[PERFORMANCE] Loading is 5+ minutes long

[fadetoblack]

Hello, I'm not sure if this goes here. I have the same problem with the stuttering and freezing in-game. But I also have another problem with the actual game loading and the tutorial maps loading. They take 5+ minutes to load. I have a pent 4 Dell Optiplex GX240 only acouple of years old with a ti-4200 geforce 4. I'm pretty sure it should be loading alot faster, maybe in the 15 seconds area. While loading the tutorial it goes fast until it reaches the 70-75% mark and then stays there until about 3 minutes have past. When loading the actual game it also stays at a certain point for an incredible amount of time before moving again. help?

[firecrackerCD]

Yeah I get the same problem.Someone said a patch next week should fix this so lets hope.

[Entropius]

What OS?

[fadetoblack]

windows 98SE

[NeoHunter]

I get that too though not as long as 5 minutes. I thought maybe it is loading the graphics and stuff?

[FrostPaw]

Before open beta the game loaded in about half the time. Something in patch 1.3 has slowed it down a lot. The fact that there appears to be nothing massively different from 1.2 in visuals would indicate the loadtime has been bugged perhaps trying to load things out of sequence or trying to load things all at once instead of one part at a time.

[mullins]

I have the same problem, lets hope they fix it in the next patch...

[fadetoblack]

Yes I hope they fix it too, with this loading problem and the freezing/slowing part the game is next to impossible to play, though I have played enough I'm hooked but I can't play... :blah:

[mullins]

yeah... I did change my all my options to low, but it didnt change anything...

[fadetoblack]

I assume my loading problem is linked to my freezing and stuttering problem while playing. I have changed every setting and found nothing helps. There's a patch coming out to fix the freezing issue hopefully It'll fix this too.

[QuaKe]

i might've missed it but how much ram do you have? my system specs: 2.5 ghz, radeon 9200, 256 ddr ram, and the game loads in a minute or less.

[firecrackerCD]

I have 384 and everything on low on a 1.5 ghz and its unplayable.

[corkill]

You can press ~ and it will tell you exactly how long it took to load. It usually take me 30 seconds to a minute for mp games.

[ÜberJumper]

Does the freezing and stuttering occur only in tutorials? If so, that's fixed, and likely has nothing to do with the slow load times.

Memory and CPU are going to be the primary slowdowns for loading, and don't forget, you have to wait for the slowest person in the game to load before it'll start.

[ipbah]

2800+ athlon with 1gig ddr333 - never takes over 35 seconds to load

[Freeze]

Yeh, mine takes about a minute and a half to load and I've got a pentium 2.0Ghz, 512 RAM, GeForce 4200 computer. Gets frustrating sometimes...

[bubbalau]

Athlon64 3000+

takes about 5 to 8 seconds to load?

[Totmacher]

Hello, I'm not sure if this goes here. I have the same problem with the stuttering and freezing in-game. But I also have another problem with the actual game loading and the tutorial maps loading. They take 5+ minutes to load. I have a pent 4 Dell Optiplex GX240 only acouple of years old with a ti-4200 geforce 4. I'm pretty sure it should be loading alot faster, maybe in the 15 seconds area. While loading the tutorial it goes fast until it reaches the 70-75% mark and then stays there until about 3 minutes have past. When loading the actual game it also stays at a certain point for an incredible amount of time before moving again. help?

How much system memory do you have?

[shroud]

I'm running Intel4 2.8ghz with 768 DDR ram, with a Geforce 4 TI4200

I recently played a 8 player map, and then a 6 player map. I'm using XP and the game took me over 5 minutes to load, when I checked my system settings (after the game, and with DoW still running) and CPU Usage was at 100% and PF Usage was at about 50%.

Is this my computer fault or the game's programming?
I've got the latest drivers for my video card, so I doubt that is the problem...

[fadetoblack]

Well, I don;t know if there is a difference between memory and system memory, on my DXDIAG memory is: 510MB.

dunno if I posted this b4 but my vid card is: geforce 4 ti 4200.

[ÜberJumper]

Again, the slowest computer in the game will determine load time.

Hit the console key (`) to find out how long it took to load once you hear the beeps.

[Question]

Okay,to all those having slow load times in tutorial,i had the same problem.Still do actually.Along with lobby freeze,game lobby freeze,etc.

It is not your specifications that are at fault.

My LAPTOP,with WORSE specs than my desktop,can run DoW PERFECTLY fine.This includes the tutorial freeze....it never happened once.My laptop is only 100 mhz above the MINIMUM specifications.My desktop is 400 mhz above.Faster computer should have less problems...right?Apparently not.

Makes sense?No,till you take into account that the laptop is running windows XP professional and my home computer is running win98SE.

DoW is currently very,VERY screwed up for win98 and win98SE.....lobby freeze?win98 problem.Game lobby freeze?Same thing.Tutorial freezing?Same thing.Slow load times?Now,they appear to be the same thing.

[Freeze]

That would make sense then...'cause I've got 98...interesting.

[shroud]

I'm using XP but I'm still getting those extremely long load times.
Last time (about 5 minutes prior) I played an 8 player game, took me exactly 163 seconds to load...

[Question]

I thought hte largest MP map was 6 players......

Besides,its only 2 minutes and 43 seconds.

Win98 issues is 5+ minutes at the least.

And its multiplayer,it wont load till the slowest person loads it,so it is not your fault...unless you are the slowest person.

[shroud]

sorry that was a typo before, 6 player I mean.
I believe I was the slowest player...because everyone was chatting in the game and it started right after I loaded.

