Slow loading times (another one of those)

[Kasa]

So I know this has been answered in other posts but those ones are very old. I'm loving this game but the load times are killing me, it takes 5mins to start up an another 5 mins to just load a game.

I'm not playing it on my main PC but on a mid level laptop that meets the req specs except for ram but i turned the settings to low. I'm keeping my saves under 10 and using the 2 performance mods as well as cfix but it still takes for ever to load. Do I have no choice but to load it on a more powerful machine?

[kensw]

Yes - SSD drive and lots of ram helps a lot.
I am running on a fairly high end Alienware laptop and can go from desktop Icon to save loaded and into mission in about 30sec at max settings

[Kasa]

Pretty sure my laptop only has 1 HD bay so I can't swap them out. I've read a lil about external ssds and I'm not sure if its possible to use those to effectively game.

[danko9696]

I'm not sure if the SSD will help much. I think it has a lot more to do with CPU speed. Going from a SATA2 SSD to a NMVE SSD no difference at all in loading times, and it's around ten times faster. Also from 16 to 32GB ram and exactly same loading speeds.

Although upgrading from a hard disk to any SSD will make the global user experience much smoother and if you're thinking about upgrading the PC having a SSD should come before anything else. But (most) games just don't benefit much from it, because reading from the storage is only a small part, most of it is processing that data in memory.

[Arkhne]

I'd just like to add that I use an SSD and 16GB of ram (Sure, 32GB MIGHT be better, but did want to point out that I'm not using <8GB like some seem to think is "plenty") and load times really are atrocious (because the game repeatedly stops responding during loading). So, honestly, RAM and SSD don't really make that much of a difference - it doesn't really utilize either.

[Kasa]

The biggest problem I see (and I don't think it's battletech specifically) is that if your rig is meeting the recommended specs you shouldn't have ANY lag.

I mean whats the point of listing min and recommend specs if your going to req x4 times the amount of ram a SSD and the latest GPU to get a damn game to run on medium or higher settings without hiccuping?

[ImHelping]

I remember when I bought a bigger SSD to replace my postage stamp sized "barely holds windows" one, and how dissapointed I was to learn "Buy an SSD LOL" is basically an excuse.

You'd think with how often players and even Developers play the "It's your fault for not installing it on an SSD" card, that SSDs were listed in minimum/recomended specs.

[Arkhne]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

I remember when I bought a bigger SSD to replace my postage stamp sized "barely holds windows" one, and how dissapointed I was to learn "Buy an SSD LOL" is basically an excuse.

You'd think with how often players and even Developers play the "It's your fault for not installing it on an SSD" card, that SSDs were listed in minimum/recomended specs.

NFS2015 is pretty notorious for this. If you don't have a certain Read/Write speed, the world will fail to load randomly, and you will fall through the map. I had this problem all the time, at first I thought it was my GPU (750 Ti, pretty decent all-round card, tbh), but replacing that didn't really help. So I doubled my RAM from 8GB to 16GB, as some people said it was this, and that didn't really do much either. I totally didn't expect to need an SSD to make a game PLAYABLE (because lets face it, falling through the map is a pretty bad thing).

So yes, I have an SSD (two, actually, so I can split my processes up, a habit I picked up in the dinosaur days of slow HDDs), and I had to do that because of a game, if I'd known going in, I probably wouldn't have gotten the game, and I think this is why it isn't listed, even under recommended, for games, because it WOULD impact sales. That said, I do wholeheartedly agree that Read/Write Speed recommendations should be added to specs, because even ignoring SSDs, the speed can vary greatly, and most definitely does impact gaming experience.

[Werecat101]

Originally posted by Kasa:

The biggest problem I see (and I don't think it's battletech specifically) is that if your rig is meeting the recommended specs you shouldn't have ANY lag.

I mean whats the point of listing min and recommend specs if your going to req x4 times the amount of ram a SSD and the latest GPU to get a damn game to run on medium or higher settings without hiccuping?

Meeting the recommended specs just means the game should be playable, now the fact you are using a laptop which by design is slower and less powerful than a desktop PC, the emphasis in a laptop is low power and compact size, rather than higher powered CPU and GPU with faster ram and a better motherboard design.

Please can we have the make and model of the Laptop to give people a chance to possible recommend possible CMos settings.

