PS3 slim streaming/hdd/bluray drive issues?

[soulchild]

I just decided to revisit Killzone 2 on my 3 months old PS3 slim which I already completed on my old YLOD PS3 fat 60GB. I'm pretty sure that on my fat PS3 there were very few places where the game stopped for about 1-2 seconds to stream/load assets and/or new parts of a level.

On my new PS3 slim though, I'm now experiencing 4-5 seconds in-game load times on multiple occasions in the first few minutes of the game alone. It looks like the game crashed. This got me thinking and in retrospect I remember God of War 3 having similar issues where the game stalled for a couple of seconds in some places (and you could hear the Bluray drive going "back and forth"). Heavy Rain did the same thing and even completely crashed once during a hectic chase scene so that I had to turn off the console which corrupted my save game. I can't recall having had this problem with any of my games on the fat model ...

Now, I'm wondering if there's something wrong with my new ps3 slim or if this is normal behaviour? Anyone experienced similar problems? Thanks!

 

[Rolf N]

Might be your specific PS3. I've just played through God Of War 3 twice almost back-to-back on my EU slim, and didn't notice the issue you describe.

It did freeze on me once, in the upper gardens FWIW. Had to turn it off with the physical switch.

 

[soulchild]

It did freeze on me once, in the upper gardens FWIW. Had to turn it off with the physical switch.

Do you have a ps3 slim or fat? Because only the latter has a physical switch and I have only experienced these issues on my ps3 slim, not my dead ps3 fat.

 

[Rolf N]

Do you have a ps3 slim or fat? Because only the latter has a physical switch and I have only experienced these issues on my ps3 slim, not my dead ps3 fat.

Slim. The switch on the front still clicks a little when pressed, so that's physical enough for me

 

[qb2k5]

I joined to answer this question and also being a long time lurker.


Its normal it does the same thing on my 120gb slim that I purchased in feb 2010. It has a freeze as it seems the system froze for a few seconds and then it unfreezes. It must be that all the assets in a particular level area hasnt been loaded.

 

[soulchild]

I joined to answer this question and also being a long time lurker.
Its normal it does the same thing on my 120gb slim that I purchased in feb 2010. It has a freeze as it seems the system froze for a few seconds and then it unfreezes. It must be that all the assets in a particular level area hasnt been loaded.

That's good to hear! Are you talking about Killzone 2 specifically? How long is your average freeze? Is it closer to 1-2 seconds or more like 3-4 seconds?

It'd be interesting to know what causes these differences between the slim and the fat model. I've heard people say that the slim's BluRay drive is slower when it comes to playing movies, but I haven't read that many folks complaining about a significant increase of in-game loading times.

Thanks for your input!

 

[BoardBonobo]

There are sections of KZ2 where it freezes for a few seconds whilst it loads new assets (fixed for KZ3 apparently). But I've never encountered any big freezes or crashes on my slim. I don't think I ever played KZ2 on the fat, I'd have to dig it out and test it.

I did replace my 120Gb drive with a 500Gb drive on the day I got my slim though.

 

[patsu]

That's good to hear! Are you talking about Killzone 2 specifically? How long is your average freeze? Is it closer to 1-2 seconds or more like 3-4 seconds?

It'd be interesting to know what causes these differences between the slim and the fat model. I've heard people say that the slim's BluRay drive is slower when it comes to playing movies, but I haven't read that many folks complaining about a significant increase of in-game loading times.

Thanks for your input!

KZ2 has these micro-loading moments.

Blu-ray requires 2x drive speed (Like the one in PS3 Fat). So Slim should not perform worse.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I actually do get the impression that the Slim is just a little bit slower than the fat one. (and I think DF measured something to that extent as well) On the flip side the disc drive seems to be more reliable.

 

[patsu]

I remember seeing some PS3 Fat and Slim movie loading comparison. The Fat is faster in starting up/loading the movie:

It is unclear whether the slower loading is caused by the BR drive since the specs mandates 2x drive speed. Afterall, once the movie is playing, it should play the same on Fat or Slim.

The starting up may be related to other issues like Java VM loading (from HDD or firmware ?). I have no idea what the root cause is. >_<

 

[qb2k5]

That's good to hear! Are you talking about Killzone 2 specifically? How long is your average freeze? Is it closer to 1-2 seconds or more like 3-4 seconds?

