.7GB.

Dirty @ Nov 11th 2008 10:40AM

this is suspiciously a great way to entice people to purchase bigger hard drives.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Nov 11th 2008 12:28PM

dirty:
You mean purchase bigger drives at inflated prices.

philmcphail @ Nov 11th 2008 4:38PM

Thats weird, I installed Assassins Creed and its 6.7 gigs too!

Ryan @ Nov 11th 2008 10:25AM

"First of all, in several occasions during my playtest, it became obvious that the DVD couldn't keep up with the player's progress. This would manifest in on-screen pauses and glitches accompanied by a mechanical form of protest from the DVD drive, at worst resulting in the game momentarily freezing with a 'loading' prompt helpfully explaining what was going on. In the same places, the HDD-installed version proved to be flawless. Unfortunately, there are no differences in the duration of the teeth-grindingly annoying elevator rides - clearly these were hard-coded in as opposed to being measured based on the data rate of the streaming."

Well that sucks... Sounds like it still has advantages though...

Ryan @ Nov 11th 2008 10:26AM

Grrr. That's supposed to be under my post about Mass Effect...

DBoyFlex @ Nov 11th 2008 10:26AM

That was a cool read. Understandably they cannot test every game out there but I would have liked to see Fallout 3 and Oblivion. Fallout loads much quicker and smoother than Oblivion and I have actually been impressed at the short load times (via the DVD, that is. I was not one of the lucky few).

Rhamsey @ Nov 11th 2008 10:34AM

well, fallout 3 has decent load times, i was surprised, and for oblivion, doesnt it store data in your cache anyway for faster loads? so wouldnt downloading to hard drive not really help there?

DBoyFlex @ Nov 11th 2008 10:43AM

Honestly I am not sure. I believe so. Still, I would be curious to see. Honestly though, even if the load times are increased I would not likely go back and start playing again. I guess just out of sheer curiosity, since that game always seemed to have slow load times.

Rhamsey @ Nov 11th 2008 10:32AM

wow, very detailed review of a bunch of games and even the different hard drives. why the hell would halo 3 take longer though? figures, the one game i cant wait to get rid of loading for.

SoCoolCurt (PSN: KillaKornbread - XBL: SoCoolCurt) @ Nov 11th 2008 10:45AM

that's cool. im getting pretty excited for these game installs. i would really like to preserve my DVD drive more than anything since the load times dont really bother me on any game ive played so far. plus i have this 120GB HDD with virtually nothing on it.

and ive had my 360 for a couple weeks now and i just the other night actually listened to the drive while i was playing Tales of Vesperia (great game btw) and i gotta tell ya, that bad boy sounds angry. game installs will be a godsend.

Brandon @ Nov 11th 2008 11:29AM

Loading time benefits are minimal, but keeping the noise down and not spinning up the disc drive are nice. Any word on if this helps the texture loading in games like Gears and Gears 2?

Anthony @ Nov 11th 2008 11:33AM

Halo 3 might very well have the fastest load times out of any game I own. I can wait the entire what? 5 seconds before I get to the title screen.

It's the stupid theater videos load times that kill me.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Nov 11th 2008 12:01PM

Halo 3 and Orange Box give great examples.

Halo 3 doesn't get much speed up and Orange Box gets a ton. If a developer takes the time to optimize their game for the disc, it does well on disc and thus going to HDD is a marginal improvement. Valve clearly didn't do much on this front, presumably because their game is an HDD game on its primary platform and so they didn't create the game with an optical drive in mind.

The reason Viva Pinata 2 is so slow from the optical drive isn't solely because of optical drive transfer rates, but also because Viva 2 seeks all over the place just to load basic data. They should have arranged their data more wisely on the disk.

It will be nice to have my 360 quieter. It's a big black mark against the console that they didn't find a way to make it quieter before. If only by making a spec for developers that the disc has to spin at no higher than 6X during the routine parts of game play.

