How long are your loading screens?

[Eisenheinrich]

Guten Tag,

 

so, I complained a lot about my long loading screens (up to 25 seconds, got worse with White March pt. I), but read on this board, that many players didn't experience the same. I want to know, If I'm in the minority and what PC builds are used by those who have short loading screens. This still bugs me, because it sucks out all the fun of playing this game.

[AndreaColombo]

I haven't really timed them; I would call them "longish", but not as long as to really bother me.

 

Installing the game on a SSD definitely helps; I also make use of the IE Mod's component that disables auto-saving at every area transition (I only save every 15 minutes), which further decreases loading times.

[SkySlam]

Around 20 seconds for me, usually more.

At least I have time to drink, stand up, walk a bit and see what time it is. All important actions during prolonged playing sessions!   

[PrimeJunta]

They're borderline annoying for me. I voted "under 10 seconds" because mostly they are; the initial ones may be quite long though.

 

I'm playing on a late 2013 iMac 27" (i5/3.4 GHz, GeForce 780M/4GB), running Windows 10.

[scottii]

geez, 30+ secs???  I will admit, I started this game on a new SSD and noticed the loading was a bit longer to say, Fallout 4, and the fact that each area has to be loaded can be a bit annoying.

 

I wonder why OBS didn't load a full map and create shortcuts in the load times.

 

Oh, btw, my loads are about 5 secs.

Edited January 27, 2016 by scottii

[Eisenheinrich]

Good Lord, 5 seconds? You, Sir, are very lucky. 

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

They're about 20 seconds or so now I'd say. During my first playthrough during initial release they were probably two or three times that.

[scottii]

Good Lord, 5 seconds? You, Sir, are very lucky. 

6 gig vid ram. and 24 pc ram.  but to be honest, SSD did the most for loading.

[Eisenheinrich]

7 votes so far on "over 20 seconds". This is sad.

[HawkSoft]

7 votes so far on "over 20 seconds". This is sad.

Is it?

Divinity: Original Sin may not have loading screens but its turn based combat takes an age to resolve in any but the most trivial of encounters

Area transitions are not quick.

 

BTW my loading screen is about 27" across the diagonal and goes away much quicker than it did with v1.

 

I'm very satisfied with the look of PoE, if loading screens (with autosave) are part of the implementation package then I'm OK with that

[Tigranes]

People tend to be bad at remembering such kinds of durations in seconds. That goes for me, too, but I'm pretty sure mine are under 10 seconds. Not using SSD for POE, 4gb ram.

[the_dog_days]

I'm running it on a new Alienware laptop, and I get between ten and twenty seconds depending on how big the map I'm heading into is and how many NPCs are running around in it. When I was playing on my old machine it would always take about 40 seconds. I also have the IE mod and suspect that turning the auto save feature off would shave about 2-8 seconds.

[Eisenheinrich]

I did something very deutsch and sat down next to my PC with a stopwatch and measured the time between some area-transitions.

Loading screen before character creation: 35 sec
Loading screen while entering a small building: Between 10 and 12 sec
Loading screen while entering dungeon: 15 sec

Loading sceen during area transition: Between 20 and 30 sec

Edited January 27, 2016 by Eisenheinrich

[DreamWayfarer]

More than 20 seconds, I think? But my computers is old-ish, and it is not so long it annoys me.

Edited January 27, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[Eisenheinrich]

I'll try to install the game on a SSD and measure again. Hopefully, the loading time will decrease.

[HawkSoft]

I'll expand on my (slightly snarky) previous post.

 

OBS wanted PoE to have a *classic*, hand drawn, isometric look and, presumably after evaluating the options, chose an implementation technology that involves explicit loads rather than (say) mysterious pauses during gameplay. I'm cool with that, they have much more experience of modern game development than I do.

 

Actual load times are going to depend on our hardware, EG solid state storage is going to be much faster than local disc which should be much faster than networked disc so an unqualified 15s is of little value.

 

What I am less happy about is that exploring a small 2 story dwelling requires a load screen between each floor which breaks the flow of the game.  Compare this with exploring some of the large buildings in First Fires where OBS manipulated the layout to have multiple levels on one map. I think that they aught to have designed most buildings to require a single area transition even if they ended up looking a bit *Escher*: optical illusion Escher's

[gogocactus]

I did something very deutsch and sat down next to my PC with a stopwatch and measured the time between some area-transitions.

