Loading.....done?

kobaj

kobaj

VIP Member
Well I was pondering last night, and I got to thinking about video games.

So what is the point of loading seens. Your hard drive takes about half a second to find the map file and a half a second more to open it, so why are there long loading seens in half life 2 and other games? Is it because the file is encoded or something and the game has to decode it and then run it? If so why make it encoded, why not just leave it a simpler file to open?
 
Does it run off of your harddrive or CD-Rom? Most games require the CD now, but lets jsut assume it's all HDD.

You've got to load the map, the textures, the lighting, the game engine, etc. It's not just one file...there are many many attributes and such. The game has to pre-load responses to what the user wil do, otherwise if you do something unexpected, the game will pause while you are playing it, and then simulate a response (makes for incredibly glitchy gameplay.) Don't forget loading cut-scenes, sounds, etc.
 
lol same avatars, confusing.

Having faster harddrives (meaning SATA or SCSI as compared to something slow like ATA100/133) and having more system RAM can help decrease load times. Of course they won't help if you have a slow CPU/Mobo of course, but I imagine your system is at least somewhat fast if you are attempting HL2 on it.
 
yea but i didn't steal it from him, and the proof is that if u look at my avtar it has better qauilty than he has
 
yea but i didn't steal it from him, and the proof is that if u look at my avtar it has better qauilty than he has
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Hmmmmmm. eh that is true :). I did not even notice until you said that. I think though what is meant that you stole the idea but of course got it somewhere else as it appears a better quality. At any rate it is just an Avatar after all and so who cares? :). Just don't steal mine (talking to no one particular) as I'll think you are mental :) hehe.
 
kobaj said:
Well I was pondering last night, and I got to thinking about video games.

So what is the point of loading seens. Your hard drive takes about half a second to find the map file and a half a second more to open it, so why are there long loading seens in half life 2 and other games? Is it because the file is encoded or something and the game has to decode it and then run it? If so why make it encoded, why not just leave it a simpler file to open?
Click to expand...

Must just be huge amounts of data needing to be transfered and processed i guess:confused:
 
4W4K3 said:
Does it run off of your harddrive or CD-Rom? Most games require the CD now, but lets jsut assume it's all HDD.

You've got to load the map, the textures, the lighting, the game engine, etc. It's not just one file...there are many many attributes and such. The game has to pre-load responses to what the user wil do, otherwise if you do something unexpected, the game will pause while you are playing it, and then simulate a response (makes for incredibly glitchy gameplay.) Don't forget loading cut-scenes, sounds, etc.
Click to expand...

So your saying loading is taking all those files and opening them? I can sorta see that. And glichy, reminds me of halo, no loading but glitchy.:P

hypojam said:
Must just be huge amounts of data needing to be transfered and processed i guess:confused:
Click to expand...

By processed I am guessing you are saying taking the lighting and adding it to the map and calculating how it effects it, along with sounds and everything elts.

Maybe its both your ideas.

Now to all this off topic chat you guys have.

The avatar is from firefox and is free to destribute AFAIK, his is better quality, mine isnt ( I saved it as jpeg ).

And with the ram, I have 512mb and a ata133 hard drive. But im not complaining it takes a long time to load, just why does it load? (Cept in tribes vengeance, I can start it loading and come back 5 minutes later and it still be loading.)

Thanks.
 
A bogged down harddrive can cause very slow loading. Try deleting excess files, maybe run CCleaner. A defrag really helps as well. Close background services that aren't necessary and try again...you should notice a difference unless none of the previous were problems before.
 
Yes, those will help alot with loading times, with the accual reason of loading google gives us,

In telecommunication, the term loading means the insertion of impedance into a circuit to change the characteristics of the circuit.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading

And

The total amount of material entering a system from all sources.
www.abag.ca.gov/bayarea/sfep/reports/soe/soegloss.htm

Well those are the only two that I thought fit. So Im getting is taking all the files (light, map, sounds, ect) and putting it in ram for easy access once it is required....Thats a hell of a lot of files, but if it makes the game better. :)

Well I think Im starting to get it. Thanks. Im glad you guys where here to help with such a random question. Starts thinking of another....
 
you seriously need more ram. Windows alone is taking up a lot of that. A lot of your load time is going to be drive seek time being eaten by the paging file swap. Basicly you're running out of ram, so unused bacgound stuff (like a lot of windows processes) are being written to the disk to clear ram. You can only read or write from an ATA drive at one time, so you have to trade off between reading game data and writing to the paging file. If your CD rom drive is on the same cable, then you're alternating between those 3 things.
 
dont forget defragging...


I als think you have missed alot of the main points, Buffing, many game's will buffer the graphic's onto the RAM and VRAM during the loading screen so there is no lag during gameplay. Its mainly loading from the hardrive most of the time as you can see from the red light that is on most peopl's cases.
 
When it says "loading", its copying the game files to your memory from either a hard drive or cd drive.
 
Doesnt the new "Tony Hawk" game have no loading screen. Does that mean that too will be very glitchy, or is it just odd?. Or have I got the totaly wrong end of the stick here.
 
Jon Boy said:
Doesnt the new "Tony Hawk" game have no loading screen. Does that mean that too will be very glitchy, or is it just odd?. Or have I got the totaly wrong end of the stick here.
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Look at GTA San Andreas, Thats doesnt have loading screens either but that runs very nice:D
 
Jon Boy said:
Doesnt the new "Tony Hawk" game have no loading screen. Does that mean that too will be very glitchy, or is it just odd?. Or have I got the totaly wrong end of the stick here.
Click to expand...

as far as i know, the game loads the new data all the time. and, ofcourse the loading before you can start to play will be a bit longer ;)
 
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