Scene load times

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Zelek Uther, Feb 7, 2015.

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  1. Entrappedmind

    Entrappedmind Avatar

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    Just to add another perspective, my SotA is loaded on a SSD as well, and my load times aren't terribly long - aside from entering Owl's Head, that one takes a little while (To be expected, when you consider the amount stuff it's gotta load). As I said in my intro post, for this game not having much optimization done yet, I've been pleasantly surprised by its performance.
     
  2. mikeaw1101

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    LOL "Captain Obvious"... Love it...................
     
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  3. Barnabas Znick

    Barnabas Znick Avatar

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    I've not been irritated by the loading times... I'm not sure how long they take me, just I haven't even thought twice about them. (yet)

    Of course thanks to this thread now I'm thinking about it. THANKS OBAMA!
     
  4. Valdric

    Valdric Avatar

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    I'm averaging about 10-15 seconds, give or take.

    My internet speed is fast, but certainly not the fastest I could buy.

    I do have a pretty new Origin Genesis gaming PC too that's tweaked out, but have no idea if that makes a difference.
     
  5. shanersimms

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    Do all your posts have to be that confrontational? Everyone knows it's a construction zone, but players need to provide feedback on what they are experiencing. Even if there are plans to optimize load times in the future (which I'm sure there are), threads like these at least help the devs prioritize. If not many people are complaining about load times they can focus on something else. If a lot of people are having problems, they can push something less irksome down the list. Point being we should be encouraging people to post not dissuade them.

    Anyways, I myself am running 16 gigs of ram and a 250 gig SSD with an Intel i7-4770k 3.50ghz processor and I too experience load times that seem far too long. Sometimes they go pretty quick, but other times (usually entering Owl's Head) it'll take a good 15-20 seconds to load. I also play ESO with maximum graphics settings, view distance, etc. and my average load times with SoTA seem a bit longer. This seems backwards. So mark me down as another tally that feels the load times often cross the line into the "frustrating" territory.
     
  6. smack

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    I did some load timing tests during R13 here. I just redid those same test in R14 and the load times have improved in some cases, but remained about the same in others.

    Braemar: 19 seconds -> 11 seconds
    South Valeway: 11 -> 6
    South Ravenswood: 14 -> 9
    Deep Ravenswood: 16 -> 11
    North Ravenswood: 14 -> 13
    Valemark: 18 -> 14
    Kingsroad: 13 -> 6
    North Valeway: 14 -> 6
    Holtrot: 20 -> 12
    Owl's Head: 29 -> 28
    Graymark Forest: 9 -> 10
    Kingsport: 15 -> 16
    Ardoris: 54 -> 47

    Averages are of the subsequent load times, not the initial load time (I timed each scene 5 times in SPO). Also, I ran into a similar issue as I did with R13: load times got worse the longer you played, by anywhere from 5-10+ seconds. So if you're experiencing long load times, try quitting the client completely and relaunching.

    It seems to have improved, but lots of factors could come into play here...like time of test, number of objects in scene, my ISP, etc.
     
  7. Sir Cabirus

    Sir Cabirus Avatar

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    Thank you for your constructive postings Syylk and smack :)

    Here are my measured data:

    Owl's Head - Overland Map (SPO)
    Values: 9, 12, 11, 12, 12 seconds
    Average: 12.2 seconds

    Owl's Head - Overland Map (MO)
    Values: 12, 11, 12, 14, 13 seconds
    Average: 12.4 seconds

    Overland Map - Owl's Head (SPO)
    Values: 57(!), 39, 40, 39, 39 seconds
    Average with first measurement: 42.8 seconds
    Average without first measurement: 39.25 seconds

    Overland Map - Owl's Head (MO)
    Values: 45, 42, 41, 45, 44 seconds
    Average: 42.8 seconds

    Braemar - Overland Map (SPO)
    Values: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 seconds
    Average: 10.0 seconds

    Braemar - Overland Map (MO)
    Values: 12, 13, 10, 11, 11 seconds
    Average: 11.4 seconds

    Overland Map - Braemar (SPO)
    Values: 19, 19, 19, 19, 19 seconds
    Average: 19.0 seconds

    Overland Map - Braemar (MO)
    Values: 22, 22, 21, 21, 21 seconds
    Average: 21.4 seconds

    Kingsport - Overland Map (SPO)
    Values: 10, 12, 11, 12, 11 seconds
    Average: 11.0 seconds