<3

 

Apart from the substantial contribution above, I have an Asus laptop. Intel i7 quadcore 2.3 ghz, 4 gb ram, geforce 750m videocard. Initial loading time +- 30 seconds. Subsequent maps under ten.

Edited January 27, 2016 by gogocactus

[Ineth]

OBS wanted PoE to have a *classic*, hand drawn, isometric look and, presumably after evaluating the options, chose an implementation technology that involves explicit loads rather than (say) mysterious pauses during gameplay.

 

The problem is not the concept of having explicit loads per se, it is that the implementation they chose - the Unity Engine - is slow and bloated when it comes to data storage and loading/saving.

 

And I dare say that they did not choose to use this implementation because of its efficiency or technological magnificence, but rather because doing so was much cheaper than implementing a superior custom-tailored solution. (And they preferred to spend their budget on content rather than tech.)

 

Actual load times are going to depend on our hardware, EG solid state storage is going to be much faster than local disc which should be much faster than networked disc so an unqualified 15s is of little value.

 

Then let's qualify it by comparison:

 

On the same PC where Pillars has load times of around 20 seconds, Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition (another classic, hand drawn, isometric RPG with explicit map loads) has load times of around 0 seconds. You click and it's there. They didn't even implement load screens, because there would be no time to look at them.

 

[AndreaColombo]

Then let's qualify it by comparison:

On the same PC where Pillars has load times of around 20 seconds, Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition (another classic, hand drawn, isometric RPG with explicit map loads) has load times of around 0 seconds. You click and it's there. They didn't even implement load screens, because there would be no time to look at them.

 

True, but not a fair comparison.

 

The original IWD still has loading times when installed on modern PCs equipped with snappy SSDs. Short loading times, mind you—probably in the neighborhood of 4-5 seconds—but they're there. Reason: The engine was packed full of assumptions on how threaded applications would work in the near future, and most of those turned out inaccurate (source: Either Trent Oster or Cameron Tofer when they were working on BG:EE in 2012-2013.) Beamdog basically rewrote the entire threading model in the IE when they set out to do the Enhanced Edition, and this resulted in no loading times because a) mega-optimized code and b) comparatively smaller resources to load.

 

PoE has much bigger assets to load than any of the original IEs and its engine is, admittedly, very poorly optimized (if at all.)

Edited January 28, 2016 by AndreaColombo

[the_dog_days]

Did some tests last night, and my rig has small areas down to 4 second load screens on ultra settings without me tampering, but closer to 15 seconds in Defiance Bay. What I've found to be a bigger detraction is the number of loading screens and not the length of them. DA:I, for example, has horribly long load times, but there are fewer of them so I've seen less talk about it.

[HawkSoft]

 

OBS wanted PoE to have a *classic*, hand drawn, isometric look and, presumably after evaluating the options, chose an implementation technology that involves explicit loads rather than (say) mysterious pauses during gameplay.

 

The problem is not the concept of having explicit loads per se, it is that the implementation they chose - the Unity Engine - is slow and bloated when it comes to data storage and loading/saving.

 

And I dare say that they did not choose to use this implementation because of its efficiency or technological magnificence, but rather because doing so was much cheaper than implementing a superior custom-tailored solution. (And they preferred to spend their budget on content rather than tech.) 

Like I said, OBS evaluated the options in the light of the requirements they had set themselves.

 

As someone who has developed a lot of code in the past and, later in my career, had a close look at how many different organisations have mis-developed and mis-managed their software I'm not going to criticise OBS for choosing the Unity Engine over anything else without a LOT more information than *the loading screens are a bit slow*

[scottii]

people think this is bad?  try bloodborne on ps4.  

[TheisEjsing]

My loading screens are 1920 long :>>

[Cyseal]

If PoE2 will be made on Unity 5, latest feature is loading the scene asynchronously in the background.

So, we could hope for real time level streaming.

[HawkSoft]

If PoE2 will be made on Unity 5, latest feature is loading the scene asynchronously in the background.

So, we could hope for real time level streaming.

latest feature; (trans) bug epicentre?

 

I'd be happy with a cautious approach to implementing POE2 that concentrated on content and minimised any exposure to technical risk.