Abnormal loading times on my external HDD.
When I say abnormal, I mean insanely abnormal. For reference, in the time it takes me to load into the menu, I would have already been in a match in games like Apex, Siege, RL, all games I have installed on the same external HDD. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the Riot Client fetching between my main drive where it's installed and Valorants spot on the hdd, but it is HORRIBLE.
And it's not like I don't have an overkill PC for Valorant:
i7 13th Gen and a 4060
My main drive is an NVME drive, but it's space constrained
Solution:Jump to solution
The community help forum is managed by the community and does not offer any official Riot support. You can create a support ticket at https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/requests/new for official support.
113 Replies
valorant is a game that requires fast disk speeds
the faster your ssd or hdd the faster the game will load
that's why an ssd is recommended for valorant
While you're not wrong, it doesn't make sense given the other games I've listed would've had me mid match before Valorant can reach the menu, all probably fetching more data.
I've also mentioned those games are on that same hard drive.
yes it would because all games are coded differently
Again, you're not wrong, but it doesn't make this not abnormal.
from experience with other tickets I've noticed that it can take up to 15min just to load into valorant if you are using a hard drive
as soon as they switched to ssd it was normal
and it's also a known fact that valorant is dependent on high read/write speeds
we clear?
This is an issue with files loading off of your disk. You might have a HDD. If you do, you should defragment it or get an SSD and place Valorant on it.
Use
windows key + r than type "dfrgui" to check what type of drive you have.
Learn how to defragment:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/defragment-your-windows-10-pc-048aefac-7f1f-4632-d48a-9700c4ec702a
Solid State Drives (SSD) and Hard Disk Drives (HDD) are data storage devices. SSDs are usually much smaller, thinner, and offer more storage volume, speed, and efficiency compared to HDDs.
My thing here is I have had Valorant on a much older system on an HDD, and never once had it taken this long. I cannot be the only one who finds this abnormal. I’d like to reiterate bigger more intensive games on this same HDD have taken significantly less time to load, to the point where it would have me mid match before Valorant will even see the menu.
Warzone of all games is among that list.
Please try to defragment your HDD. This optimization helps your drive reference files easier and quicker
This is effective if you are experiencing abnormal load times in game(s)
Defragment a hard drive set up less than 2 weeks ago?
New straight out of the packaging
...
amillo
get an ssd
Yes. You mentioned you had already put a lot of storage on the device. Valorant, Warzone, etc. Correct if I'm wrong but Warzone is an 150gb game.
thats it
this ticket is solved
Lyra, I find your dismissive content rather reductive
An SSD is a solution, but it is not the only solution
:please:
.
.
.
Sorry if I annoyed you, but given your reasoning this should be impacting other games as well, and it’s not.
yes it is impacting your other games
however
as I mentioned
isn’t*
valorant is heavily dependent on high read/write speeds
benchmarks beg to differ but alright
Slower than an SSD? Yes. Side by side next to games with more data to transfer in a literal aspect and the normal expectations for a hard drive? No.
you won't lose fps
however loading times will be longer
You have normal loading times for an HDD. Why does GTA V take less time to reach the story mode, a game 10x the raw size of Valorant, than it takes Valorant to see the main menu.
You’re telling me that isn’t abnormal?
BECAUSE VALORANT IS OPTIMIZED FOR FAST READ AND WRITE SPEEDS
READ
They are on the same machine, on the same drive.
IVE BEEN TELLING YOU THIS
BUT PROGRAMMED BY TWO DIFFERENT STUDIOS AND TWO DIFFERENT TIME PERIODS AND TWO DIFFERENT OPTIMIZEIONS
GET IT JN YOUR HEAD
PLEASE
I see it, I’ve been seeing it.
then what don't you understand
Hm
please jidat
explain
As a logical computer science major, I am telling you it doesn’t have that much of an effect.
then you would know that games are optimized in different ways right?
So how much time are we talking?
I never said they weren’t, I just said it doesn’t have that big of an effect.
If u say abnormal then like 20 minutes?
For an external hdd
it does, average compared to ssd from user data collected we have noticed it being 10min or more
I have had times where it doesn’t load entirely and requires a relaunch, but in an active attempt, 5 ish minutes. Just to see the menu.
he said a siege match so 15-30min
Yeah it takes me 5 minutes with an internal hdd to get to the menu when i open
Completely normal for a hdd
Whats the issue here?
THANK YOU:please:
Warzone is open in less, at times I’d say I could be in a Warzone match before Valorant even sees the menu.
dude......
warzone is differently optimized
Is warzone valorant?
you understand that?
That answer is obvious.
then what's the problem?
It is. Isn't it?
