Just a fact: I don't play this game because of the load times.

M

mgdpublic

Guest
Everytime I think about playing Half-Life I think to myself, "Yea but those load times are so painful only to hear stuttering when it does."
This game has the longest load times of any game I've ever seen. It makes Deus Ex look fast by comparison. I bring this up because I'm not even making a concious bitch about the game but everytime I think about it I think load time.
 
I wasnt surprised how long it to took to load, what surprised me was the frequency of it. At some parts I literally do one puzzle or obstacle, kill a few people and then I have to load the next part of the map.

Seeing as this is in the support forum, does anyone know of a way to reduce the frequency of loading?

I heard alot about the "-heapsize" in line command some people recommended to use but as of yet I have not seen a significant advantage of increasing the 64meg heapsize to anything. Is it this that decreases the loading frequency?
 
I'm assuming that, because the levels are so immense and feature-rich, there is the necessity for frequent and long load times.
 
tobe said:
I think the word your looking for is, impatience.
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No, I think the word he is looking for is "Immersion". As in evertime you start getting immersed in the game you have a 5 minute break while it loads the next level, thereby losing any bit of immersion.

I've been playing games for many years now. This one has to be one of the most aggravating. Just because it's so damn good yet with the sttuttuttuttuers and constant loading of new levels which takes forever and a day, I just can't get into playing it. I've finished the game. Can't get myself to replay it. Just to aggravating.
 
Better graphics = more load time
This has been true all through out gaming history...
 
mgdpublic said:
Everytime I think about playing Half-Life I think to myself, "Yea but those load times are so painful only to hear stuttering when it does."
This game has the longest load times of any game I've ever seen. It makes Deus Ex look fast by comparison. I bring this up because I'm not even making a concious bitch about the game but everytime I think about it I think load time.
Click to expand...
FarCry was FAR worse.
 
Doom III was far, far worse in terms of loading times. Actually, all FPS games seem like this. HL2 is actually fairly fast as far as I can see, especially when loading a saved game from your current game: other games would cause you to wait around for far, far longer.
 
quick save, quick load.... dont use normal saves. Takes forever. This might keep u sane :)
 
Maybe I'm not too bothered by it myself because I've lived through unpatched Aliens vs Predator 2 load times and Far Cry :x

Some of the levels are surprisingly brief to play through, mind... on some of the Water Hazard maps, I was incensed that I could beat a section even before the two minute background music finished :flame:
 
lod times probly depend on your computer, the longest load time i had was probly around a minit
 
Far Cry load times are long but at least it loads the whole map so you've got at least an hours play time.
 
mgdpublic said:
Everytime I think about playing Half-Life I think to myself, "Yea but those load times are so painful only to hear stuttering when it does."
Click to expand...

I feel your pain man. Im currently picking out pieces for my new rig, just waiting for PCIe mobos to arrive.

Four words + one number:

Two Seagate Cheetahs Raid 0
 
homercles337 said:
I feel your pain man. Im currently picking out pieces for my new rig, just waiting for PCIe mobos to arrive.

Four words + one number:

Two Seagate Cheetahs Raid 0
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Nice :D I just hope that set up is significantly better than my 2 raptor raid 0 setup, because even with that and the load time frequency are annoyingly obvious. But the game is still awesome nevertheless. :E
 
Ever since I've played Dungeon Siege, I'm wondering why we have to sit through load times between maps. Seeing as this game was in full 3D (and very impressive visually speaking!), I don't see why it couldn't be done in other games, even FPS. Now that was some good coding. More game developpers should get a clue from these guys.

And I have to agree with the first poster, the load time in HL2 is ridiculous. First, it takes a ridiculously long time to get to the main menu (most of which probably due to Steam). And when playing, it seems like every 5 minutes there's a new area to load, and it takes a good while to load (15-20 secs?), even on a top notch computer. As someone pointed out, it's difficult to be immersed in a game when you have to sit through loading pages all the time. I wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer for load times if it loaded a whole chapter at a time. As it is now, by the end of the game you'll probably have been through something like 100 load screens. That's quite a whole lot!
 
Buy this man a beer someone to shut him up. Your facts blow. Who cares what you don't or do play.
 
corvenus said:
Ever since I've played Dungeon Siege, I'm wondering why we have to sit through load times between maps. Seeing as this game was in full 3D (and very impressive visually speaking!), I don't see why it couldn't be done in other games, even FPS. Now that was some good coding. More game developpers should get a clue from these guys.

