Caching (Xbox)

From Wiki-Scene

Although retail Xbox games were primarily designed to be played from DVDs, many make use of the installed hard drive in order to speed in-game loading times. This process is called caching.

Three partitions of 750mb each are set aside for this purpose. They are referred to as X:, Y: and Z: respectively. As their contents are prone to deletion at any time, some dashboards (such as XBMC) hide them from users by default.

When a game that uses caching starts up, it will look for an empty cache partition (or wipe one if all are full) and then copy it's own frequently used files there. As the user plays the game, these files are then read from the (much faster) HDD instead of from the DVD drive making for a smoother experience; assuming the cache files are not wiped by another game prior to the next time it's started, the same files will be used and the time spent creating the cache will be skipped.

There is also a folder stored on the Xbox's E partition called "CACHE", which typically holds a very small amount of data. It's exact use is unknown, but if the space on that drive drops below a certain level caching games will not load. It is recommended to keep at least 100mb free at all times - If your system is unmodified, the save game manager present in the MS Dash can be used to measure the space available (aim to have more then 6,400 blocks free (each "block" is 16kb)).

An often recommended (and often effective) fix for games that don't operate correctly is to manually wipe the contents of the E:\CACHE folder, as well as that of the three cache partitions.

Oddly enough, caching is not the main reason that some games released for both the PlayStation 2 as well as the Xbox load much faster on Microsoft's console - Sony's system simply seems to have a very slow DVD drive.