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We need to talk about SFV loading time on PS4

For the first few days my load times were absurd (PC, SSD) but it turned out to all be server side issues. It just fixed itself and has been good since. I hope the same will happen to you OP because Capcom doesn't seem to be acknowledging this as an issue.
 
The loading times were perhaps my biggest peeve from the beta and renting it. I liked the gameplay, but just thinking of how much time I spent NOT fighting was enough for me to hold off for now.
 
The load times are long, but are you seriously comparing SF5 to ports of PS3 games?

Dark Souls II loads much faster than Bloodborne also, to the surprise of noone.
 
The load times are long, but are you seriously comparing SF5 to ports of PS3 games?

Dark Souls II loads much faster than Bloodborne also, to the surprise of noone.

I agree with you, but DoA 5 survival have the same loading time on Xbox 360, so it was "current gen" last gen.
 
Going from training mode to online match then back to training mode def takes too long.

If bloodborne can fix their load times, so can sfV. We might just have to wait like 4 months...
 
Yep. I'm posting here now as I "play"

I've been on for about 50 minutes and have gotten 6 matches

Hyperbole
ixe0ygjpg.gif
 
The loading times can be equally abominable on PC. Mostly when online, but sometimes, offline you'll be sitting staring at white screens for ages.

It's the server ping that does it. If you play any mode offline the load times are almost instant. If you ever just want to go into training mode, disconnect. It shaves off about 5 seconds.

Wish there was an easier way to enable offline mode. You think they'd add it to the menu.
 
Yes, sfv loading time is terrible, even for loading from hdd, they even drop the texture quality to med-low to decrease file size and it is still horrible on ps4. Pc is much better, even when loading from a 7200 rpm mechanical drive with texture at high it 50% faster than my ps4 with 7200 rpm drive.
 
Hyperbole
ixe0ygjpg.gif

Nope, not hyperbole at all.

Don't be "calling out" when you have no idea what my experience was like this morning.

I wound up dropping it after a couple of more matches, not worth wasting my time.

I"m not trying to trash the game, I love the game, if I didn't love it so much I would have gave up a long time ago.
 
Nope, not hyperbole at all.

Don't be "calling out" when you have no idea what my experience was like this morning.

I wound up dropping it after a couple of more matches, not worth wasting my time.

I"m not trying to trash the game, I love the game, if I didn't love it so much I would have gave up a long time ago.

I was surprised by how infrequently I was getting matches during my sessions this weekend. Not as bad as you're experiencing now, but given that the playerbase should be most active on the weekend, I was expecting matches every 30 seconds or less. I think I've had maybe one session that good since the game launched. Beta 3 and 4 were both much better on average than what I'm experiencing with the release version.


But this thread is about load times so I won't derail it further with matchmaking complaints.
 
But this thread is about load times so I won't derail it further with matchmaking complaints.

I get your point so this is my last view on the subject and why I thought it tied in. I feel like whatever is causing the huge loading issue, also is affecting matchmaking as at least for me, even when I say to continue searching for opponents it's like it's starting it all back up.

I prob average 10 fights an hour. That's awful. Especially when only about 1/5 of those are people at a simar LP to me and fights only last a couple of minutes.

10 fights/hr is about my experience too usually, this morning was just awful. Again, I love this game or would have already shelved it for awhile. I probably will this week though for GW2 and The Division.
 
Hyperbole
ixe0ygjpg.gif

Not close to being hyperbole. It also depends where you are from.

If you are from UK / Europe etc where it didn't sell as much as USA then this is pretty common.

I prob average 10 fights an hour. That's awful. Especially when only about 1/5 of those are people at a simar LP to me and fights only last a couple of minutes.
 
I get your point so this is my last view on the subject and why I thought it tied in. I feel like whatever is causing the huge loading issue, also is affecting matchmaking as at least for me, even when I say to continue searching for opponents it's like it's starting it all back up.

Good point. I just mindlessly assumed they were not linked because my load times got better and the matchmaking did not, but shitty servers probably work in mysterious ways. I just wish Capcom would say something about it because it would be nice to know if there's something I can do on my end to make things better.
 
