You did not say that you played Skyrim first on a HDD and then on a SSD…
> Area/Cell transitions are MUCH faster on an SSD.
I think we were not talking about the same thing (anymore?). Like I wrote below, explicit area transitions - entering a city, loading a save game - will of course benefit from an SSD, a lot. That is loading though. But you also have cell transitions that are streamed – you talked about texture streaming above - when travelling on foot through the game world. If I remember the engine from my morrowind mod days correctly, that is a special case in those games with its explicit cell system, but it probably basically applies to all 3D-games that include moving through big areas, since they all have to load textures at the time they come in reach. It would be quite interesting if an SSD would have a real effect here, and to my knowledge it so far does not. It would be interesting because those transitions can stutter if the streaming system does not work properly, or if the HDD is really too slow, which is a likely cause of bad minimal fps (and depending on the benchmark, could lower average fps) or rather explicit stuttering, measured in fps or not.
I'm not saying SSDs do not help with loading stuff, I say that to my knowledge, they do not help with streaming - which are two different things.
I never felt those explicit transitions were too bothersome when I played Fallout/Oblivion/Morrowind, that together with the streaming system outdoors is why I see an SSD as not necessary for those games. But of course, if it bothers you - and maybe loading really takes longer in Skyrim? - an SSD is a good load time minimizer.
> Area/Cell transitions are MUCH faster on an SSD.
I think we were not talking about the same thing (anymore?). Like I wrote below, explicit area transitions - entering a city, loading a save game - will of course benefit from an SSD, a lot. That is loading though. But you also have cell transitions that are streamed – you talked about texture streaming above - when travelling on foot through the game world. If I remember the engine from my morrowind mod days correctly, that is a special case in those games with its explicit cell system, but it probably basically applies to all 3D-games that include moving through big areas, since they all have to load textures at the time they come in reach. It would be quite interesting if an SSD would have a real effect here, and to my knowledge it so far does not. It would be interesting because those transitions can stutter if the streaming system does not work properly, or if the HDD is really too slow, which is a likely cause of bad minimal fps (and depending on the benchmark, could lower average fps) or rather explicit stuttering, measured in fps or not.
I'm not saying SSDs do not help with loading stuff, I say that to my knowledge, they do not help with streaming - which are two different things.
I never felt those explicit transitions were too bothersome when I played Fallout/Oblivion/Morrowind, that together with the streaming system outdoors is why I see an SSD as not necessary for those games. But of course, if it bothers you - and maybe loading really takes longer in Skyrim? - an SSD is a good load time minimizer.