How to Fix Long or Slow Loading Times When Launching the Game

If you're facing unusually long startup times after the logo screens — even with the latest PC hardware, game files installed on an SSD, and no mods (or with all mods disabled) — here’s what you can do.

Introduction

As silly as it sounds, the slow loading bug happens when you use a lot of save slots. During startup, the game reads every single one. The more save slots you have, the slower the loading becomes. In my case, I had a save slot for the start of every chapter for both Leon and Ada, plus two NG+ saves per character. The bug started showing up around my 15th to 17th save slot — I don’t remember exactly.

Each additional save slot that you use adds roughly 3–10 seconds to the startup loading time.

How to Fix It

1) Turn off all mods in FluffyModManager. This step isn’t absolutely necessary, but we want to make sure the game is completely vanilla so we can rule out mods as the cause of the bug. Don’t turn any mods back on until the bug is fixed.

2) Make sure the game is not running.

3) Open your Steam Library, right-click Resident Evil 4 Remake (RE4R), and turn off cloud saves. This step is crucial — if you skip it, you’ll just end up repeating the entire process.



4) Find your Steam installation folder and navigate to your userdata directory. The typical path is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\YOUR_STEAM_ID\2050650\remote\win64_save
Keep this folder open in File Explorer.

• YOUR_STEAM_ID = your personal Steam ID.
  
• 2050650 = Resident Evil 4 Remake’s App ID.

5) Go to this link:
https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorageapp/?appid=2050650
Take a good look at which save slots you have uploaded.



6) Make a backup of the entire win64_save folder — upload it to Google Drive or something similar. This is your safety net in case anything goes wrong.

7) Compare the save slots listed on the cloud with the files in your local userdata folder.
Now, delete everything EXCEPT the following files:

• data000.bin
  
• data00-1.bin
  
• data001Slot.bin
  
• data100Slot.bin

8) For each save slot you had in the cloud, create a blank .bin file with the same name.

Here’s how:
Right-click → New → Text Document

Name it exactly like the missing file, e.g., data001Slot.bin.

Make sure it's a true .bin file, not a .txt file.
If the file looks like a Notepad icon, you probably have file extensions hidden.
To show file extensions in Windows 11:

• Open File Explorer.
  
• Click on the View tab at the top.
  
• Hover over Show and make sure File name extensions is checked.

If you’re not comfortable doing this, you can also ask a friend to help!

Slot Naming Note:

• data00X = Leon’s saves
  
• data1XX = Ada’s saves

Example: If you had data001Slot.bin and data002Slot.bin in the cloud, you need to manually create two blank files named exactly like that.

9) Double-check: every save slot that existed in the cloud must have a matching blank file locally. Otherwise, Steam will re-download it later.

10) Launch the game. Check if the loading time has improved.
Also, double-check the save slots to make sure you didn’t miss any.
Do not play or save anything yet.

11) Once you confirm everything is good, make another backup of your "cleaned" save folder.

12) If you want to preserve specific saves, manually copy them from your original backup — but limit yourself to no more than 10 save slots total. (That includes Ada's save files btw)

13) Go back to your Steam Library, and turn Cloud Saves back on.

14) Launch the game once and exit.
Now in your Steam Library, you’ll see a cloud conflict warning for RE4R.
Click it and choose to upload your local files.





15) Run the game again and check your save slots.
If all your old saves redownloaded because you skipped step #11... well, I want you to kick yourself in the nuts as hard as you can.

Enjoy!

[Aqua]

Excellent Guide, went from 2+ min loading times on start-up to around 10-15 seconds, TYVM

[carrizo9000]

It work! now the game starts really fast! and i have it on a HDD.

[Chef P]

If the guide helps you, please leave a like or a comment, thanks!