Pretty much everything about this game except the gameplay is a mess.
- load times: a mess
- content: a mess
- rage quitting situation: a mess
- Battle Profile Info: a mess
- Timely Updates from Capcom: a mess
 
On PS4 the only loading issue that gets on my nerves is when after a match you have to sit at a black loading screen, and THEN have to wait for the actual "Connecting" loading screen, and THEN it finally starts looking for games again.
 
On PS4 the only loading issue that gets on my nerves is when after a match you have to sit at a black loading screen, and THEN have to wait for the actual "Connecting" loading screen, and THEN it finally starts looking for games again.

Just return to the main menu and wait there.

It skips all that.
 
Just return to the main menu and wait there.

It skips all that.

Didn't notice much a difference the few times I've done it but I'll go ahead it and just use that option for tonight's session. Thanks.

Also Saturday night I hit my first infinite loading screen. All I did was enter training mode and the Character Select never loaded lol.
 
I think some of the load time on PC is artificial.
SF4 would let you skip the character vs screen as soon as it was done loading by mashing start.
SF5 let's you go through the whole thing even though I can look at my case and see the HDD led be idle.

But it definitely gets much worse when playing ps4 players online, it takes a good bit longer and the white screen after the vs screen also just sticks around for quite a bit.
 
Ono hinted at the draw backs of using another engine, from 2009.
PCGH: Did you develop your own engine for Street Fighter 4 or did you license a technology? What were the reasons for developing your own technology or using middleware? What are the advantages when utilizing your own technology or a commercial product?

Yoshinori Ono: We have developed everything including the graphics engine from scratch for SFIV. The reason being the fact it is important to be able to carry out trial & error and calibrate elements such as the graphics or the game system rapidly and internally by ourselves. We have spent a great deal of time on shaders and animation development.

We did not want to be inhibited by the restrictions that might arise by using existing middleware or engines and although there usually is a solution to such problems, we wanted to spend our time in creative activity, rather than trying to get the best out of something we weren't involved in creating.

Rest of the interview
 
Postet in in the OT, but maybe someone here knows why:
The game only uses about 700MB of RAM on my PC, wouldn't it make sense to use more nad have fewer loading times? That's pretty much nothing, atleast the training stage should be in there.
 
Postet in in the OT, but maybe someone here knows why:
The game only uses about 700MB of RAM on my PC, wouldn't it make sense to use more nad have fewer loading times? That's pretty much nothing, atleast the training stage should be in there.

The minimum requirements listed goes a lot lower, people have the game running on E8400 4 gigs of ram and 750TI, some of gotten it to run on 4gigs of ram and AMD 5750..with 60FPS all setting on LOW. game doesn't require 6 gigs as minimum requirements..
 
The minimum requirements listed goes a lot lower, people have the game running on E8400 4 gigs of ram and 750TI, some of gotten it to run on 4gigs of ram and AMD 5750..with 60FPS all setting on LOW. game doesn't require 6 gigs as minimum requirements..
But that's still much more than it actually uses and other games can deal with different RAM sizes pretty easily...
 
"Hyperbole" doesn't mean "an experience that differs from my own."

I know it's GAF's favorite word now though, so I can see how you'd be itching to deploy it.
I know exactly what it means but it seemed much more civil and less insulting than the first few words that came to mind bullshit being near the top of that list.

Nope, not hyperbole at all.

Don't be "calling out" when you have no idea what my experience was like this morning.

I wound up dropping it after a couple of more matches, not worth wasting my time.

I"m not trying to trash the game, I love the game, if I didn't love it so much I would have gave up a long time ago.
you're right I have no idea what your experience was this morning but it is so contrary to mine and several others that it seems a bit embellished.

Not close to being hyperbole. It also depends where you are from.

If you are from UK / Europe etc where it didn't sell as much as USA then this is pretty common.

I prob average 10 fights an hour. That's awful. Especially when only about 1/5 of those are people at a simar LP to me and fights only last a couple of minutes.
I can see this as being a probable cause I'm in the states and get a match almost as soon as I get back to the training room I might get one good combo in before being pulled into my next match.
 
