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Kotaku: Why Games Still Have Bad Loading Times
- Thread starter LordOfLore
- Start date
Rellik
Member
Still not fast enough, as pointed out in the article you didn't read.
Can't stand loading times, but hey they give me a chance to browse Twitter.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Need 3D XPoint
Of course by the time that's affordable games sizes will be bigger again. It didn't even end up as fast as intels boasts either
Of course by the time that's affordable games sizes will be bigger again. It didn't even end up as fast as intels boasts either
randomengine
Banned
PS5 and NextBox need to load games as fast or faster than the Switch. Period.
Yeah, Injustice 2 is pretty load time friendly all things considered
Stevey
Member
The only games I've played lately where I've noticed how long the loading times are was for FFXV, HITMAN, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Breath of the Wild. But considering the games I've listed are open world/sandbox, I can excuse a long initial load. However games like FFXV and BotW have load screens often and that wears on me pretty fast.
IcyRhythms
Member
I'd rather every game be more polished and run at stable frame rates than load 10 seconds faster.
bloodforge
Member
If consoles stick to HDDs next gen I hope they look into something similar to Optane for caching to make loading faster for the OS and any game you are playing.
It would probably be even worse if these new consoles streamed straight off the disc, like old consoles did.
Quite honestly, SSD's are not getting cheap enough, fast enough. It's still relatively new technology, so it's pretty understandable, but there's no market pressure because very few companies are making NAND flash and even fewer and making the extremely high speed 3D variety. Heck, it's difficult to make the stuff as it is, so it's not all that surprising. If there were more competition in the space, we'd probably see quite a bit more of a drop in price by now.
From a personal standpoint, I refuse to use anything but an SSD unless its for media storage. £300-400 is a lot to spend on a 1TB drive, but it's seriously worth it if you can afford it.
Quite honestly, SSD's are not getting cheap enough, fast enough. It's still relatively new technology, so it's pretty understandable, but there's no market pressure because very few companies are making NAND flash and even fewer and making the extremely high speed 3D variety. Heck, it's difficult to make the stuff as it is, so it's not all that surprising. If there were more competition in the space, we'd probably see quite a bit more of a drop in price by now.
From a personal standpoint, I refuse to use anything but an SSD unless its for media storage. £300-400 is a lot to spend on a 1TB drive, but it's seriously worth it if you can afford it.
The article defines how fast is "enough" for me? How presumptuous.
NinjamicWZ
Banned
The only time I ever was really annoyed by load times was Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain on PS1. Those were incredibly long, even for that era.
Ironically, the follow up game Soul Reaver, was fully 3D and a much more complicated game, but had zero load times after the initial start up, because it helped pioneer streaming load times as you play.
Leafhopper
Banned
I haven't had a deal with loading times lately although it's been awhile since I played a giant open world game or something.
Memnoch
Member
Loving mine on the ps4 pro.
tearsintherain
Member
Engine design issues have to factor a lot in this. There are two reasons why I loved Persona 5, outside of any game/story things.
1. It launched with zero patches in the west. I installed from disc, and started playing. No day zero update or any other bullshit.
2. Load and save times are nearly instant. I press load, select a game, and am playing in under 2 seconds. HOLY SHIT.
That feels so rare nowadays, console or PC. Sometimes it is ludicrously bad, like Justified 3 or even Witcher 3 on console early on (I think it got better, I switched to PC at some point and it was under 10 secs then). Yes, hard drives and CPUs may not have kept pace with GPUs but a 45 second load time for a save is far beyond that, it has to entirely do with your game not being optimized for quick saves and loads.
1. It launched with zero patches in the west. I installed from disc, and started playing. No day zero update or any other bullshit.
2. Load and save times are nearly instant. I press load, select a game, and am playing in under 2 seconds. HOLY SHIT.
That feels so rare nowadays, console or PC. Sometimes it is ludicrously bad, like Justified 3 or even Witcher 3 on console early on (I think it got better, I switched to PC at some point and it was under 10 secs then). Yes, hard drives and CPUs may not have kept pace with GPUs but a 45 second load time for a save is far beyond that, it has to entirely do with your game not being optimized for quick saves and loads.
InsaneFandom
Member
Think I'm so used to loading times that they don't even really register any more. Sword Coast Legends is the only game I can think of that I've played in the past few years where it annoyed me a bit, especially after dying
Doesn't look like they're going anywhere I guess, which is not really surprising considering how big & complex games are getting. I do appreciate efforts to hide/disguise load screens or at least make them look good
Doesn't look like they're going anywhere I guess, which is not really surprising considering how big & complex games are getting. I do appreciate efforts to hide/disguise load screens or at least make them look good
I am loving persona but it loads so fast because it is loading so fucking much while you play. Even though it is short loading times.
gundamkyoukai
Member
Still the loading times for everything else was annoying IMO .
