Effect of 5400RPM on Gaming - Specificially Battlefield 2?

I am an avid Battlefield 2 fan, and will probably migrate to BF2142 eventually. Either way, how much of a performance difference is there in load times between a 5400RPM and 7200RPM HDD? By math I know it is a 25% difference, but in reality is it an issue?

I'm used to a Raptor 10,000 RPM HDD that loads quickly, which can be important at the start of a level.

Has this been a problem for anyone with a 5400RPM laptop HDD?

Thanks.

 

I haven't have much issue, expect for shuttering during the first 2 minutes I start a game, might not be a problem with the hard drive as my laptop is weak. As for loading, its reasonable, but the "verifying cilent data" part takes a bit longer.

 

Should have little to no effect in BF2, almost everything loads at the start of the round (thus the very long load times) so your initial load time may be longer but in game you should suffer none.

I think the only thing that loads on the fly is player model textures and things of that nature wich should be just fine and your ram will take care of it.

Your FPS will stay the same if thats what your worried about.

BTW you should look into BF2142, you may hate it or love it. I for one after getting used to it loved it, and have not touched BF2 since.

 

You'll be fine. The difference will be in load times, not actual performance, granted your RAM is sufficient. Since you have 2GB, there will be little to no hd swapping, so you won't notice any differences once you are in the game itself.

 

I guess that is my question. If there are longer load times, you can miss the boat on the initial attack, which can be critical at the start of a game. But maybe it's not such a big deal?

 

On my desktop with 7200 rpm and 1gb ram BF2 loads very quickly and I am always in the first rush. 5400 rpm shouldn't make too much of a difference, the first rush usually doesn't have many people anyway and is therefore kind of empty. I would say it is not a big deal.

 

Very quickly? How quick...I have a 7200 RPM and I doubt it does anything for me concerning load times. It usually takes 1-2 minutes for a map to load regardless of your specs.