I just found it a bit crazy because the system I have isn't bad (could be better with some upgrading) but a two minute load time seems like a fair bit, and for only 6 players too, when I do much better in War3...and then i got computer lag once the game started too. Furthermore, I couldn't scroll around the map without it freezing for a second or two on certain parts of the terrain, where high rised trees existed.

Sorry for heading a bit off topic, but besides the lag, the game is amazing.
Later, I ran several tutorials recently, and the load time was miniscule, 16 seconds, 18 seconds, 12 seconds.

A 4 player multiplayer map was at 42 seconds (pressed ~ right after I got the blip noise).

I reccomend trying the "-noteamcolours". That may decrease loading times.

[lmnt]

Yes, I get the extremely long load times, as well.

It takes upwards of 3 minutes for me to load a game (which is VERY inconvenient for many many reasons). My system is a modern machine which should have no trouble running this game at all:

p4 2.8c
512 3200 XMS DDR
Radeon 9800 Pro
Sound Blaster Live (hmm...my current suspicion. I hate creative)

Anyway, I get
23:59:21.1 GAME -- Remote player ([chu^2]kaniff) finished loading
23:59:24.7 GAME -- Loading completed (133 seconds)
23:59:24.7 SIM -- Setting SyncErrorChecking level to Low
23:59:24.7 GameObj::MissionLoadDoneMP
23:59:25.9 GAME -- Starting mission...

(already a long load time) then I get...

00:00:52.3 SimulationController::Simulate, no sync command

for the next few hundred lines. I'll also sometimes get:

21:23:12.6 Game [chu^2]kaniff's Game not comapatable, different version (ours "1.4", theirs ""

Even though their registry entry clearly says 1.4

[Z3phyr]

Hey I'm just going to put this out there. Try defragging your HD. Hell clean out your HD.

I had a similar problem in UT 2k4 and once I defragged, loading times sped up noticably so on my 120 gig.

[ÜberJumper]

I think the biggest slowdown is for memory. I've got a gig, and the game usually loads in around 30 seconds on my machine. 512 MB of memory and it seems to almost triple in load time.

As for the Version error, ignore it.

[Totmacher]

I think the biggest slowdown is for memory. I've got a gig, and the game usually loads in around 30 seconds on my machine. 512 MB of memory and it seems to almost triple in load time.

As for the Version error, ignore it.

Hi There,

512MB "should be" fine for anything but 8 player games, and even then, that "should be" addressed with the changes to team colouring in the 1.4 patch. Team colouring is also very CPU intensive, but certainly not 3 minutes! Definately try a defrag on your HD's and let me know if that improves things?

[Druidika]

I have 512MB and I load 8 player games in usually 45-60 seconds. CPU is a Athlon 2000+ on a Asus A7N8X and my graphics card is a Radeon 9800 Pro w/ 128MB.
Before defragging though loading times were about 2 minutes...

[fUble_baSs]

Just so you know, there is a note in the readme of DoW saying this:

----------------------------------------
Notes
The size of multiplayer games is currently very dependent upon the amount of memory your system has. You should limit the number of players (remote or AI) to the following depending on your system memory:

- 256MB memory = 2 player games only
- 512MB memory = 2-4 player games only
- 1024MB = 2-8 player game

----------------------------------------

[Lt. Zaphon]

Uh, geez...For the most part, I've never need more than 512 megs to fullfil the requirements of most games today. DoW is really a beast.

AMD Barton 2600+
512 DDR PC3200 RAM
GeforceFX5900XT
Win Xp

Prior to 1.4, 6 player games could take as long as 5 minutes.
Now, the longest I think I've waited is about 2 minutes, with one or two exceptions(dial up people, that guy with a 466 mgz) This is for everyone in game. Through 1.3 and now 1.4, my load time has never been, for myself, over 35 seconds. 1.4 trimmed a little time off my personal loading times.

Why is team coloring such an intensive process on the CPU and Memory? Banners and badges, ok, that I can understand, but recoloring models seems like it should be a simple process.



I just defragged my harddrive. Tutorial preformance increased notably. I mean, I sat there and watched animations for a few minutes, and I _barely_ picked up on the hitch. I didn't have multiple units out fighting but compared to the first 5 minutes of the 1.4 tutorial before I defragged....it was leaps and bounds better.

[Totmacher]

Team colouring: 5 user colours blended together with a dirt layer and an optional badge or banner per texture. Now multiple that by ~40-50 textures per player. It adds up... fast!

It's very CPU intensive -- it also hasn't been completely optimized either.

- load in-game models
- team colour races
- precache events (sounds, fx, decals, etc.)

[GTez]

Perhaps an option to not allow for Specific team colours? Much like Q3 had, where you would just specify what your ally team 'models' are and what your oponent team models. But in our case just choose one of the Ally team colours and one of the enemy team colours then badaboom you have a fair number of fewer textures loaded. Also with the precaching, do you do all of it to Hardware memory or to System memory? As I imagine loaded all of the races textures/animations/etc into the hardware would EAT your resources fast. Lastly what about loading anims/textures as needed, ie don't load the Obliterator texture until someone has created one, and dont bother loading eldar anything unless one player is actually playing them.

[methodics]

p4 1.5ghz

GF-4 126 mb ti-4200

756 mb rdram

game ran fine except that i only played about 2 games with 8 people in them. They were laggy and other 8 player games (about 20 of them) didnt even start cuz when i loaded i had to wait ages for people to load. After the patch game wont even run. So yeah there are some issues.