And again I’ll say “optimization” isn’t the difference, actually I’d say a lack of it, and if that IS the case, then it’s insane that a dev team like Riot has not even considered linear fetching.
solution; Valorant is made to play on an ssd, the loading times explained to us are well in the boundaries of HDD speeds and there is nothing wrong therefore I can safely say this ticket is solved after an explanation. Please install Valorant on an SSD.
I’m not trying to cause problems or annoy anyone, and yet I feel like I have. However. The HDD alone is not the problem, I had Valorant on a hard drive under the SATA II standard and it was not nearly this slow.
I can post a picture of that system if you really don’t believe me.
That had an AMD Phenom and an AMD GPU from 2013.
Radeon HD7790 to be exact.
amillo if you'd like I could get a second opinion about the loading screen
however the answer will still remain the same
please accept that fact
If that system loaded Val in half the time of my current machine, then why are we acting like this current machine should be loading slower.
.
SATA II as a standard is slower than the capabilities of even data over USB
I’d like a second opinion
alright
answer
?
"on a slow one yes, it could take longer the closer it is to death"
you have gotten 3 opinions now
are you happy?
That doesn’t explain why the older machine using an outdated standard is faster. Which I’m assuming was what they were trying to answer
What?
saucy please
I've been trying to explain for the past 20min ish that Valorant is dependent on fast read/write speeds
Correct
I've given him 3 opinions from different people (including me)
I've explained multiple times that different games are optimized for different stuff
and that's why some games boot faster than Valorant
It could also be related to cpu issues
As vanguard is booting
yeah but he is running it on an external hdd
Why?
idfk
Let me put this into context. I have 2 HDDs, one in system A: cpu from 2009, gpu from 2013, and one in system b: i7 13th gen and a 4060. These HDD’s are from the same company. System A is so outdated that it’s using PCI-E 2.0 and SATA II. This older system is taking half the time to load Valorant than my new system.
was the hdd external on system A?
Most of that information has nothing to do with loading times
Your gpu speed has nothing to do with loading
He also didn't preference the speed of which the HDD is running at
They’re both external.
.
I’ve seen this drive read and write as high as 200 megabytes a second
amillo, you have gotten your answer, if you like it or not is not up to us
thats
nothing
Do a crystal benchmark
You check task manager when loading
most ssd's are 3000 MB
:please:
Either way it’s the same drive, so why is Valorant loading faster on a machine made over 10 years ago at this point
You said it was from the same company
Not that it was the same drive
Please clarify
can we just close the ticket :please:
Their question hasn't been solved
I didn’t want to say the same drive but it’s the equivalent of going in the store and buying two of the same product.
this was his questions
he was asking if it was an issue with riot
It is not an issue with riot
Or the game
Mate instead of complaining here, you should probably find out why that's happening
I've explained that about 10 times
And no, it is not the game
and then he brought up that his old hdd was faster
which has nothing to do with this case at all
I get Valorant is optimized for faster drives. That’s great. But is it really so bad on hard drives where this game netting just under 30 gigs is taking more than twice as long to load than a game standing at 150 gigs?
50gb*
And again it's not an issue with the game
Valorant is just simply made for fast storage
While gaming is perfect, it’s the act of loading into it
And to be honest from you I'm not getting someone that wants to figure out why considering that you're ignoring all my advice
Because of that no one here can help you and I have to redirect you to riot
Solution
The community help forum is managed by the community and does not offer any official Riot support. You can create a support ticket at https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/requests/new for official support.
^^ Please make a ticket with riot
they will prob say what we have explained anyway..
Have a good day @amillo
Numerous Reddit posts of the same issue that have had exactly that
we have done our best to try to explain why it was happening and why it was normal. This ticket is solved now and there is nothing more to discuss have a nice day:BearHeart:
I guess thank you? I wished you guys would’ve left it open for someone to help troubleshoot, rather than the obvious. This is exactly why I added the label technical support.
I am currently the most senior person on the team
I will not argue any more after this, saucy has given you the option to troubleshoot however you declined
And like I said in my message you rejected everything I tried to tell you
it was your choice to not accept our help and explanations
I asked you to check task manager, I asked you to run a Crystal bench benchmark
You have an NVMe drive and if you want to play valorant id recommend you clear up space on it and install it there
best wishes
I didn’t check task manager because I have already in the past with my own attempts to mitigate the issue. And the benchmark I didn’t think was necessary given I had just bought this drive 2 weeks ago, and this is the only issue I have had.
^
You're asking for help but actively not saying that information and not providing it
You're contradicting yourself
js leave it
I gave you the transfer speed I had seen using task manager.
you have not given us the transfer speed
And I replied to that
they did
they said they have seen it write at 200mb
Asking you to run one now, And then at check task manager
^^^
however that might not be the real speed
^^
Please make a ticket again
it might be faster
Amillo with all due respect let's end it here, no more discussion and arguing
have a good day:BearHeart: