When Starfield dropped their PC specifications, it was quite a surprise among Bethesda fans and the gaming community in general. SSDs were a necessity to run this massive RPG. There have been several new generation Triple-A titles that suggest SSD, and Starfield is outright insisting on it. However, this led to the question if this could be run with Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) or if players should upgrade their system just to experience this fantastic space odyssey.
Most modern titles have SSDs in their recommended specifications so for Starfield to include an SSD in all system requirements was surely an eyebrow-raiser. Some performance tests were done by trying to run the game with an HDD and the results were surely fascinating.
Why Starfield shouldn’t be played on HDD?
Also Read: Starfield Players Have Begun a Huge List of Requested Features and Fixes
Performance tests have been conducted by installing Starfield on HDD. The results were significant that Starfield is optimized for SSD. Even HDDs on the higher end of the spectrum are not able to handle the real-time data rendering, reading, and writing requirements of Starfield. This led to gamers having to upgrade their system storage to avail a seamless gaming experience.
While conducting the test, it was observed that the game was glitching out and stopping entirely at moments. At points, the game’s animation would stop fluttering; sometimes, the sound would disappear, and sometimes, it would freeze completely. Also, the game took way longer than expected to download with an HDD.
To understand why Starfield shouldn’t be played on HDD, let’s compare the performance difference when the game is run with an SSD. It takes like 15 seconds to boot from a saved checkpoint with a modern SSD, while on the contrary, it takes about a minute and a half on an HDD! Another example is when the Constellation headquarters is loading. With an SSD, it takes like 3 seconds, while with an HDD, the loading time increases tenfold.
Why does Starfield require an SSD as a necessary system requirement?
Compared to other Bethesda titles, Starfield has a necessary “SSD” in its minimum and recommended PC specifications. This implies that the game will face some performance issues or, worst case scenario, might not boot at all in HDD. (Hard Disk Drives) Mostly, recent Triple-A games have SSDs in their recommended specifications.
Starfield’s director, Todd Howard, didn’t clarify why the game needs SSD for running, but this space RPG from Bethesda has necessitated SSDs on PC. One of the prominent reasons why Starfield requires an SSD to run is maybe the vast universe and procedural generation. With over 1000 planets to explore, which generates as the player flies closer to them. This generational procedure might overload the HDD and result in heavy data transfer that would be too much for the hardware to handle.
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun
