Why are Jump Load Screens Ten Seconds Long

[Blackcompany]

Someone please tell me.

I know its on Frontier's end and not mine. I know this because:

150MB Internet with a 100MB/sec router and NIC. Even if I max my PC, I've got bandwidth to spare. And speed testing regularly confirms I am getting the advertised speeds.

current gen Core i7
16GB 2133 RAM
10k RPM HDD

And the final clue that it is on Frontier's end: Every load screen is ten seconds, with a variation of plus/minus less than one full second. Exact same length each time. So its not down to fluctuations in available bandwidth, or size of the system I am loading into, or how busy the system is or is not...its ALWAYS ten seconds. Which tells me two things:

A. Its the game
B. It NEEDS to be fixed

This KILLS enjoyment. I try and play some weeknights without every leaving a single system, because I dont want to spend half of my two hours of free time staring at loading screens. And I outright avoid the godawful, immersion shatting planetary landings for the same reason: Because the loading time to Glide Mode (which strongly suggests planetary surfaces dont actually exist in the open star system we traverse in Supercruise, hence our DSS not being able to locate anything on them) takes FOREVER.

Background loading needs to be improved. It needs to happen ASAP. Along with about 5 dozen other core games improvements.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Solo, Private Group or Open?

 

[VR andysonofbob]

Solo, Private Group or Open?

For me they are all about the same - and about 10 seconds

That said, the hyperspace section is much quicker and constant than it used to be.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Depends on what you are calling loading screens. If you're talking about the hi-wake screen then there is nothing wrong with your computer. It's an animation that lasts about that long for everybody. No way to cut that time down, it is what it is. Really not that big of a deal until you want to travel 1,000+ Ly or so.

If the witch space screen bothers you that much then I suggest you try another game because they aren't going to change it. I guess we should be glad they didn't put the times to star wars movie length...

 

[Deadspin]

150MB or Mb? The difference is important.

A 150MB connection is roughly 1200Mb. Something I doubt you have considering most ISPs (aside from Google Fiber) are charging a premium for 150Mb+.

 

[GG7]

I think 10 seconds is about right from an actual gameplay perspective. You wouldn't want the drop down to be instantaneous because that would feel a bit artificial.

While there are plenty of issues I have with the current state of the game, this is definitely not one of them. In fact, one of the best things to come along in 2.3 was the elimination of the immersion breaking long pause between Orbital Flight and Glide. They cut that wait time to almost nothing, which was a really nice surprise.

The entire Hyperspace sections of the game have been drastically improved over the last two updates, which I am very pleased to see. Load times are the fastest they have ever been, so if you continue to have loading time issues, I would consider replacing whatever boot drive/game storage drive you are using with a top of the line M.2 NVMe, like the Samsung 950 or 960 PRO. Running your games off your Windows boot drive can also speed things up considerably.

For the record... My boot drive/games are running on a 512GB Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD. I don't really see much in the way of load time delays on my rig since upgrading to this insanely fast drive.

The Galaxy Map for example consistently pops up in under 1 second. Basically instantaneously with the button press, where as on my Xbox version, the GMAP can take up to 30 seconds to load sometimes.

 

[Blackcompany]

Solo, Private Group or Open?

Private group. Mobius PVE. But they are still 10 seconds long in solo, as well.

Depends on what you are calling loading screens. If you're talking about the hi-wake screen then there is nothing wrong with your computer. It's an animation that lasts about that long for everybody. No way to cut that time down, it is what it is. Really not that big of a deal until you want to travel 1,000+ Ly or so.

If the witch space screen bothers you that much then I suggest you try another game because they aren't going to change it. I guess we should be glad they didn't put the times to star wars movie length...

You people keep telling players this. One day, we're going to listen to you. ALL of us.

Pity you wont have a game left to play when that many wallets all get tired of having their time wasted...remember, this isnt your small, offline niche game any more. Braben chose (poorly) to make this a major online affair with a multi year dev plan because apparently Dreams > Common Sense. And that means you NEED players. Players you people keep actively TRYING to drive off.

Have fun with this broken mess.

150MB or Mb? The difference is important.

A 150MB connection is roughly 1200Mb. Something I doubt you have considering most ISPs (aside from Google Fiber) are charging a premium for 150Mb+.

150Mb, sorry. Held Shift too long.

Still plenty of bandwidth, though.

I think 10 seconds is about right from an actual gameplay perspective. You wouldn't want the drop down to be instantaneous because that would feel a bit artificial.

While there are plenty of issues I have with the current state of the game, this is definitely not one of them. In fact, one of the best things to come along in 2.3 was the elimination of the immersion breaking long pause between Orbital Flight and Glide. They cut that wait time to almost nothing, which was a really nice surprise.

On the other hand...if a person needs to watch 20-30 jumps per night while playing...thats up to 5 MINUTES per night of doing literally NOTHING. I dont know of ANY modern game, in any other genre, where five MINUTES of loading screens, during game play, would be at all acceptable on an every play session basis. Bethesda is bad, technically; but even they arent THIS bad.

You can call it Jumping if you want to. Fine. But the reality of it is, its a Loading Screen. And to sit through several MINUTES of them per night, every time you play...its pretty unforgivable in this day and age.

 

[Deadspin]

150Mb, sorry. Held Shift too long.

Still plenty of bandwidth, though.

On the other hand...if a person needs to watch 20-30 jumps per night while playing...thats up to 5 MINUTES per night of doing literally NOTHING. I dont know of ANY modern game, in any other genre, where five MINUTES of loading screens, during game play, would be at all acceptable on an every play session basis. Bethesda is bad, technically; but even they arent THIS bad.

You can call it Jumping if you want to. Fine. But the reality of it is, its a Loading Screen. And to sit through several MINUTES of them per night, every time you play...its pretty unforgivable in this day and age.

I have a 200/75Mb connection. I know your pain.

I also agree on the loading screens aspect of your thought. If there were more to do in any single system it would be forgivable from my perspective but as it sits, with the acute lack of things to do in any one system alone, it's pretty mind numbing.

 

[Robert Maynard]

On the other hand...if a person needs to watch 20-30 jumps per night while playing...thats up to 5 MINUTES per night of doing literally NOTHING. I dont know of ANY modern game, in any other genre, where five MINUTES of loading screens, during game play, would be at all acceptable on an every play session basis. Bethesda is bad, technically; but even they arent THIS bad.

You can call it Jumping if you want to. Fine. But the reality of it is, its a Loading Screen. And to sit through several MINUTES of them per night, every time you play...its pretty unforgivable in this day and age.

Jumping is a necessary part of travel which is a necessary part of the game due to the size of the galaxy - it takes time, just as Super-Cruise takes time when in-system. The representation of space travel that we have in this game is not instant and, I would expect, won't ever be.

 

[fennster]

A reason could be, although a minor one, is to standardise it for players.

It could be argued that an unfair advantage could be given to players either escaping or following hi-wakes. Or even competing in CGs or credits per hour from trading.

I'm fairly sure a change was made to length in the animation in one of the updates. Let's suppose from their demographics a base time was established, and with that an additional second was needed to ensure all players were on equal playing fields.

(I can recall a similar thing being applied to CS:GO. Where by players with higher spec GPU's could use volumetric smoke effects to 'see through' smoke grenades. Standardisation was needed.)

 

[Blackcompany]

I have a 200/75Mb connection. I know your pain.

I also agree on the loading screens aspect of your thought. If there were more to do in any single system it would be forgivable from my perspective but as it sits, with the acute lack of things to do in any one system alone, it's pretty mind numbing.

Yep. This nails it. If we didnt HAVE TO jump multiple times, every single play session, it wouldnt be such an issue. But as you say, theres a serious lack of stuff to do in any one system. Mile wide, inch deep throughout.

So they FORCE you to jump nearly every mission. Which is basically Waiting Gaming a player, even if people dont realize it. And those people tell you to move along if you dont like the game.

Right now, I am in a holding pattern. Where they go this year will probably determine whether I uninstall and walk away. As far as the next Expansion, it has to be Feature Complete, stable and fleshed out before I will even CONSIDER giving Frontier money for it. And I dont pay for cosmetics in full priced games, so they arent getting money from me there, ever.

This year will go a long way toward determining the game's fate. Dont know what that will be...but its not looking good.

 

[Blackcompany]

A reason could be, although a minor one, is to standardise it for players.

It could be argued that an unfair advantage could be given to players either escaping or following hi-wakes. Or even competing in CGs or credits per hour from trading.

I'm fairly sure a change was made to length in the animation in one of the updates. Let's suppose from their demographics a base time was established, and with that an additional second was needed to ensure all players were on equal playing fields.

(I can recall a similar thing being applied to CS:GO. Where by players with higher spec GPU's could use volumetric smoke effects to 'see through' smoke grenades. Standardisation was needed.)

Yeah...thats...not a valid reason. I mean, if playing in Open perhaps it is. But in private group or solo...there's NO excuse for this. And I dont - ever - play in Open.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Depends on what you are calling loading screens. If you're talking about the hi-wake screen then there is nothing wrong with your computer. It's an animation that lasts about that long for everybody. No way to cut that time down, it is what it is. Really not that big of a deal until you want to travel 1,000+ Ly or so.

If the witch space screen bothers you that much then I suggest you try another game because they aren't going to change it. I guess we should be glad they didn't put the times to star wars movie length...

In hindsight, they should have just made everything in SC with whatchamacallit loading (lol) - I forget the term but basically it loads on the fly and you supercruise for as long as you have fuel for. Meaning you could set a destination and rather than press J 100 times, you sit there in SC for X minutes.

