Why are Jump Load Screens Ten Seconds Long

[Hellfire85]

Oh that thread again?

Wasn't there already one like this from the same OP?

lol, seriously, are you really so tight on schedule that you can't afford to lose 10sec on a jump?

---Edit---

Yup, something similar was already there...
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/350543-Why-Does-Elite-Intentionally-Waste-Our-Time

 

[Darkfyre99]

The longest I think is the jump to hyperspace. This seems to have a mimum duration of about 30 seconds, which i presume is intentional, but also gives the game plenty of time to load and process the required data for the next system.

I've timed it, and its about ten seconds. I can usually complete a whole jump sequence (cool down, charge, and jump) in about 45 seconds if my packets don't lose their way crossing the Atlantic.

 

[Kizbot]

I got the impression that it was artificially limited to 10 seconds at the shortest so that when exploring and making many jumps that it would be a familiar sequence. Can you imagine how irritating it would be if the time was completely random every time? We would all be like Kochanski clutching the spanner while trying to sleep next to the pipes.

 

[VonBlade]

We would all be like Kochanski clutching the spanner while trying to sleep next to the pipes.

Who doesn't love a Red Dwarf reference with the dual-benefit of making me think of Chloe Annett. Life is good.

 

[Kaltern]

What an odd question... the jump sequence is there because it has to be. It's loading the textures and objects for the star system you're about to jump to. It takes a LOT longer in Open or PG's when there are a lot of player ships in that system too. However, it is also supposed to be conveying the concept of actually travelling - we're not in a game where entire ships travel instantaneously across the galaxy (almost... but not quite), and therefore we need the hyperspace animation to SHOW that a very short time has passed.

This isn't an MMORPG. There are no instatravel options here, and I hope there never will be. Making the galaxy too small will completely invalidate any possible reason or sense of scale for explorers, and well, travel in general.

Of all the things wrong with the game, this is not one of them.

 

[Vingtetun]

Space is big.....

 

[Karunamon]

Someone please tell me.

They're that long for everyone. A jump still takes about 40 seconds start to finish.

~10 seconds FSD charge, 5 second countdown, ~10 seconds witchspace, 8 seconds cooldown.

 

[Matt L. Icious]

To put some numbers on the matter:
In 10 sec a HDD/SSD at 200MB/s moves about 2GB. Sounds about right for model + hi-res textures of say, a station. Those 8Gb VRAM of current GPUs require noticeable time to be filled, even if its only a fraction of the memory.
And that's only one of the jobs that needs to be done when transitioning instances. Think net-sync, etc.

 

[fennster]

To put some numbers on the matter:
In 10 sec a HDD/SSD at 200MB/s moves about 2GB. Sounds about right for model + hi-res textures of say, a station. Those 8Gb VRAM of current GPUs require noticeable time to be filled, even if its only a fraction of the memory.
And that's only one of the jobs that needs to be done when transitioning instances. Think net-sync, etc.

Why would you load station models and textures on entry. Surely you spool it afterwards, unless you expect to drop to a station ten seconds in the interim.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Multi-Crew does not involve travel, from the way that Frontier describe it.

But then FDev can "describe" jumping is instant following that logic.

 

[Robert Maynard]

But then FDev can "describe" jumping is instant following that logic.

I suppose they could, if they wanted to - except they don't seem to want to - as the galaxy is big (see implementation of delayed ship transfer).

 

[Vingtetun]

There is also the calculation for the state of the system that governs NPC spawns and poi, network handshakes to see if there are any 'islands' with other players and suchlike.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I've timed it, and its about ten seconds. I can usually complete a whole jump sequence (cool down, charge, and jump) in about 45 seconds if my packets don't lose their way crossing the Atlantic.

Yeah, no idea where i got 30 seconds from, must have been a brain fart. Not sure i've ever got 10 seconds though, i think 15 seconds is the norm for the actual jump sequence for me. I should time it properly.

 

[kiario]

I wrote something similar way back.

The countdown from 4 in hyper space and supercruise it totally unnecessary.

The Hyper space sequence could be cut down to 3 sec and it woudl be perfect.

 

[Hellfire85]

I wrote something similar way back.

The countdown from 4 in hyper space and supercruise it totally unnecessary.

The Hyper space sequence could be cut down to 3 sec and it woudl be perfect.

