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Longest loading times in a disc-based system?

stranno

Member


I'm trying to find a game with longer loading times than Soldier of Fortune, Dreamcast. It has 12 levels with 3-4 loading times of 2:30 minutes each, in other words, 120 minutes waiting to playthrough it.

I'm tracking single loading screens only, not installation screens, world generation or games with lots of loading times (like Smackdown vs RAW) before something.

Other "classic long loading times" i've seen are not nearly close to this numbers. Games like Sonic 06 on 360 (around 40 seconds), Neo Geo CD games (Samurai Spirits RPG is the worst i've seen and its like 1:30 minutes), etc.

IIRC Mafia on Playstation 2 had those crazy 1:30 minutes loading screens in each bridge of the city, but, again, not nearly as close as SOF weird file packaging system.
 
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Toe-Knee

Member
I came in here to say soldier of fortune on DC but you covered it!

It is far better with the ide mod goes to about 20 seconds!
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I'm not sure if it is exactly what you're looking for, but what comes to mind for me immediately is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind on the original Xbox.

Not only were the loading times laughably bad, but they got progressively worse as you progressed through the game. Starting out with a new save, the loading screen was typically about a minute and a half to two minutes to load you in the game from the main menu. As you progress, your save file has tons of extra garbage data (like where enemies dead bodies are laying, etc and they never go away) and it can take 4-5 minutes to load the game from the main menu.

Lots of time to read the instruction manual, or maybe the strategy guide if you have it.

The game recently got Xbox One X BC and enhancements, and the loading screen is still about 40 seconds on average. Much improved over the older hardware, but obviously still pretty laughable.
 

stranno

Member
Not only were the loading times laughably bad, but they got progressively worse as you progressed through the game. Starting out with a new save, the loading screen was typically about a minute and a half to two minutes to load you in the game from the main menu. As you progress, your save file has tons of extra garbage data (like where enemies dead bodies are laying, etc and they never go away) and it can take 4-5 minutes to load the game from the main menu.
Yeah, thats even more special than Just Cause 3. With a fresh inventory it wasnt that bad (for a Elders Scrolls game lol).
 
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stranno

Member
Is it really when it happens betweens acts? You could not install the whole game.
Yes, it installs each act. In fact there is an "installing" message over the loading bar.

They are quite long, but as i said, installations in Playstation 3 were fkn horrible, not game's problem.

If that counts then Devil May Cry 4 was far worse.
 
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hivsteak

Member
These are off the top of my head from PC. Resource hogs.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided map loads would take what felt like 3-5 mins. Didn’t help that the hub world was split into two maps.

Prey had similarly lengthy loading too.

On PS3:

Max Payne 3 was the worst. Loading is streamed in the background during cutscenes. Loading would typically complete towards the end of every cutscene rendering the skip button useless.
 

stranno

Member
These are off the top of my head from PC. Resource hogs.
Its hard to know how bad are those fmv under-the-hood loading times since the game is loading the video and streaming the assets so you never know.

I have checked a few videos of Prey and they are between 1-2 minutes in console. Crazy but still not there.
 

Toe-Knee

Member
Is it really when it happens betweens acts? You could not install the whole game.
Yeah. At launch a game install could only be 4gb max due to fat32 file restrictions so it had to delete the install and install the next chapter.

They fixed it in a later patch which let the game install the entire game (think it was the same day as trophy support was added)
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
Everyone that dislikes the neogeo cd dancing monkey.

Is not a true gamer.


ALL HAIL DANCING MONKEY BRINGER OF JOY.

Motorstorm on the ps3 holy shit.

Bonus entry : streetfighter alpha 2 on the snes
 

Mochilador

Member
Neo Geo CD is the worst offender for me.
One example is Samurai Shodown, the game is full of loading times, for everything. There are loadings for loadings!
 
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Frosted

Member
Battlefield 1 Multiplayer Conquest on PS4........ OMG that thing takes forever and sometimes it dumps you on a game that's 5 seconds away from ending...
 

stranno

Member
Onechanbara on the 360 was bad for loading times.

Good thing there was a mini-game while you waited.
I've seen a few and we are talking about 30 seconds ... its stupidly long for a game with those graphics but not that long.
 

Rayderism

Member
If you consider the ratio of how much data was being loaded to how long it took, Commodore 64 (with no sort of fast load cartridge) wins hands down. It only had 64k of memory, and less than 40k of actual program space (the other roughly 24k was its system data) and it took forever to load just about anything.

My brother just told me the old TRS-80 computers were even slower.....but I never had one of those to know anything about that.
 

Agent X

Member
I remember playing The Adventures of Willy Beamish for Sega CD at a friend's house many years ago. The game suffered from frequent loading pauses that lasted a minute or longer. It was truly atrocious, and I say this as someone who endured Commodore 64 loading screens for several years.
 

Masatshi

Member
PREY on PS4pro (or Xbox One X - played both) had long loading times. Just played through it again on the X... got especially on my nerves during the end-segments, where you have to switch locations often... love the game though!
 

tylrdiablos

Member
Timesplitters on the PlayStation2 had terrible loading times. I can remember having time to go put the kettle on and make a coffee whilst waiting.

Great game though.
 

Michele

you.
I know it's not disc based, but Super Smash Bros for 3DS sometimes takes a bit to load. Somewhere around 30 to 40 seconds if you're using physical version (which I have).
 

Airola

Member
If you consider the ratio of how much data was being loaded to how long it took, Commodore 64 (with no sort of fast load cartridge) wins hands down. It only had 64k of memory, and less than 40k of actual program space (the other roughly 24k was its system data) and it took forever to load just about anything.

Yeah, tape format is bound to have longer loading times and I guess this is one of the reasons why the OP asked for disc based systems and nothing more.
The programs on floppy disks too quite a lot of time too though on C64. Especially for some reason even the disk drive had an effect to it. I have one of the older disk drives and one later 3rd party disk drive and it's unbelievable how much faster the 3rd party drive loads the programs.

As a side note, people often like to remember C64 having way longer loading times than it really had. I've heard countless times people saying how they had to wait 30 minutes for a game to load. Even when they say 10 minutes it's usually stretched quite a bit. 5 minutes plus/minus 2 minutes is more realistic estimate.

Lego City Undercover on Wii U

Yeah, I think that has about 1.10-1.20 loading time when you first get in to the game and whenever you either go in or come out of the police station.
I think the music during the loading screens has forever burned into my brain :D
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Wasn’t there an infamous PSP WWE game that took like 10-15 minutes to get into the first match?

Might be a slight exaggeration, but it was pretty bad.
 

Jme

Member
I remember playing The Adventures of Willy Beamish for Sega CD at a friend's house many years ago. The game suffered from frequent loading pauses that lasted a minute or longer. It was truly atrocious, and I say this as someone who endured Commodore 64 loading screens for several years.

Came to post this. Willy Beamish for Sega CD is virtually unplayable
 
One of the early Smackdown games on PSP made me disheartened to buy any more PSP games after suffering through those load times.

Edit:
Wasn’t there an infamous PSP WWE game that took like 10-15 minutes to get into the first match?

Might be a slight exaggeration, but it was pretty bad.

This guy knows!

Edit Edit:

 
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