Enter Building Loading Screens

[ArcaneBoozery]

This is an area where I hope PE will be more like Fallout 1/2/ Arcanum than Baldur's Gate, meaning you can enter a building seamlessly without the inconvenience of a loading screen. Playing Baldur's Gate/ Planescape Torment these days, that might not seem to matter, as computers are so much more powerful now, and the loading screens take a second at most, but when those games first came out, the loading would take a while (same as it would with PE now), and these constant loadings were a definite pain, considering sometimes you would have to enter/exit multiple buildings within a short span of time. Hope you guys agree with me.

[AwesomeOcelot]

NWN2 has insanely long loading times even on a fast computer. I wouldn't say loading screens is the problem, my new computer loads VtM: Bloodlines maps so fast I don't even see the loading screens. Excessive loading screens were down low amounts of RAM in the past, Fallout and Arcanum didn't need them because they lacked detail in the maps, and nowadays the Xbox 360 and PS3 having 512MB each doesn't help but Eternity is being developed for PC which usually means 2GB minimum requirement, so we should be good.

[Rabain]

Feargus actually talked about this on the kickstarter comments I believe. He said certain areas will behave in a Parent/child fashion. For example a town outdoor area would be a Parent and all indoor areas in the town Children. Both Parent and Child will stay loaded as you enter each with no requirement for load screens between them. He also gave the impression there were benefits to this that could be used, like AI running concurrently in both. Not sure what that could lead to, maybe enemies chasing you into another area or having partymembers both indoors and outdoors perhaps.

[sesobebo]

outside and inside areas need to be separated. otherwise You end up with either oversized building exteriors or cramped building interiors.

[Waywocket]

I have to say, I never really noticed loading screens in the Infinity Engine except when transitioning between major areas (ie a party-required transition, where you get an autosave).

 

The computer I was using at the time was below the minimum specs for BG2, and just slightly above the minimum for BG1 (I had 32MB of RAM), so major area transitions took ages, but just going in and out of a building was pretty much instant so far as I can recall.

 

Was this a major problem for other people?

[Rabain]

outside and inside areas need to be separated. otherwise You end up with either oversized building exteriors or cramped building interiors.

 

They will be separate, just like BG games, they are just connected on a technical level with regard to loading into memory or whatever, AI etc.

[sesobebo]

outside and inside areas need to be separated. otherwise You end up with either oversized building exteriors or cramped building interiors.

 

They will be separate, just like BG games, they are just connected on a technical level with regard to loading into memory or whatever, AI etc.

(i know; it was more of an answer to OP's wish for eternity to take a leaf from fallouts' and arcanum's book)

[jb.]

outside and inside areas need to be separated. otherwise You end up with either oversized building exteriors or cramped building interiors.

 

I always found it a little absurd in BG2 how the inside of buildings were massively larger than the outside, like everything is a tardis