The problem is people read I7 in a laptop specs and assume its as good as the desktop I7 which it isn't.

or they see GTX1050ti in a laptop not understanding its a mobile version and is about 90% the speed of the GTX670 which is rapidly becomming the normal/minimum card recommended.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

You'd think with how often players and even Developers play the "It's your fault for not installing it on an SSD" card, that SSDs were listed in minimum/recomended specs.

Sheesh, yeah. I went back to Path of Exile after a long break, was annoyed at the glacial loading times, and went looking for solutions. . . which turned out to be threads full of k00l d00ds saying "Lol, people still use HDDs? Losers!" /eyeroll

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Warchild:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

I remember when I bought a bigger SSD to replace my postage stamp sized "barely holds windows" one, and how dissapointed I was to learn "Buy an SSD LOL" is basically an excuse.

You'd think with how often players and even Developers play the "It's your fault for not installing it on an SSD" card, that SSDs were listed in minimum/recomended specs.

NFS2015 is pretty notorious for this. If you don't have a certain Read/Write speed, the world will fail to load randomly, and you will fall through the map. I had this problem all the time, at first I thought it was my GPU (750 Ti, pretty decent all-round card, tbh), but replacing that didn't really help. So I doubled my RAM from 8GB to 16GB, as some people said it was this, and that didn't really do much either. I totally didn't expect to need an SSD to make a game PLAYABLE (because lets face it, falling through the map is a pretty bad thing).

So yes, I have an SSD (two, actually, so I can split my processes up, a habit I picked up in the dinosaur days of slow HDDs), and I had to do that because of a game, if I'd known going in, I probably wouldn't have gotten the game, and I think this is why it isn't listed, even under recommended, for games, because it WOULD impact sales. That said, I do wholeheartedly agree that Read/Write Speed recommendations should be added to specs, because even ignoring SSDs, the speed can vary greatly, and most definitely does impact gaming experience.

It was Subnautica's brand of "you/your vehichles falling through the map is your fault!", with a side of then 2 gigs individual save files being copy/pasted whole to a C drive temp folder on loading the save that was my kickoff to better SSD/installing games on SSD land.

The devs of that game went "this 2014 thetechreport article says SSD wear is a myth!" when one day, I discovered that design decision by suddenly losing a good hunk of what little I had left for space, when it bugged out and didn't quietly erase itself on quitting. (It certainly answered the question of why so many people had the game judderingly stop responding while loading their save for the fist time, though)

PS: sneaking a 2 gig save file clone into your temp folder is doing you a favor! it's just smart optimization, we're saving you ram! (They did finally trim save folder sizes down to 200-300 megs tops... Not so much any of their other problems people went "SSD LOL" to)

[Werecat101]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Originally posted by Warchild:

NFS2015 is pretty notorious for this. If you don't have a certain Read/Write speed, the world will fail to load randomly, and you will fall through the map. I had this problem all the time, at first I thought it was my GPU (750 Ti, pretty decent all-round card, tbh), but replacing that didn't really help. So I doubled my RAM from 8GB to 16GB, as some people said it was this, and that didn't really do much either. I totally didn't expect to need an SSD to make a game PLAYABLE (because lets face it, falling through the map is a pretty bad thing).

So yes, I have an SSD (two, actually, so I can split my processes up, a habit I picked up in the dinosaur days of slow HDDs), and I had to do that because of a game, if I'd known going in, I probably wouldn't have gotten the game, and I think this is why it isn't listed, even under recommended, for games, because it WOULD impact sales. That said, I do wholeheartedly agree that Read/Write Speed recommendations should be added to specs, because even ignoring SSDs, the speed can vary greatly, and most definitely does impact gaming experience.

It was Subnautica's brand of "you/your vehichles falling through the map is your fault!", with a side of then 2 gigs individual save files being copy/pasted whole to a C drive temp folder on loading the save that was my kickoff.

The devs of that game went "this 2014 thetechreport article says SSD wear is a myth!" when one day, I discovered that design decision by suddenly losing a good hunk of what little I had left for space, when it bugged out and didn't quietly erase itself on quitting.

well the truth about any SSD is it has infinite reads, but writes do cause wear, Windows operating systems insist on writing or opening files and holding them in a write state which is effectively writing them every hour or so. the fact is on any machine almost any hardware will die eventually.

I can recommend "Hard disk sentinel" to keep an eye on the wear level and expected lifetime of any Hard drives or SSD's you have installed.

go here and read up on it https://www.hdsentinel.com/

[danko9696]

Originally posted by steve:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

It was Subnautica's brand of "you/your vehichles falling through the map is your fault!", with a side of then 2 gigs individual save files being copy/pasted whole to a C drive temp folder on loading the save that was my kickoff.