And I have to agree with the first poster, the load time in HL2 is ridiculous. First, it takes a ridiculously long time to get to the main menu (most of which probably due to Steam). And when playing, it seems like every 5 minutes there's a new area to load, and it takes a good while to load (15-20 secs?), even on a top notch computer. As someone pointed out, it's difficult to be immersed in a game when you have to sit through loading pages all the time. I wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer for load times if it loaded a whole chapter at a time. As it is now, by the end of the game you'll probably have been through something like 100 load screens. That's quite a whole lot!
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Ok to start off, Dungeon Siege was not even close to how graphical HL2 is. I mean, we are talking like pathetically underclassed. DS graphics are craptastic compared to most FPS games in the last... 2 years. CRAPTASTIC.

Another thing, you have load times more frequently in DS than in HL2. HL2 maps are massive, they have multiple load times in them because they assume most people don't have the hardware to load the whole map at the same time. But if you do have better hardware, those load times will be quick. I knew someone with 4GB of RAM, and load times for him in games were non-existent. Better machine, quicker load times, how it is for every game.

Secondly, the HL2 load times are ridiculous because your hardware is probably laughable. I'll use the term again, CRAPTASTIC. The load times aren't much longer than any other game I play, so they are relatively the same. When I run HL2 on my new machine, I'm sure they'll be cut in half and I'll be a happy camper. You won't find me on here complaining about how I can't play on high settings and load times suck, because I know I need a faster machine, and I got one. You gotta pay to have that experience, can't expect them to make a crappy game just so it'll run on your machine well.
 
I don't care what anyone says - I have NEVER experienced load times that allowed me time to put laundry in - with time to spare. Not DOOM 3. Not SIMS 2.
 
StainlessJ-FPGA said:
Ok to start off, Dungeon Siege was not even close to how graphical HL2 is. I mean, we are talking like pathetically underclassed. DS graphics are craptastic compared to most FPS games in the last... 2 years. CRAPTASTIC.
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Huh... yeah, do you remember Doom 1's graphics, man those were are so sucky compared to HL2 it's insane!

You seem to not be aware that 2 years is a long time in the gaming world, and that a game which comes out 2 or more years after another will evidently have better graphics. I'm sorry but I was more impressed when I saw DS's graphic a couple years ago than I was with other games I played in the last 4-5 years. Especially in the hack & slash genre, it was ahead of everything else by a long margin (graphically speaking). It was a major step up from the likes of Diablo. Now, I'm not saying the last few FPS didn't have good graphics, but the improvement didn't strike me as being major, with the possible exception of BF1942. UT, Doom3, HL2, they all look nice, but are hardly a giant step from the previous FPS generation. Anyways, disregarding the fact that some current FPS might have better graphics than old DS, when it came out the game had the best graphics of its genre, AND it managed to give gameplay without load screens. Why did Diablo need load screens and not DS? Why in hell (pun intended) does Diablo still have some lag with current machines in certain scenes? I blame it on sloppy coding and poor engine. Once again, if these guys could do it, why not others?

Another thing, you have load times more frequently in DS than in HL2. HL2 maps are massive, they have multiple load times in them because they assume most people don't have the hardware to load the whole map at the same time. But if you do have better hardware, those load times will be quick. I knew someone with 4GB of RAM, and load times for him in games were non-existent. Better machine, quicker load times, how it is for every game.
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Ok, AFAIK i don't remember having any single load time in DS, it just played like one big continous game. First you say that DS had crappy graphics, now you say the game has more frequent load times than HL2? Did we play the same game?? Dude lay off the crack! HL2's map are massive and DS weren't? Yeah sure... And sure, most people should have 4GB of RAM. Why is it that I can't remember any other game that had so many load scenes? I'm sorry but HL2 being hardware-intensive is no excuse. What good is it to have the best looking game engine if it can't run properly on decent machines?

Secondly, the HL2 load times are ridiculous because your hardware is probably laughable. I'll use the term again, CRAPTASTIC. The load times aren't much longer than any other game I play, so they are relatively the same. When I run HL2 on my new machine, I'm sure they'll be cut in half and I'll be a happy camper. You won't find me on here complaining about how I can't play on high settings and load times suck, because I know I need a faster machine, and I got one. You gotta pay to have that experience, can't expect them to make a crappy game just so it'll run on your machine well.
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Well, considering I bought a whole new computer 2 months ago SPECIFICALLY so I can play HL2 well, it makes me wonder what kind of machine i'd have to buy to run the latest games well. I have an AMD64-2800+, 1GB Ram, Radeon 9800pro, etc etc... It is all well above system requirements, as is most people's sytems who have had the stuttering/memory crash/freeze problems. Yes blame the hardware vendors for not making hardware good enough to run HL2 decently. If you consider this to be a laughable and craptastic system, you clearly have a warped view of what is acceptable/decent. No wonder why you thought DS's graphics were crappy. With such an elitist view, you'll probably spend all your life waiting for that UBER-system or that UBER-game.