It won't have bother me as much but i had now come from playing HZD .
badcrumble
Member
SSD in consoles (as a hardware standard) would still make a major difference. I'm really hoping next-gen consoles opt for 1TB of cheap, not-fastest-on-the-market SSD over 3TB of spinning HDD or 256GB of best-in-the-business SSD. Hopefully the optimal price/storage/performance numbers work out such that that's the decision Sony/MS go with.
Astral Dog
Member
Lego Switch still loads slow like a snail
Gai Murakumo
Member
Load times this Gen have been fine for me minus Bloodborne unpatched.
P5 is snappier than a snapping turtle named Snappy.
I H8 Memes
Member
I'm less concerned about load times and far more concerned with the lack of advancement to NPC and combat AI. Both issues suffer from the same problem. Good AI and load times dont show up in screenshots.
Never play unpatched New Vegas. That is the true hell.
Rodney McKay
Member
Only game in recent memory that has bugged me due to long load times was LEGO City Undercover on the Switch.
And even with long load times, the ability to just put the system in sleep mode and wake it up into the game instantly mostly eliminates the issue (at least the very long initial load, loading into and out of levels does take a little while too).
I haven't had loading times on my PC ever since getting an SSD years ago*, and even on consoles I can't name a single one that has bothered me in a long time. If anything my SSD loads a little TOO fast sometimes in games that provide you with useful information during load screens, haha.
*Except Mass Effect Andromeda load times sucked at launch on PC, but I think that was an issue with it taking forever to log into their systems or something (sometimes it would load really fast, and other times it would take a few minutes). And it has built in, unskippable ship taking off/landing animations that play all the time which artificially inflates the load times.
And even with long load times, the ability to just put the system in sleep mode and wake it up into the game instantly mostly eliminates the issue (at least the very long initial load, loading into and out of levels does take a little while too).
I haven't had loading times on my PC ever since getting an SSD years ago*, and even on consoles I can't name a single one that has bothered me in a long time. If anything my SSD loads a little TOO fast sometimes in games that provide you with useful information during load screens, haha.
*Except Mass Effect Andromeda load times sucked at launch on PC, but I think that was an issue with it taking forever to log into their systems or something (sometimes it would load really fast, and other times it would take a few minutes). And it has built in, unskippable ship taking off/landing animations that play all the time which artificially inflates the load times.
While Nioh takes a 30-45 seconds to load a stage the loading screen upon dying is only 3-5 seconds TOPS. I heard The Surge also has very quick reloads when you die.
I remember seeing a video on why loading times haven't changed all that much, what the causes are, and why it'll probably with us in some form or another well into the future. It largely has to do with how quick data is moved from storage to ram, and then how efficiently the game swaps assets and whatnot into ram as it needs them.
But this generation is most certainly better than last, on average.
BTW: Has anyone tested how fast games load from a RAM drive?
I remember seeing a video on why loading times haven't changed all that much, what the causes are, and why it'll probably with us in some form or another well into the future. It largely has to do with how quick data is moved from storage to ram, and then how efficiently the game swaps assets and whatnot into ram as it needs them.
But this generation is most certainly better than last, on average.
BTW: Has anyone tested how fast games load from a RAM drive?
Alpha Phoenix
Member
From my experience so far, SSD's in gaming are hit n miss. Some games are just not optimized enough for an SSD to be a major boost. I know for a fact that on Xbox One this is the case, and I believe DF has formally investigated the issue in one of their past articles. It barely makes a difference in some games, while it works nicely in others.
Suzushiiro
Banned
Yeah, meanwhile game installs keep getting bigger and bigger, so even if SSDs get cheaper moving from launching with a 500GB HDD to a 500GB SSD won't cut it. I'd imagine that next generation consoles will probably go with some manner of hybrid approach where mass storage is still on an HDD while some intermediary solution is used to store data for the game you're playing that's higher capacity but slower/cheaper than the system RAM but also faster than an HDD- maybe a small SSD optimized to withstand a shitload of writes, maybe just a lot of slow cheap RAM, maybe something else.
Comparing the asset/engine complexity of Persona 5 to Just Cause 3 or Witcher 3 is silly. It's like claiming that a Toyota Corolla is designed more optimally than a Ferrari because it gets better gas mileage. I agree, it's really cool that Persona 5 loads so quickly, but the reason for that is because the game design and goals are completely different, not because Persona 5 is an amazing example of optimization effort relative to the others.
Edit: For the record, I'm all for praising development effort across all game genres, just not at the expense of criticizing the effort of others when the comparison is technically nonsensical
schwabdizzle
Banned
SSDs and 16GB of RAM fixes a lot of load time issues.
nillapuddin
Member
"For your own health" he says, while smoking a cigarette.
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