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[Kagey K]

After watching Geoffs reveal of the controller today and seeing the demo of Astrobots Playground, is the dream of no load screens dead before it happened?

Its obvious and takes 6-8 seconds before the game launches (in the best case scenario.)

If they can’t get it right on prerecorded and scripted demos, what chance does real world games have?

Do you actually believe loading screens will be gone, or are they always going to be a problem we have to deal with?

 

[Mirumi]

I think it is possible, but As we push the possibility to make it happen, we are at the same time pushing it further away.

I believe if we were loading a game with PS2/3 assets and worlds, then load screens would be 100% non existent and would be closer to cartridge days. At the same time, because the assets are getting larger and larger, even the bigger bandwidth get's eventually filled; but there are other limitations now. We have GPU and CPU Rendering.

TLDR No, I dont think the idea is dead, but I feel as we continue to push higher fidelity, we will find other bottlenecks that prevent that instant loading we want.

 

[the_master]

Games need to load and also initialize (prepare by doing some processes) all systems and entities.
Both things are hidden in loading screens.

It will depend on the game and the devs if they want to put the investment in "no loading screens" or other features.

Regardless, loaing screens will be way shorter, if any

 

[Beer Baelly]

Were you that naive OP?

 

[Kagey K]

Were you that naive OP?

Never.

I knew the SSD “magic” was FUD. I’m just surprised they exposed It so quickly.

 

[Steve.1981]

They don't need to be gone completely, imo. As long as load times are shorter, I'll be happy.

 

[hemo memo]

Instead of loading screens they’ll call them loading transitions.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Do you actually believe loading screens will be gone, or are they always going to be a problem we have to deal with?

Exact same problem as with the whole 30/60fps debate. If devs really want to have them gone, they can make it happen. However, they never seem to want to. Next gen is a huge opportunity to sell the absence of load times. Devs don't care. Pretty promo material is more important.

 

[Gavin Stevens]

It may change in the future with smarter ways of masking loading, for sure. But to think loading will go away is... well, silly.

To be fair, I’ll be happy if they just reduce them a lot. I’m hoping we are behind the days of GTA V loading

 

[cormack12]

Yeah just watch NVMe comparisons on YouTube. Some games take 5 seconds, some take 30+ seconds. Hopefully we will see a lot less intermittent loading or intrusive, once the core game has loaded (e.g. skyrim houses).

The size of data usually catches up to the bandwidth capabilities. I still want minigames on loading screens.

 

[Grinchy]

I don't know if I'm ready to base the entire generation off of a single level loading in a free pack-in game that's 4 months away from release shown on a Geoff Keighley stream to demonstrate a controller.

 

[M1chl]

After watching Geoffs reveal of the controller today and seeing the demo of Astrobots Playground, is the dream of no load screens dead before it happened?

Its obvious and takes 6-8 seconds before the game launches (in the best case scenario.)

If they can’t get it right on prerecorded and scripted demos, what chance does real world games have?

Do you actually believe loading screens will be gone, or are they always going to be a problem we have to deal with?

He probably played it on PC anyway.

 

[jigglet]

My main game R6 Siege still takes a staggering 1m40s to load on one of the fastest NVMe drives today (Samsung 970 Pro evo). Games need to be designed for this new tech and I suspect a lot of devs are just using existing techniques and hoping to brute force it. Not going to work.

 

[J_Gamer.exe]

Load screens will be cut to about a second or so on PS5. We've already seen this in ratchet and clank.

The astrobot one was probably doing feedback on the controller for the player to feel as that's what its all about. Geoff even later points out the demo is about showing that and not ssd and other stuff.

This is a bit like after UE5 people were screaming tight passage loading corridor.... no, games can still be made to have caves and passages if they want, as caves without tight spaces would be unrealistic. (In that case it was to show off the character etc up close)

Sony are not going to go out on a limb and claim games can load in a second and then look stupid.

Plus we saw that leaked spiderman demo on a low speed devkit.

Loads will be almost nonexistent.