If you read by my previous comment properly, you'll understand that I don't have problems with the loading time per se, my problem is that the loading screens are so numerous that it gets irritating and it distracts you from having an immersive gaming experience. Doom3 might have had comparable load times (on my OLD system mind you), but at least the levels actually lasted more than 5 minutes.
 
Whatever the game is, any PC has to load a few hundred megabytes maximum at any loading point but possibly a lot less. Recent first-person-shooters should take roughly a similar time to load if a PC is being pushed to a similar degree.

I'd guess any difference in loading times could be the number of small files involved and the decompression of those files.

A single 60 meg picture file in a art program like Paint Shop Pro takes 3 seconds to load on my system.

Why can't all the files for a map in a game like HL2 be made into a similar single giant file to get past the slow part of the harddrive loading lots of little files into memory?
 
corvenus said:
You seem to not be aware that 2 years is a long time in the gaming world, and that a game which comes out 2 or more years after another will evidently have better graphics. I'm sorry but I was more impressed when I saw DS's graphic a couple years ago than I was with other games I played in the last 4-5 years. Especially in the hack & slash genre, it was ahead of everything else by a long margin (graphically speaking). It was a major step up from the likes of Diablo. Now, I'm not saying the last few FPS didn't have good graphics, but the improvement didn't strike me as being major, with the possible exception of BF1942. UT, Doom3, HL2, they all look nice, but are hardly a giant step from the previous FPS generation. Anyways, disregarding the fact that some current FPS might have better graphics than old DS, when it came out the game had the best graphics of its genre, AND it managed to give gameplay without load screens.
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Seriously, DS didn't have awesome graphics. And it did NOT have the best. Morrowind came out 1 month later. Morrowind kicked the PANTS off of DS in every aspect in that genre. Morrowind also had what they call a seamless world, but that doesn't mean you don't have loading. It's just a different kind, invisible. You don't really load the whole thing at once.

Even still, neither really could compete with FPS graphics, which have always been better than RPG's. Soldier of Fortune 2 came out shortly after Morrowind, and the graphics in it were probably the best in any quake3-based game on the market, certainly 10x better than what DS had.

DS was craptastic dude. Don't know what wierd world you live in, but the game was shit. Graphically and gameplay-wise. And never ever ever should you cross-compare genres, that's a ridiculous arguement.
 
StainlessJ-FPGA said:
Secondly, the HL2 load times are ridiculous because your hardware is probably laughable. I'll use the term again, CRAPTASTIC. The load times aren't much longer than any other game I play, so they are relatively the same. When I run HL2 on my new machine, I'm sure they'll be cut in half and I'll be a happy camper. You won't find me on here complaining about how I can't play on high settings and load times suck, because I know I need a faster machine, and I got one. You gotta pay to have that experience, can't expect them to make a crappy game just so it'll run on your machine well.
Click to expand...

You're talking garbage, I'm running an XP 3200+, Powercolor 9800XT with Arctic Cooling, 1 gig of OCZ Platinum EL 3200, Maxtor 80 gig HDD, Themaltake case and Thermaltake 480W Purepower supply, and it's started taking around 3-4 minutes to load the game, and now it crashes to desktop after about 1 minute's play. And not just occasionally, but all of the time.

I've a sneaking suspicion that the update that they applied to our HL2's (without asking us by the way) is causing a lot of people to have problems at the moment, just look at the other threads on this forum, people aren't making this up, it's a fact.

I've given up on the game to be honest, they called it Steam for a good reason and that's because it's a big pile of shit.

Valve have f****d up big time on this one, it's shoddily programmed because they let the DRM people get involved and spooked them about piracy.
 
You can change steam to not update your game at all if you think it's a big conspiracy.

I haven't had any issues with loading times and my computer is worse than yours. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that the number of threads in this forum with issues is very low compared to the number of registered users. Heck, it's very low for the popularity of the game, I've seen worse. For every person that can't run the game, thousands more can.
 
StainlessJ-FPGA said:
You can change steam to not update your game at all if you think it's a big conspiracy.