It used Unreal? I thought they made a new engine to replace Mt framework. Panta Rhei?

The only game to come out saying it would use Penta Rhei hasn't been seen in a long time. Remember Deep Down? Wonder how that is doing. lol
 
That's crazy. I don't find the loads to be all that bad on ps4. I'm playing it on my sshd and it seems reasonably quick. Not PC ssd quick, but nothing on ps4 is, even when I tried it with a straight ssd.
 
I feel like my matches last less time than finding a match and then loading into it...it's kind of frustrating...
 
To add insult to injury, servers amplified the internal load times as well during launch week. I actually counted it, it took 67 seconds to enter from a "you found an opponent" to the actual game.
 
Let us rather talk about the pc loading, it's better than PS4 but the thing is there is basically no difference between SSD and regular hard drive performance on high end pc's even if you just play offline training/vs.

I tried it out just recently on my little brothers pc (specs: i3 3240, GTX 580, 8gb ddr3 1333, 500gb sata II hdd) and it was just a bit longer than on my pc (i7 4790k,GTX 970,16gb DDR3 2400, 512gb MX 100).
I've put the game on my hdd because there is almost no difference in loading from a SSD vs HDD.

PC loading should be dramatically faster and shouldn't be bottlenecked like that.

Yeah I've noticed the improvement in load times going from one set up to another doesn't change things all that much.

Outside of good gameplay mechanics and visuals, everything about this game is so shoddy.
 
I know exactly what it means but it seemed much more civil and less insulting than the first few words that came to mind bullshit being near the top of that list.

you're right I have no idea what your experience was this morning but it is so contrary to mine and several others that it seems a bit embellished.

.

Seems several on here have issues, yet I'm alone in having these issue according to you

And frankly you do come across as condescending and insulting regarding the issue
 
Dead or Alive 5 is in it's own league when it comes to load times. DOA5 can instantly load a brand new game with the same characters but in a different stage with completely different outfits instantly.

But yeah, DOA is the gold standard when it comes to handling loading within fighting games. It's not just a problem with SFV, but with every other fighting game out there.
DOA has always been insanely impressive in this regard.

Remember DOA2 on Dreamcast? After the initial load, which was always short, the game could transition between different arenas and fighters seamlessly. No additional loading screens, no black screens, nothing - just a perfect jump between each area. Was impressive as hell for the day. Nothing else on Dreamcast could come close.
 
This has as much to do with design choices, honestly.

The flow is:

  • Practice Mode
  • Rival Presentation
  • Character Presentation (Big Globe Screen)
  • Match Start
  • Match Result
  • Character Presentation
  • Practice Mode

Loading the Character Presentation screen takes time, why not load the level for the match and have a lightweight UI presentation with the Players' information instead? Especially for going back to Practice mode, it's a huge waste of time. I know it's less hype, but after the 100th time I'm immune to how cool the character presentation looks.

Another thing they could do is have the practice character immediately jump into the current level after your Match Result finishes. So you could resume training in the level you just finished your match on. This could be pretty difficult to do, but it would save a lot of time for the player.

Transitioning between matches in SFV is really terrible :(
 
I know exactly what it means but it seemed much more civil and less insulting than the first few words that came to mind bullshit being near the top of that list.

you're right I have no idea what your experience was this morning but it is so contrary to mine and several others that it seems a bit embellished.

I can see this as being a probable cause I'm in the states and get a match almost as soon as I get back to the training room I might get one good combo in before being pulled into my next match.

There is a vast gap of ego between "my experience differs from yours, mate" and between "my experience is not like yours, therefore you cannot have had that experience, sorry".

A vast gap.
 
This has as much to do with design choices, honestly.

The flow is:

  • Practice Mode
  • Rival Presentation
  • Character Presentation (Big Globe Screen)
  • Match Start
  • Match Result
  • Character Presentation
  • Practice Mode

Loading the Character Presentation screen takes time, why not load the level for the match and have a lightweight UI presentation with the Players' information instead? Especially for going back to Practice mode, it's a huge waste of time. I know it's less hype, but after the 100th time I'm immune to how cool the character presentation looks.

