I really can't overstate how excellent a game like this performs with an upgraded HDD. I got a Seagate Hybrid SSD, and this game goes from splash screen to action extremely quick. There's a quick flash of texture pop in as soon as the course loads, but I never see any again, and all other loading is lightening quick. I've seen performance gains on other games too, such as Knack. I picked the game up cheap from Newegg and thought the loading times were terrible. Installed the new HDD and now it's reduced by more than half.