I haven't had any issues with loading times and my computer is worse than yours. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that the number of threads in this forum with issues is very low compared to the number of registered users. Heck, it's very low for the popularity of the game, I've seen worse. For every person that can't run the game, thousands more can.
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So can you explain to me why people with high spec machines are having problems with the game?
 
Simon1003 said:
So can you explain to me why people with high spec machines are having problems with the game?
Click to expand...

There are numerous answers to that question, not worth discussing. People with crappy machines will play fine while people with high-end machines won't. Fact is, software not working can be because of so many reasons, not just how slow or fast your hardware could theoretically handle it. I see that thread pop up in all the forums, "I have a new computer and it handles for shit! This game blows!" You know what? I'll say what Microsoft said. You blow.
 
StainlessJ-FPGA said:
There are numerous answers to that question, not worth discussing.
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Not worth discussing? People have paid good money for this game, if it was a car you'd have took it back to the dealer's and got a refund by now.
 
Simon1003 said:
Not worth discussing? People have paid good money for this game, if it was a car you'd have took it back to the dealer's and got a refund by now.
Click to expand...

But people with same systems run fine. The problem isn't necessarily just hardware, nor individual pieces. Could be conflicts of hardware, conflicts with software, bad configurations, settings, spyware, id10t errors, maybe your RAM isn't plugged in all the way, etc etc etc. Your specs mean zilch in some cases.
 
corvenus said:
And I have to agree with the first poster, the load time in HL2 is ridiculous. First, it takes a ridiculously long time to get to the main menu (most of which probably due to Steam). And when playing, it seems like every 5 minutes there's a new area to load, and it takes a good while to load (15-20 secs?), even on a top notch computer. As someone pointed out, it's difficult to be immersed in a game when you have to sit through loading pages all the time. I wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer for load times if it loaded a whole chapter at a time. As it is now, by the end of the game you'll probably have been through something like 100 load screens. That's quite a whole lot!
Click to expand...
The long loading time for the main menu is because of the ingame background. It's not because of Steam because when you start HL2DM the loadtime is very short because it has a standard background. But I agree there where too much loading times. Even if they only lasted 30 seconds they were more annoying than the 2 minute load time of Far Cry. But I think we can't really blame Valve for this. Most pc's aren't good enough yet to get loading times as fast as in HL1 or to make it possible to load one level in one or two pieces.

[EDIT] I suddenly remember the times of my Pentium 133 mhz with 32 mb ram with the RTS game Total Annihilation. When the game was released in 1997 the system reqs were massive for that time. The largest map took 28 mins to load on my pc so I only played that map 3 times :p.
BTW on this pc it only takes 5 secs.
 
But why can't they stream the levels off your pc as you progres, I mean jack and dexter doesthis on the ps2 from the disc, is maybe because it would take preciouse cpu power or something like that.
 
Well, the game tried to stream just the audio, and look at the amount of stuttering problems people got :D
 
yeah, HL2 is a bit too processor intensive to have the resources left over to do that :D

But I love the game so much that the long loads don't really bother me.
 
It makes me wonder, though, if by dropping some frames as you go along a corridor or something, maybe a couple of megs per second could be streamed in.

If the game went from 60 fps to 30 fps for 20 seconds as you went down a corridor as the PC streamed in the next area, who'd mind that?

Might be tricky to program it, but it's perhaps a better solution than completely jamming on the brakes and saying "loading".
 
Im not convinced that there isnt a console command, an option, something, that will reduce the frequency of my loading times. What is the point of the heapsize if at default its 60 megs, but if I put it up to 256 it doesnt affect anything. There must be something I/we are missing, a console command for those that have a gig or more of memory.
 
Half-Life 2

Optimization to the Steam filesystem to reduce game launch and level transition time

Steam update, the above sounds very interesting, time to test it out. Again, thumbs up to valve for listening to us.
 
Monkeyget said:
If half-life2 takes that much time to load it's because the assets of the game are in the .gcf file.
Unpacking the .gcf files makes the loading MUCH faster (2x or 3x faster i'd say)

If you want more information on how it works read this thread: http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1060712#post1060712
Click to expand...
i thought of that too, because that also worked for Doom 3, the only downside was that you couldn't play multiplayer. But no Doom 3 mp isn't the worst thing in the world :p. I think Valve should support this by making you chose when you install the game between the install like it is now or a decompressed install because a lot of people are willing to sacrifice a few gb's for a much smoother gameplay experience and shorter loading times. The loadingtimes aren't very long since the latest upgrade but they are never short enough.
 
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