Another thing they could do is have the practice character immediately jump into the current level after your Match Result finishes. So you could resume training in the level you just finished your match on. This could be pretty difficult to do, but it would save a lot of time for the player.

Transitioning between matches in SFV is really terrible :(

Exactly, it is a design problem, they could have some easy solutions to prevent this. Even if the loading is not short, at least optimize what the game needs to load.
 
Seems several on here have issues, yet I'm alone in having these issue according to you

And frankly you do come across as condescending and insulting regarding the issue

Everyone's gaming situation is different and I am by no means insinuating that you are the only one in the world experiencing issues. Where do you live, What type of internet connection do you have are you utilizing cross play between systems hell what system are you playing the game on?

all of this more than likely factors into your online experience I have both PC and PS4 versions and when playing cross platform even I notice significantly longer loading times but not so significant to keep me from playing more than 10 matches in an hour.

If I came across as condescending or insulting that was not my intent.
 
It is very clear to me that this game has had a shortage of programmers. A shortage.Why? Because everything not *directly* affecting the gameplay was just thrown to the sides, stuff like the infamous breast physics P1/P2 difference, or the menu system being a kind of a mess, or the dithering appering seemingly at random (PS4?).

I am going to start holding a grudge against Capcom if in the near future (i.e. 2016) , at least the loading and the sytems are not optimized somehow.
 
Exactly, it is a design problem, they could have some easy solutions to prevent this. Even if the loading is not short, at least optimize what the game needs to load.

I agree, I've never understood why they can't just do a simple stat/splash art screen when connecting to the opponent as you can't even select a character anyways. Would save some loading time.

Also they should really add a rival list to the main menu page. It's just weird to have to go through as many menus as you do to see who is on for invites.
 
It is very clear to me that this game has had a shortage of programmers. A shortage.Why? Because everything not *directly* affecting the gameplay was just thrown to the sides, stuff like the infamous breast physics P1/P2 difference, or the menu system being a kind of a mess, or the dithering appering seemingly at random (PS4?).

I am going to start holding a grudge against Capcom if in the near future (i.e. 2016) , at least the loading and the sytems are not optimized somehow.

Wasn't the game almost not made at all until Sony intervened with some cash for console exclusivity? I wonder why Capcom didn't feel like spending big money on the project.
 
Loading times are terrible in SF5, even on PC (I suspect if you could skip the fight intro screen it would be a little better). But you can use Dead or Alive starting back on Dreamcast against nearly any fighter. For example I'm going through BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma on PC right now, and even the survival mode in that (Abyss Mode) has absurd loading times in comparison. For whatever reason this sort of thing is just not a priority for most fighting game developers.

But SF5 definitely deserves criticism for being as bad with this as it is.
 
I agree, I've never understood why they can't just do a simple stat/splash art screen when connecting to the opponent as you can't even select a character anyways. Would save some loading time.

Also they should really add a rival list to the main menu page. It's just weird to have to go through as many menus as you do to see who is on for invites.

One thing that could improve ~a lot~ the performance on SFV is let your favorite character loaded on RAM.

Also, these "lite menu versions" was very common on PS1, SFA2 have a fast loading character select screen (to be fair, SFV have this too).
 
The constant server connections and data transfer to the CFN on top of the standard load times really adds to the waiting. The betas were a lot more tolerable due to lacking that aspect. Sucks when you create an online focused game and don't do the online portion very well...

I don't even bother to go into training as that just creates another load screen after each match. Shame it's not like Tekken Rev where you're instantly dropped back into the training room with no loading.
 
Yes, I've noticed the same. It's particularly bothersome when you are training between fights, and half your time is spent watching loading screens between transitions. Once you finally get to the training mode, you may only get a few seconds before another game comes along and you get to look at loading screens again.

But I'll take this over COD BO3 as it is now in matchmaking. Waiting over a minute from the end of the match to get back to the matching screen, and if you quit out early, it counts as a forfeit.
 
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