 

[Tulipanzo]

1) We literally had a game where hopping between dimensions took 1.5s
2) As people already pointed out, a dev may want transitions to take longer (Cerny already mentioned this).
For this demo, devs would want to communicate the idea of travelling through your PS5, and an excessively short transition wouldn't give that feeling. Considering the "loading" is still ~6s, i.e. long enough for your brain to acknowledge a transition but short enough to not get boring, this seems plausible
3) Even if it's a full 7s loading, it's enough to load the entire level, which is a radical improvement
4) Taking one example from one game to try and invalidate SSD speeds seems rather futile

 

[sonomamashine]

Yeah just watch NVMe comparisons on YouTube. Some games take 5 seconds, some take 30+ seconds. Hopefully we will see a lot less intermittent loading or intrusive, once the core game has loaded (e.g. skyrim houses).

The size of data usually catches up to the bandwidth capabilities. I still want minigames on loading screens.

Something like DMC when you had to spam a button to slash the loading ?

 

[VN1X]

Yes let's assume that every future release for either platform will run the same way this tech demo did because that makes sense.

Both consoles will more than likely have lightning fast loading times if at all. And ultimately if all games going forward, on either the XSX and PS5, feature loading times below 10 seconds than surely that's a win in anyone's book?

 

[Portugeezer]

We know the raw speed of 5.5GBps. PS5 has 16GB of RAM. Simple maths says there will be a few seconds of loading (if filling it all with new data).

PS5 will also have some loading like the XSX, your mind can rest easy at night OP.

 

[Killer Sakoman]

It would be disorienting to to transition levels in split second. That's why developers would slow it down to say 2 to 5 seconds.
Cerny himself said that developers would slow down transitions to avoid disorienting players.
Also, ratchet and clank just showed less than 2 second transitions. We moved from 90 seconds in TLOU2 to 2 second in Rift Apart.

 

[bitbydeath]

That was an animation for switching between worlds. Ratchet and Clank already proves just how short that can be.

 

[SleepDoctor]

I never was sold on load times completely disappearing. But as long as we don't get anymore 2 minute load screens this gen, im happy.

 

[Birdo]

It was never going to be instant.

Even old carts took a few seconds to load data.

 

[TLZ]

Can someone kind enough point out which part of the video has the loading?

 

[CptPusheen]

Meanwhile on the other forums:

“Artistic choice” I can’t even

 

[Tulipanzo]

Can someone kind enough point out which part of the video has the loading?

Can't blame you for missing it, I did too.
It's here, when Geoff goes into Cooling Springs

 

[Tulipanzo]

Meanwhile on the other forums:

“Artistic choice” I can’t even

You mean the thing Cerny directly mentioned as being necessary to clue people in to a level transition?
What would the lead system architect know, amirite?

 

[CptPusheen]

You mean the thing Cerny directly mentioned as being necessary to clue people in to a level transition?
What would the lead system architect know, amirite?

Yeah, people need clues that last up to 10 seconds, otherwise they would miss it. Olympic level of mental gymnastics there

 

[jose4gg]

Yeah, people need clues that last up to 10 seconds, otherwise they would miss it. Olympic level of mental gymnastics there

I’m like 100% sure all the effects in the loading screen where giving some kind of feedback to the controller...

People literally saw 2 seconds transitions in Ratchet and Clank. Why are we discussing this ?

It is impossible for you to let Sony win in one category my God ...

 

[Tulipanzo]

Yeah, people need clues that last up to 10 seconds, otherwise they would miss it. Olympic level of mental gymnastics there

The transition itself is 7 seconds at most (as OP said), so good try lying to try and make a point.
It's long enough to be noticed, but not long enough to be boring, which is why it's perfectly reasonable to believe it's a lengthened transition. This holds doubly true when we've seen shorter transitions on more intense games.

 

[turtlepowa]

Actually i like loading screens if they are not too long. In AC Odyssey those hints helped a lot.

