Optimizing download cache is the dumbest thing, and it's unnecessary for SSDs

[Fartingman]

As the topic says... Why is it even offered for ssd installed users? I mean windows knows its running a SSD drive why doesn't WF?

It will make absolutely no difference in loading times by SSDs nature.

Even windows 7-10 offers to defragment your ssd drive by running a trim command thats it. No misplacing files, for contiguity, it's just dumb action.

Oh yea and to do it after every major update, it's really unnecessary and a waste of time.

I guess it might be ok for HDD guys, and would benefit all users due to the game being P2p networked and we all been there done that where the weakest link causes like 1000ms lag, so it is fine. But not on SSD guys.

RANT OVER.

[[DE]Momaw]

There's two things that happen during cache optimization.

1.)  Files are re-arranged so that they are in a more logical arrangement for loading. So all of the files that are related to a specific level or art  asset get put in sequential order which makes it faster for rotating disks to scrape them off the platter in order. You're right that this part really doesn't matter a lot for SSDs.

2.) Unused files are removed. An updated file can only "overwrite in place" if it's smaller than the original that it's updating. Essentially, when the game updates a resource the original version of the file may simply be marked as obsolete and its replacement appended to the end of the cache.This means that the original is still there taking up space. This part IS relevant, especially when the cost of SSDs per gigabyte is much higher than rotating disks.

If you read that prompt a little more carefully the game will offer you an estimate of how much disk space you will recover from optimizing the cache, i.e., carefully picking out the dead junk.

The Trim command doesn't have anything to do with cache fragmentation. The SSD's controller maintains its own internal catalog of which logical blocks, which is how the OS sees the drive, map to which physical addresses within the memory chips of the drive. Sending a Trim command simply tells the drive controller that it may consider these blocks as empty and available (and report them as empty and available to the OS the next time it asks), without actually overwriting the physical addresses with new data (which would wear them out). As far as the operating system is concerned, the warframe cache files are single, very very large files rather than the tens of thousands of individual files that warframe's file manager maintains. The files being maintained within the cache do not sit precisely on block intervals, which they would need to do in order for that strategy to work like you are thinking.

[Fartingman]

Thanks for your reply.

You seem to omit the agreement that for ssds the optimization is redundant. Looking at the task manager i see major IO operations going on in hundreds of Mb per second speeds. All that work for maybe a few 100 Mb of space saved. Virtually noone will use the game on limited disk space. There needs to be a system simlar to the trim command where the internal file can be mark for overwriting without the moving of tremendous amount of data as it is in its current state.

With cost per gigabyte you do have a point it might be of some value, but not a lot.

[[DE]Momaw]

9 minutes ago, Fartingman said:

There needs to be a system simlar to the trim command where the internal file can be mark for overwriting without the moving of tremendous amount of data as it is in its current state. 

Which would utterly destroy the game's loading time for rotating disks and cause bloating in the cache index, in a way that OS-level defragmentation can't fix. A more realistic feature request than having DE rewrite the file manager, might be to simply have an option for cache optimization in launcher:  Automatic, Ask Me, and Never.  If you do not care about the disk space being wasted then just set it to Never and the game will stop nagging you.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Momaw

[Fartingman]

Right on point there. with your last sentence, couldn't agree more.

[ScribbleClash]

4 hours ago, Momaw said:

Which would utterly destroy the game's loading time for rotating disks and cause bloating in the cache index, in a way that OS-level defragmentation can't fix. A more realistic feature request than having DE rewrite the file manager, might be to simply have an option for cache optimization in launcher:  Automatic, Ask Me, and Never.  If you do not care about the disk space being wasted then just set it to Never and the game will stop nagging you.

Why do people always asume that something has to be an alteration to a running system, rather than an enhancement? Either have it check if the files are stored on an SSD and hardcode it to skip moving files (Moving files because they are fragmented on an SSD does not only not benefit the speed, but it also shortens your SSDs lifetime!) or make it a tickbox.

Sure opting out is always an option - myself I am not a fan of collecting dead data.