It'd be interesting to know what causes these differences between the slim and the fat model. I've heard people say that the slim's BluRay drive is slower when it comes to playing movies, but I haven't read that many folks complaining about a significant increase of in-game loading times.

Thanks for your input!

Im talking about KZ2. Sometimes it freezes for 3-4 seconds. I remember when it first happened I thought my brand new Slim had some hardware problems as hardlocks arent good. Then as I kept playing and seeing it happen I found out it was due to loading.

 

[SG79]

*snip*

I think the comparison was made on a pre-patch fat PS3 (the one that got rid of the PS3 jingle). Either way, for games, it's a non issue and really depends on the HDD installed.

Out of of the box tests, like the one the DF had give the upper hand to the slim:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3slim-hardware-test-article?page=3

The only real differences I noticed was that the slim's drive is definitely more audible. My dead 20GB's drive was quieter for sure.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It is unclear whether the slower loading is caused by the BR drive since the specs mandates 2x drive speed. Afterall, once the movie is playing, it should play the same on Fat or Slim.

The starting up may be related to other issues like Java VM loading (from HDD or firmware ?). I have no idea what the root cause is. >_<

It could be all kinds of things. The first that comes to mind is possibly worse random and sequential seek times. Anyone have detailed specs on both drives?

Another could be that the default HDD is slower than the one used in the Fat. But that would only affect it if it's got data stored on the drive (so wouldn't account for movies).

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

It could be all kinds of things. The first that comes to mind is possibly worse random and sequential seek times. Anyone have detailed specs on both drives?

Unlikely since it would impact Insomniac's BR streaming games.

Another could be that the default HDD is slower than the one used in the Fat. But that would only affect it if it's got data stored on the drive.

HDD should be (at least) 5400rpm or it will affect carefully tuned games, including those installed ones.

DF's tests show:

Loading up the first "FNG" training level, we see a clear speed advantage to the Slim: 24 seconds for its loading bar to complete compared to 26.2 on the "Fat". In theory this test centres on BD drive performance alone, though the game may be caching off data to the hard disk.

Again, it's another conclusive victory for the Slim. Three minutes, 11 seconds in all, versus three minutes and 18 seconds on the older unit. It's beginning to look like a bit of a white-wash for the new PS3, and that the "Slim is slower" stories don't quite compute.

Our survey says? A substantial victory for the Slim. DMC4 installs in 18 minutes, 42 seconds versus 21 minutes, 23 seconds on the "Fat" - a whopping great 2 minutes, 41 seconds advantage

The slower movie startup may be a BR run-time specific issue, or as SG79 pointed out, may be due to firmware version difference (They moved part of it to HDD in one of the releases). At that time, I believe it's still faster than most standalone BR player startup time.

 

[joker454]

Im talking about KZ2. Sometimes it freezes for 3-4 seconds. I remember when it first happened I thought my brand new Slim had some hardware problems as hardlocks arent good. Then as I kept playing and seeing it happen I found out it was due to loading.

It happened on my PS3 slim as well during KZ2, and it's hdd is empty. Happened on Heavy Rain as well where it seems like the game has crashed but it comes back a few seconds later. I thought my slim might be dying, but it seems to be normal as others have the same issue.

 

[patsu]

It's because KZ2 does not have a (complete ?) streaming system in-place. The loadings happen in the SP campaign (MP is fine). GG promised people that they would fix it but it didn't make it into release. KZ3 is supposed to plug the hole.

I believe Heavy Rain's scenario is different. The stuttering, reported by some, may be a program bug. I personally did not encounter them.

 

[assurdum]

From what I remember those problems not concerning ps3 slim only...heavy rain & killzone 2 have pretty noticeable loading issue but not depending of console version...I have played with kz2 on my died fat & I had the same strange 'freeze' issue in the loading in my slim, nothing of particularly different.

 

[patsu]

Exactly.

 

[jonabbey]

I wouldn't be surprised if some of this comes down to the slim not having Flash RAM on board for the firmware as a cost-saving measure. Because the slims have to read their firmware off of the hard drive, things like playing Blu-ray movies from power-on is bound to take a bit longer.

Whether this would affect Killzone, etc., during game play would depend on how/whether the PS3's OS is doing demand paging of libraries / segments of its firmware.

 

[patsu]

But the same KZ2 and Heavy Rain issues happen on PS3 Fat as well.

Based on DF's tests, the Slim generally runs faster.

The only item is the Blu-ray startup Youtube video. Unfortunately, we don't have enough info about the test set up.