From the moment the PS3 came out and showed next gen didn't have to mean sounding like a helicopter taking off, the 360 has given the impression that MS didn't really work hard enough on some aspects of the 360's design. Sometimes I wish I had MS' software on Sony's hardware.

WilsonGoneWild @ Nov 11th 2008 12:04PM

Where do you all hear all of this noise? Is your TV down near mute? When I'm playing a game with game music/sound, I don't hear my 360. Granted, when volume is low or muted it is louder than my PS3, but it's not as bad as some people exaggerate it to be on various posts on the net.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Nov 11th 2008 12:27PM

I set the TV volume where I like it, not where you like it.

And yes, it is that bad. I've had several 1st gen 360s (and now a newer one since MS wouldn't fix that one anymore), and the 1st gens were very very loud. Not that the new ones are quiet.

As to this idea that sound in a game means you don't ever hear the 360, there are times when the sound dies down, like during loading screens or such.

In the end, the 360's loudness requires me to make certain concessions to setting my listening volume that I shouldn't have to make, and that's a black mark against it.

343 Guilty Fart @ Nov 11th 2008 12:40PM

I never hear my 360 either. I think a big factor is where in the room and what kind of room you are in. I have carpeted floors and I think that muffles the sound. When I go to my friend's house he has it right up against the wall and it's noisy as hell.

J.Goodwin @ Nov 11th 2008 12:19PM

The system is as close to silent when it's playing off the hard drive as it will ever get. The Dreamcast was a colicy baby in comparison to the 360's quiet dreamer.

I've noticed that some games will not install to the hard drive. Well, I've noticed one game that won't install to the hard drive...anyone else noticed any games that won't install to the hard drive?

unclee00 @ Nov 11th 2008 12:57PM

I have never once thought that load times would be the best feature of HDD installs. It's the noise reduction of the console itself that has me the most excited. Being able to play ME without the constant whine of my 360 will be heaven.

Shroomsday @ Nov 11th 2008 1:47PM

Hooray for that!
Down with DVD! Up with HDD!
This feature is well overdue, but oh, so welcome. No more horrible noise and damaged discs!

Now, how about a nice Xbox 360 flash SSD as well? I reckon -some- people would pay for one...

Noxat @ Nov 11th 2008 2:33PM

I'll just be happy to put less wear n' tear on my 360's DVD drive. Games like Fallout 3 I play for hours at a time, but it caches most of the data to the HDD after the first hour of play and the disc just pointlessly whizzes away in the DVD drive for hours.

DemiurgicSoul @ Nov 11th 2008 3:35PM

The fans on my refurb are so loud even when the disc isn't spinning that I don't see the advantage of installing. I actually prefer the sound the fan makes when the disc is spinning.

wonky360 @ Nov 11th 2008 4:37PM

120GB is great, it can be done on the cheap, check this:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/150970/upgrade_your_xbox_360s_hard_drive_on_the_cheap.html

why not the LS2LS7? @ Nov 11th 2008 5:15PM

There is a file on an Xbox 360 drive that indicates how large the drive is. It is digitally signed, and includes a serial number.

Since it is digitally signed, you cannot make your own such file, you can only copy someone else's. And then you have copied their serial number too.

So, you now have a drive that is a clone of another Xbox 360 drive (of many if you downloaded the hddss.bin from the net). An MS can detect your drive is not a valid drive they sold. Thus, they may detect your drive is invalid and deactivate it.

Do this at your own risk.

mnemo @ Nov 12th 2008 8:02AM

Guitar Hero III also profits massively from the install, it's just great to hop through songs. And now I can finally HEAR THE MUSIC instead of the drive's whine! \m/ ;)

mnemo @ Nov 12th 2008 8:07AM

Oh, and it's no wonder Halo 3 runs worse from HDD since the game does cache huge amounts of data to HDD when you first start it. So when you install it on HDD and start, it will then just copy the data from HDD to HDD which of course is very slow, especially on a 2.5" drive. Maybe Bungie will update the game to detect if it's run from HDD without caching then?