 

[Hunnybun]

Yeah, people need clues that last up to 10 seconds, otherwise they would miss it. Olympic level of mental gymnastics there

We've already seen the kind of transition that happened in the Astrobot demo done near instantly in Ratchet & Clank. That basically proves that it could be done much faster in Astrobot, because it's the exact same process.

Unless you believe that the Ratchet demo was bs, of course.

 

[CptPusheen]

The transition itself is 7 seconds at most (as OP said), so good try lying to try and make a point.
It's long enough to be noticed, but not long enough to be boring, which is why it's perfectly reasonable to believe it's a lengthened transition. This holds doubly true when we've seen shorter transitions on more intense games.

7 seconds was tunnel itself with 2 seconds of animations of character being pulled in/pushed out. Either way, this is loading, it didn’t look good when we were promised no loading screens this gen. After Cerny’s announcement some people acted like SSD is some kind of secret weapon but obviously it’s not just a matter of having super fast storage and bam, it’s done. Clearly game needs to be written in a way to utilize it which was nicely demoed in Ratchet and Clank. There will still be loading screens from some less capable developers and some people should just stop being apologetic or defensive. SSD is not a magic formula

EDIT: From “LOLOL, PS5 is king, loading screens are dead” through “Actually, this is artistic decision” to “Well, I like loading screens”. Geez, people, make up your minds or stop excusing companies, it’s not like you earn money from it

 

[Tulipanzo]

Actually i like loading screens if they are not too long. In AC Odyssey those hints helped a lot.

Yeah, the issue here is that it's more of a level transition rather than a "cut-to-black" loading screen.

I'm thinking those in AC Odyssey survive for hints, but require a button press to skip.

 

[ZywyPL]

It was never alive to begin with, some people just needed some new bandwagon to jump onto after the 13TF one crashed. Some people even believed the textures will be loaded in on the fly as you turn around ,and yet here we are with games like GT7 and R7C with objects literally appearing right in front of our eyes as we get closer to them. If someone really believed a mere few GB/s will be able to mimic let alone replace couple of hundred of GB/s RAM then I don't really know what to think, why those people are so desperate/aggressive while trying to spoil their armchair theories on others...

 

[LostDonkey]

it was never alive. A fantasy. A marketing bullet point to drum up interest.

 

[Hunnybun]

7 seconds was tunnel itself with 2 seconds of animations of character being pulled in/pushed out. Either way, this is loading, it didn’t look good when we were promised no loading screens this gen. After Cerny’s announcement some people acted like SSD is some kind of secret weapon but obviously it’s not just a matter of having super fast storage and bam, it’s done. Clearly game needs to be written in a way to utilize it which was nicely demoed in Ratchet and Clank. There will still be loading screens from some less capable developers and some people should just stop being apologetic or defensive. SSD is not a magic formula

It is a magic formula. As the poster above pointed out, it's a matter of simple arithmetic.

You have 16gb of RAM, and an SSD which can fill it with (uncompressed) data in less than 3 seconds. It's that simple.

 

[skneogaf]

The tune seems to have changed

 

[Tulipanzo]

7 seconds was tunnel itself with 2 seconds of animations of character being pulled in/pushed out. Either way, this is loading, it didn’t look good when we were promised no loading screens this gen. After Cerny’s announcement some people acted like SSD is some kind of secret weapon but obviously it’s not just a matter of having super fast storage and bam, it’s done. Clearly game needs to be written in a way to utilize it which was nicely demoed in Ratchet and Clank. There will still be loading screens from some less capable developers and some people should just stop being apologetic or defensive. SSD is not a magic formula

Nope, I already counted those extra seconds, and so did OP, please stop being deceitful.

It is well within a dev's interests to make a transition of this length (you can actually see posters that missed it).
You might have a point if it were:
a) Longer
b) A screen-cut loading screen, which is always undesirable
The developers here need to load the level, but also need to show the player they are travelling through a PS5, which wouldn't work if shorter (try skipping ahead a few secs on YT).

