Disc Image Speed Comparison To Optical...

[Tyorik]

Just wondering, as I'm trying to move away from constantly switching out DVDs, how fast are disc images (.ISOs) read in comparison to being read from an optical drive? Is it limited by the emulation software, or hard drive speed, or...?

Thanks!

[odannyboy000]

It's limited by your entire computer in general. The faster the processor, the more computations can be made. The faster the RAM, the faster things are read and written from the CPU. The faster your hard drive, the better.

ISO's will be faster than a DVD, because DVD's are spinning disks, which are much slower than the hardware in your computer.

[Paul Komski]

Virtual optical drives are simply much faster than physical ones. "Daemon Tools (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php?mode=ViewCategory&catid=5)" rocks.

[odannyboy000]

What does Daemon Tools do exactly? Mount drives?

[Paul Komski]

Virtual Drives

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_drive

[Tyorik]

Awesome. Thanks, loading times in games is cut drastically when keeping a file for images, rather than switching out the bloody annoying discs. Definitely helps if you have the storage capacity for ~5gb per image though.

[Paul Komski]

Also avoids damaging the original disks.