    Kingsport - Overland Map (MO)
    Values: 10, 11, 12, 10, 12 seconds
    Average: 11.0 seconds

    Overland Map - Kingsport (SPO)
    Values: 41(!), 24, 25, 24, 24 seconds
    Average with first measurement: 27.6 seconds
    Average without first measurement: 24.25 seconds

    Overland Map - Kingsport (MO)
    Values: 24, 22, 23, 25, 22 seconds
    Average: 23.2 seconds

    Kingsport - Ardoris (SPO)
    Values: 115(!), 68, 65, 67, 69 seconds
    Average with first measurement: 76.8 seconds
    Average without first measurement: 53.8 seconds

    Kingsport - Ardoris (MO)
    Values: 80(!), 66, 66, 67, 65 seconds
    Average with first measurement: 68.8 seconds
    Average without first measurement: 66.0 seconds

    Ardoris - Kingsport (SPO)
    Values: 58(!), 38, 41, 38, 40 seconds
    Average with first measurement: 43.0 seconds
    Average without first measurement: 39.25 seconds

    Ardoris - Kingsport (MO)
    Values: 38, 38, 40, 38, 40 seconds
    Average: 38.8 seconds

    My equipment:
    CPU: QuadCore Intel Core i7-2600K, 3500 MHz (35 x 100)
    Motherboard: Asus P8P67 (3 PCI, 2 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR3 DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
    RAM: 16360 MB (DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM)
    Videocard: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (1280 MB)
    SSD: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500G (465 GB, IDE) <- here is SotA installed
    SSD: M4-CT256M4SSD2 (256 GB, SATA-III)
    HD: WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (1000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-III)
    HD: Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 (2000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
    OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1

    If I have time I will reinstall SotA on a HD to figure out the difference in loading times between HD and SSD.
     
  8. enderandrew

    enderandrew Legend of the Hearth

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    I believe in the Streamathon Chris mentioned some things that are contributing to long scene load times (particularly for towns). Collision data is not pre-baked. They're not really optimal because they unload everything from memory and then load the new scene fresh when there may be some shared assets they shouldn't need to unload and then load again.
     
  9. Sir Cabirus

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    Thank you for the info. But the OP is not a complaint about loading times - I think most of us know that the devs are aware of this and will try to reduce it in the future. The OP is if the scene load times are reduced if you have a faster computer or installed SotA on a SSD :)
     
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  10. Katrina Bekers

    Katrina Bekers Localization Team

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    Oh, yes! *slaps forehead*

    I should've mentioned that my measurements were 1-shot only, exclusively in MO (and this somewhat invalidates my data: it depends too heavily on WHO is in town at the time of loading assets and "equipping avatars"), and only the first loading of every transition.

    I should do some more repeated, non-first-loading measurements, like you did.

    Btw, I have almost your same SSD: my one is an 850 EVO 1TB. Rest of specs in signature, below.

    And wrt who keeps reminding us that this is pre-alpha, construction, unoptimized, etc.: we should consider ourselves as beta testers and QA staff. We're fondly encouraged to report issues - of any nature. The more we "complain" (note the double quotes!), the better we do our actual voluntary job of testing the game.

    At my present job, if my dev team would keep repeating to my qa team that the software development is an ongoing effort as often as I see in this forum, there would be casualties at the coffee machine and at the smoking lounge. Many casualties.
     
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  11. Entrappedmind

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    I have nothing further to add to the discussion, but I felt hitting "like" on this post wasn't enough. Sir Cabirus, that was an amazing job of data collection. My hat's off to you, good sir.
     
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  12. mikeaw1101

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    Didn't one of the devs also mention something about data logging, so they could automate collection of performance metrics for various play-testers (us)? If that is something that's uploaded/downloaded along with each scene transition then it could be another factor contributing to extra-long load times.
     
  13. Alpha Protocol

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    Yes an SSD means faster load times versus an HDD... However, that's not really the point. The devs made an inarguably outdated design decision. Feel free to defend that decision and decry further discussion on the subject, but unless Potalarium are able to turn it into something awfully damned special, it was a bad one.
     
  14. Sir Cabirus

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    A SSD drive is much faster as a HHD drive of course, but this is not the point. The game reads a mixed data stream to build up a scene. One part is from the local drive, the other part is from the net. Both parts must be read completely before a scene can be shown. If the net part is slower than the data stream from the drive, the drive speed doesn't matter. See this thread also.
     
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