Maybe, but what if the FSD has to spool up to make the jump? Ever thought about this? Maybe one sec is exactly what the computer needs to caculate the final parameters to avoid getting you jumped into nowhere in witchspace right beside one of those nasty flowerships

 

[Mindphaser]

If you want to simulate "distance", then there needs to be some time involved in doing the traveling. If you just flashed over to any destination, then there would not be any personal investment required to travel to locations further away. Currently, it takes just under a minute to do a full jump. This includes pressing the button, spooling up, jumping, navigating around the target star, FSD cooldown, and everything up to the next button press. It encourages a player to learn how to engineer a ship for max jump range. I can do about 600LY in 12 minutes. That's a reasonable time I think.

Jumps need to take time otherwise distances will become meaningless.

And this is why I have no hope for FDev ever changing the loading...er I mean jump screens. Ive always thought this "immersion" excuse was just that, a poor excuse. Ships should capable to travel in the hundreds of LY, not 10s. The galaxy is simply too big and it takes far too many jumps to get from here to there. I have to check my logs in EDDS but it seems half of what I do in this game is looking at loading screen after loading screen. Immersion? Please.

And the only thing meaningful in my experience after pressing the Jump button hundreds of times when I went to Colonia was realizing how much time I had just wasted doing something I had become very bored with a few dozen jumps after I had set off. I had hoped reaching Colonia would been some earth shattering experience in this game. It wasn't.

 

[Lightspeed]

I suppose they could, if they wanted to - except they don't seem to want to - as the galaxy is big (see implementation of delayed ship transfer).

Ahh but they wanted to introduce insta-transfer ..... which we now know fitted with their tele-presence of crew which was in development at the same time.

But, we rightly objected for .... realism reasons .... and now they find themselves stuck with the illogic of:

(a) commanders with actual presence in ships;
(b) actual presence in the SRV (but teleprescence in the turret);
(c) teleprescence in the SLf;
(d) teleprescence of crew anywhere in the galaxy;
(e) finite times for physical ship transfer anywhere in the galaxy.

and (f) (to keep this vaguely on topic) .... long ship jump times into and out of physical/hyper space

They have a lot of explaining to do !

 

[Xious]

Yeah.... 10 seconds to jump 20+ light years is too long.... kids today...

 

[Jack Schitt]

^ it's mostly the sky box generation in my experience. So if you change the details on that you'll change the jump time. (I often go way below minimum when I do a long trek)

It's loading the textures and objects for the star system you're about to jump to. It takes a LOT longer in Open or PG's when there are a lot of player ships in that system too.

There is also the calculation for the state of the system that governs NPC spawns and poi, network handshakes to see if there are any 'islands' with other players and suchlike.

Yep, all of the above. The amount of processing going on under the hood (both client and server) is pretty impressive. For the skybox alone they have to work out the intensity, colour and position of every star in a given radius around the destination system, then apply dust clouds, nebulae etc. I'm actually amazed it works as well as it does.

Hyperspace transition was actually sped up by a second or so in a recent update, by changing the way stars are rendered on arrival and sacrificing some initial LOD quality in favour of speed. It made some dwarf stars look terrible, and many players called for the old longer transitions to be reinstated. Not everyone feels the same way about the delay.

I do feel sorry for anyone who genuinely can't stand the "loading screens", because they are a core part of how the game works and there's really nothing that can be done to speed them up other than maybe pre-generating some data during the FSD charge. But I suspect the benefit would be marginal at best.

And entering glide or dropping out at stations has improved dramatically for me with recent updates, to the point where in Solo it's instantaneous more times than not. In fact if I wasn't aware of how instancing works I'd probably assume the Solo transition was an aesthetic choice rather than something hiding an instance change. It can still be a little sluggish in PG and Open, but that's mostly P2P networking and I doubt there's much FD can do when it comes to the quality of everyone else's connection.

It certainly feels more "seamless" than in any earlier iteration, across all modes.

 

[VonBlade]

Yep, all of the above. The amount of processing going on under the hood (both client and server) is pretty impressive. For the skybox alone they have to work out the intensity, colour and position of every star in a given radius around the destination system, then apply dust clouds, nebulae etc. I'm actually amazed it works as well as it does.

I'm not condoning this thread, particularly as I began my gaming career in the "please turn over tape and press play" days, but GTA:V, Wildlands, Far Cry etc and their constant streaming of the game world render the "well it's got to load stuff" point utterly moot.