The devs of that game went "this 2014 thetechreport article says SSD wear is a myth!" when one day, I discovered that design decision by suddenly losing a good hunk of what little I had left for space, when it bugged out and didn't quietly erase itself on quitting.

well the truth about any SSD is it has infinite reads, but writes do cause wear, Windows operating systems insist on writing or opening files and holding them in a write state which is effectively writing them every hour or so. the fact is on any machine almost any hardware will die eventually.

I can recommend "Hard disk sentinel" to keep an eye on the wear level and expected lifetime of any Hard drives or SSD's you have installed.

go here and read up on it https://www.hdsentinel.com/

Yeah, but in a hard disk both reads and writes cause wear, and also if you don't read or write but just waking or putting the drive to sleep (power management from windows) is pretty bad too for the mechanical drives.
In my subjective and biased experience, my two SSD intel X25-m have near ten years working as system & data SSDs and still working fine. And that's not having a lot of care (using them with barely any free space for a lot of time) while no hard disk has survived me near close that time before dying or showing significant problems. And in any decent SSD you can extend their lifetime just by having some part of the drive without any partition nor format. That space will be used by the internal wear management of the SSD.

And those old SSDs are still useful even now I've upgraded. One of them I'll probably leave it as emergency/recovery drive and the other for an old laptop I have. For sure it will be way faster than the drive it has.

[Werecat101]

Originally posted by danko9696:

Originally posted by steve:

well the truth about any SSD is it has infinite reads, but writes do cause wear, Windows operating systems insist on writing or opening files and holding them in a write state which is effectively writing them every hour or so. the fact is on any machine almost any hardware will die eventually.

I can recommend "Hard disk sentinel" to keep an eye on the wear level and expected lifetime of any Hard drives or SSD's you have installed.

go here and read up on it https://www.hdsentinel.com/

Yeah, but in a hard disk both reads and writes cause wear, and also if you don't read or write but just waking or putting the drive to sleep (power management from windows) is pretty bad too for the mechanical drives.
In my subjective and biased experience, my two SSD intel X25-m have near ten years working as system & data SSDs and still working fine. And that's not having a lot of care (using them with barely any free space for a lot of time) while no hard disk has survived me near close that time before dying or showing significant problems. And in any decent SSD you can extend their lifetime just by having some part of the drive without any partition nor format. That space will be used by the internal wear management of the SSD.

And those old SSDs are still useful even now I've upgraded. One of them I'll probably leave it as emergency/recovery drive and the other for an old laptop I have. For sure it will be way faster than the drive it has.

Personally I like the Intel 600 series ssd's they have a nice feature when they do run out of life/write ability they turn read only.

[Kasa]

Originally posted by steve:

Originally posted by Kasa:

The biggest problem I see (and I don't think it's battletech specifically) is that if your rig is meeting the recommended specs you shouldn't have ANY lag.

I mean whats the point of listing min and recommend specs if your going to req x4 times the amount of ram a SSD and the latest GPU to get a damn game to run on medium or higher settings without hiccuping?

Meeting the recommended specs just means the game should be playable, now the fact you are using a laptop which by design is slower and less powerful than a desktop PC, the emphasis in a laptop is low power and compact size, rather than higher powered CPU and GPU with faster ram and a better motherboard design.

Please can we have the make and model of the Laptop to give people a chance to possible recommend possible CMos settings.

The problem is people read I7 in a laptop specs and assume its as good as the desktop I7 which it isn't.

or they see GTX1050ti in a laptop not understanding its a mobile version and is about 90% the speed of the GTX670 which is rapidly becomming the normal/minimum card recommended.

Here's my Comp, I know the GPU is below the min for this game and I don't have enough ram for the recommended for this game, so please be kind

https://www.91mobiles.com/msi-pl62-7rc-093-core-i5-7th-gen-8-gb-1-tb-windows-10-laptop-price-in-india-123394

[Werecat101]

And the winner is its a laptop with a Sata 1 interface for the hard drives, putting a ssd in that wont do much about loading speeds, its a nice work laptop but its never going to be fast at loading.

overall its a nice machine for its purpose, its just not really a gaming pc, putting another 8gb of ram into it would speed things up because it would reduce the hard drive usage for virtual memory.