You are trying to argue with imaginary SSD strawmen, rather than face the fact that the technology is impressive, and will basically eliminate loading-screens on both next-gen systems. It will obviously not eliminate transitions, as those are necessary in game design.

 

[CptPusheen]

Nope, I already counted those extra seconds, and so did OP, please stop being deceitful.

It is well within a dev's interests to make a transition of this length (you can actually see posters that missed it).
You might have a point if it were:
a) Longer
b) A screen-cut loading screen, which is always undesirable
The developers here need to load the level, but also need to show the player they are travelling through a PS5, which wouldn't work if shorter (try skipping ahead a few secs on YT).

You are trying to argue with imaginary SSD strawmen, rather than face the fact that the technology is impressive, and will basically eliminate loading-screens on both next-gen systems. It will obviously not eliminate transitions, as those are necessary in game design.

In UX design transition needs to be long enough so user can notice that context changed. Click app icon on you smartphone and there is some zoom-in or slide-in that lasts 0.5 a seconds, that’s enough. 8 seconds is in no way purely artistic choice. But believe in what you want. Also buy a better stopwatch

 

[Soodanim]

30 seconds of loading is too long, and we all know enough games that take longer. Any attempts to rectify that are appreciated.

 

[Tulipanzo]

The tune seems to have changed

"As game creators we go from trying to distract a player from how long fast travel is taking, like those Spider-Man subway rides, to being so blindingly fast that we might even have to slow that transition down"
Mark Cerny, March 18th 2020

Seems like some people weren't paying attention...

 

[ZywyPL]

 

[Tulipanzo]

In UX design transition needs to be long enough so user can notice that context changed. Click app icon on you smartphone and there is some zoom-in or slide-in that lasts 0.5 a seconds, that’s enough. 8 seconds is in no way purely artistic choice. But believe in what you want. Also buy a better stopwatch

Curios to see your stopwatch, which seemingly adds 3 seconds to conveniently fit your argument.

Still, you'd be correct if it were, again, a straight loading screen. As the designer objective here is to communicate the idea of travelling between worlds, a longer transition is needed. Your example fits more if it took 8 seconds to open up the UI from game for example, as the only objective there is to be quick.

 

[Hunnybun]

In UX design transition needs to be long enough so user can notice that context changed. Click app icon on you smartphone and there is some zoom-in or slide-in that lasts 0.5 a seconds, that’s enough. 8 seconds is in no way purely artistic choice. But believe in what you want. Also buy a better stopwatch

Why are you avoiding the two big counters to your argument?

1. We have already seen transitions such as the one you've highlighted in Astrobot done in less than 2 seconds in Ratchet. If there was some hard limit on doing it at that speed in Astrobot, how do you explain how it can be done in other (way more visually complex) games?

2. Arithmetic says that the entire RAM of the PS5 can be filled with uncompressed data in less than 3 seconds. Do you dispute that?

 

[Kev Kev]

the rumor will return come the beginning of next gen

then we'll have this topic again

then i'll make this comment again

 

[magnumpy]

this is the worst thing that's ever happened

 

[Tulipanzo]

Why are you avoiding the two big counters to your argument?

1. We have already seen transitions such as the one you've highlighted in Astrobot done in less than 2 seconds in Ratchet. If there was some hard limit on doing it at that speed in Astrobot, how do you explain how it can be done in other (way more visually complex) games?

2. Arithmetic says that the entire RAM of the PS5 can be filled with uncompressed data in less than 3 seconds. Do you dispute that?

3. This is a transition, not a loading screen, so it has different aims than just being the fastest.

Still, he uses bad math and fake info, so don't expect a serious reply or anything

 

[Skifi28]

Under 10 seconds loading sounds pretty good regardless, try and compare it with some games this gen...

 

[CptPusheen]

I’m going to bookmark this thread to revisit it in 2 years and see how some comments aged. Now it’s just no fun

 

[pasterpl]

Just an assumption, but isn’t loading a whole game a bit different than transition between levels (as in ratchet)? Point is that these two things shouldnt be compared 1:1.