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BTRFS vs EXT4 gaming performance
Pebor Aug 2, 2022
Hello!

I've recently been thinking and learning a bit about btrfs and it seems really worth diving into for the subvolumes, snapshots and compression as a normal desktop user.
Only thing being, I do see some performance "complains" on the internet, most people say it's not really noticeable, BUT I've also seen a post or two saying their games are now loading quite slower..
My question/request is, as I didn't find much on the internet, if anyone has some data on big/small games testing loading/startup times with ext4 and btfrs, to see if it really is affected.
I can imagine it being definitely slower for BIG games like gtaV, Red redemption 2... but I don't even own these games to test it on my own.

Btrfs seems to be getting more popular-ish these days, so I think a benchmark for "gaming with btrfs" would be useful!
denyasis Aug 3, 2022
It's fine. Been using it for 3 years now on my only drive in my desktop. To be perfectly honest. I have no reason to go back to ext4. The features (snapshots in particular) are too good to lose.

Numbers. Same setup. About 20 seconds from power button to display manger on OpenSuse and Manjaro. Manjaro is probably a bit faster by a few seconds. That's including POST. Feels about the same wether using SATA or NVME.

I can't say I've had any unusual loading times, most games could be measured in seconds. I tend to play older games though, so storage speed isn't much of a bottle neck.

When it was new, there were complaints (some legit, like with all new things), but most concerns I see nowadays are just those old complaints from long ago being repeated, most of which were solved long ago as well.

If you not using it for the features, I can't tell any difference between it and others. It's saved my bacon a few time with snapshots. I can't recommend it enough for that feature alone.

Last edited by denyasis on 3 August 2022 at 1:36 am UTC
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