People do that in system for 30 mins + in some systems. I'm not saying it would be that long as SC would get to higher speeds between systems.

With regards to navigation, some challenge could be made by giving us a navicomputer - something we can let autopilot the route for us which would be slower or something we'd actually have to calculate if we wanted to cut corners. This would make "Kessel Runs" an actual thing whereby cutting things close to stars could save us 10 minutes off our journeys. Of course, they could also end our jounrey real quick when we miscalculate and hit a star lol

With the addition of space legs, reparing your ship, EVA it means that you could have things to do as your fly to your next system. By plotting an actual route that the AP handles, you could actually, you know, plot routes, watching stars zip by you as you fly passed them and by setting the speed you want, you could take as much time as you liked.

Here, fuel economy comes into play - go really fast, just like a car and you use more fuel. Drive at 55 and you get more for your mile.

As you journey along, you could repair that backup panel you've been meaning to get around to, pull up the floor panel like in The Empire Strikes Back and change some pipes). maybe once your speed is set, you could EVA out the ship to make some repairs (assuming EVA is possible at 30c ) or head off to your cabin and lay on your bed as you read glanet. You could take a shower then sit down by ur desk and make a skype call (see spin off below) or maybe load up "CQC" and join other players on the galatic network to play your CQC game. Of course, you could go visit your passengers, inspect the hold, check the engines etc, etc

This is what you can have if we went down the SC route.

Spin off: So when you skype you actually skype. It interfaces on the screen in front of you (the screen in the game in your cabin) so you can see your friends. Now the really cool part about this is nobody wants to see your bedroom or living room as that's immersion breaking! No, instead, you now have to deck your house out EXACTLY the same way as the ship you are flying and no cardboard, we want to see molded plastics and working lights and lots of "shaky cam" if you come under attack

 

[fennster]

Yeah...thats...not a valid reason. I mean, if playing in Open perhaps it is. But in private group or solo...there's NO excuse for this. And I dont - ever - play in Open.

It is a valid reason. We all know all modes effect each other equally. So if I did power play, I switch to solo to deliver the vouchers (?) twice as fast as someone with a lower specced machine.

It's not a valid reason for not optimising the loading however.

 

[Pennacchi]

On the other hand...if a person needs to watch 20-30 jumps per night while playing...thats up to 5 MINUTES per night of doing literally NOTHING. I dont know of ANY modern game, in any other genre, where five MINUTES of loading screens, during game play, would be at all acceptable on an every play session basis. Bethesda is bad, technically; but even they arent THIS bad.

Or going to Colonia / simailr distance, in which case there is a lot of this. I never understood why there is a spool-up AND a count-down; surely they could be concurrent and we would save 5 seconds which adds up over several 100 jumps

 

[TheSisko]

The Galaxy Map for example consistently pops up in under 1 second. Basically instantaneously with the button press, where as on my Xbox version, the GMAP can take up to 30 seconds to load sometimes.

That was fixed in a previous update, GMAP loading is lot faster on XB1 now.

 

[Blackcompany]

It is a valid reason. We all know all modes effect each other equally. So if I did power play, I switch to solo to deliver the vouchers (?) twice as fast as someone with a lower specced machine.

It's not a valid reason for not optimising the loading however.

If I am playing in Solo or a PVE Private Group, there is NO VALID reason to force longer load times in order to maintain some arbitrary idea of "balance" between players. Its a ridiculous claim supporting a ridiculous premise.

 

[Jex =TE=]

This year will go a long way toward determining the game's fate. Dont know what that will be...but its not looking good.

I think a lot of people are in exactly the same boat.

 

[Blackcompany]

Or going to Colonia / simailr distance, in which case there is a lot of this. I never understood why there is a spool-up AND a count-down; surely they could be concurrent and we would save 5 seconds which adds up over several 100 jumps

Yeah I didnt even mention the cooldown/spool times, which add another 15 - 20 seconds, PER JUMP. In 2-3 jumps, you can spend up to a minute doing literally nothing. Longer, if you need to scoop as well.

And Colonia? Forget it. Someone went out and did the math for a long distance trip. It came to like 60-80% of his time spent NOT DOING ANYTING all night long. Which I already knew, having been to the Eagle Nebula and back in what was, for weeks, the most boring stint of game play I have ever experienced in a video game. Ever.

And I have played Bethesda games, remember.

 

[fennster]

If I am playing in Solo or a PVE Private Group, there is NO VALID reason to force longer load times in order to maintain some arbitrary idea of "balance" between players. Its a ridiculous claim supporting a ridiculous premise.

Are you telling me that if a guide was spouted that you can gain 10,000 merits twice as fast by playing in solo than open, that that wouldn't be an outcry of an 'exploit'?

Don't get me wrong, the jumptimes are too long.