Madden 11 Hard Drive Evaluation

Continuing with the series of Xbox 360 hard drive installation evaluations I’ve gone through and compared several aspects of Madden 11 based on loading times from the disk vs the hard drive. Thankfully the Madden series has fared much better in the way of loading times and smooth menu navigation as opposed to NCAA Football over the last few years. With Madden 11 the loading times are a bit shorter from the disc and comparable from the hard drive when put up against Madden 10 and the actual game install is half a gig smaller.

Install time- 8:37
Install size- 5.3 GB

Loading Times
Boot to main menu- 55 seconds disc vs 42 seconds HDD (13 seconds)
Load into “Play Now” game- 23 seconds disc vs 15 seconds HDD (8 seconds)
Leave “Play Now” to menu- 8 seconds disc vs 6 seconds HDD (2 seconds)
Load into “Super Bowl” game- 25 seconds disc vs 17 seconds HDD (8 seconds)
Load into “Madden Moment”- 23 seconds disc vs 15 seconds HDD (8 seconds)
Load into Saved Franchise – 11 seconds disc vs 10 seconds HDD (1 second)

So the loading times in general are pretty reasonable with a decent savings by installing to the hard drive. As always installing is recommended not just for load time improvements but also for the reduced noise and wear and tear put on the system.