Loading times whilst in-game....how long are yours?

S

Steamed

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Don't worry i'm not moaning, god this game is good!

Anyways i noticed that whilst in the game i get "loading" parts (like at the sart when alyx shows you through a door) which i expected but they seem to take at least 12 seconds, does anyone else have to wait as long as this........i'm not bothered, just that it can interrupt the momentum.

2800xp barton
1024 ddr 333
80 gig maxtor 7,200
9800 128
 
Alot longer than Half Life, but that's to be expected. I think the levels themselves are far too small, it has to load every few minutes.
 
Hyperion2010 said:
5-10 secons except on new chapters and then its just a little longer.
Click to expand...

even that is long considering how much pple were dying to play this game :p
but ehh.. theres not much anyone can do.. so.. just enjoy it ;)
 
iamaelephant said:
Alot longer than Half Life, but that's to be expected. I think the levels themselves are far too small, it has to load every few minutes.
Click to expand...
do you think its a good tradeoff b/w load points and good textures/level geometry? id rather wait 10 extra seconds for good textures and such.
 
My load time range from 10 - 30 seconds. It seems to take forever though
 
Load times are long but not excessively so, though they do seem to interrupt game flow a bit. They don't seem quite as smartly placed as Half-Life's, which usually came when nothing was happening. In Half-Life 2, it's almost like:

"The Combine are coming! Quick, Gordon, run while I hold the door closed!"

Player runs a few feet then "Loading..."

Not a deal breaker by any means. Just slightly irritating.
 
I thought that the levels were a rather nice size actually. As for my load times it takes anywhere from 10 - 30 seconds. All good.
 
about 20-40secs usually i drink loadsa drink during the level then by the time it comes to the "LOADING" time im desperate for the toilet, ah such planning.
 
Too long, in my opinion.

There are a couple of parts where the load times really kill the adrenaline rush. Like, in the beginning, running from the combine, you're running for a good minute, and then loaaaaadiiiiiiiiing.
 
Not as long as Deus Ex : Invisible War. :)

Longer then I'd like. Seems to be extracting files from the .GCF's constantly. Would like a way to extract them all ahead of time, but I suspect it's done on-the-fly to prevent piracy.
 
Try this...
Goto steam->Game->Right Click Half life 2 and select lauch options.

type in "-heapsize 256000"

or in your case with 1024mb ram

"-heapsize 512000" (Without Quotes!)

Then launch the game through steam(not shortcut on desktop)

see if that help and report back ;)
 
i wouldnt be suprised if load times were tweaked for the better in the upcoming updates.
 
Source's default heapsize I beleve is ~60mb of your ram's memory... by doing this it will set it to a higher value...

-heapsize 256000 uses 256mb of your ram
-heapsize 512000 uses 512mb of your ram

thus allowing the game to allocate more memory
 
Just curious if this helped any??? :O

NOTE: dont set it to high or to low or it will crash the game.
 
Ok, I tried doing the heapsize thing and set the value to 1/2 my ram (=512000). Didn't work; didn't seem to help at all. I get REALLY long load times. I've clocked the initial menu screen at a max of 90seconds. The ingame stages seem to vary between 25seconds and 85 seconds. With most around 60 seconds. Even though it's pretty smooth between zone loads, they detract from the game at a minute each.

I suspect the problem area is that Steam automatically put the game in teh same HD as itself (My C:\) which was running out of space (less thang 4GB free). I haven't formated or defragged in a very long time and I will try a defrag while i'm sleeping tonight.

In the mean time, I'm useing the Steam backup feature; after I will reinstall steam on a different HD (much larger with 90% free space and *MB buffer). I have several alternative HDs, should I put it on the one with least capacity or the one with most available space? I will update you guys in about 60 minutes after the reinstall.

Sidenote: I don't think my Farcry loading is nearly as bad.(also on C:\ but installed at earlier date) Maybe cuz farcry doesn't continuously load every 5 minutes effects my perception of wait time.
 
Ok, I don't know how to Edit so here it goes. When I tried to restore my Steam backup it gave me "Please insert the volume containing the file: steambackup half-life 2 disk 2.dat" error. This $#%$ sucks hard because now I'm gonna have to redownload/authenticate/install. God damn you STEAM.
 
I dont have a problem with the load times, but for me, 5 seconds is average to load a level, and 10 to 15 for the main intro screen, so I seems to be loading quicker than most (I have 2GB ram, and 2 raid 0 sata drives, which probably helps).
 
30-50 seconds with a Radeon 9800, 512mb RAM, and a 3200 64bit AMD.

I get the feeling something may not be tweaked properly with my comp since it is also suprisingly choppy sometimes.
 
Also, in another thread (I am not sure which), some people with bad load times had thier hard drives set to PIO, and once they changed to DMA, which helped them. You guys may want to try this, although I think this is not for those with SATA drives.

Hope this helps.
 
MajorPayne said:
Also, in another thread (I am not sure which), some people with bad load times had thier hard drives set to PIO, and once they changed to DMA, which helped them. You guys may want to try this, although I think this is not for those with SATA drives.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

How do you Edit your posts? Is there a time limit to how long we have before we can edit them?

How do I do those things majorpayne? I don't know what PIO OR DMA is, and I don't know what SATA drives are (are they the regular ones) Can you link to the thread?

I did redownload HL2, after reinstalling steam on a second drive. I also defragged my main drive (c:\) even though Steam is on an aternative drive. It helped a lot My loading times are now:
Main Menu: ~25 seconds
Loading areas in stages:9-25 seconds.

I would still ike to get this number improved if I could.
 
rhk0327 said:
know what PIO OR DMA is, and I don't know what SATA drives are (are they the regular ones) Can you link to the thread?
Click to expand...
I am still not able to find the original thread (even with the search tool), but here is the information on this...

DMA and PIO are the access modes of your individual drives. DMA is much faster than PIO in most cases, because it bypasses the CPU, and allows the computer to transfer data directly to and from the hard drive to the memory (which is why it may help loadtimes, and the sluggishness after a load).

How to go about checking if your drive(s) are set to DMA depends on which version of Windows you are using.

For Windows98/ME Do the Following:
1) Go into your Control Panel
2) Double click on the System icon to open up the System Properties window.
3) Click on the Device Manager tab at the top of the screen.
4) Click on the plus sign [+] next to the Disk drives Icon to expand that section.
5) Double click on your IDE Disk Drive to display the Properties Window.
6) Click on the Settings Tab located at the top of the screen.
7) In the Options section, You will see a white box next to DMA: Placing a check mark into this white box will enable the high speed DMA transfer setting, and Clearing an existing check mark from this white box will disable the DMA transfer setting.
8) Click on the OK button at the bottom of the screen to save your settings, then click on OK to exit the System Properties Window, and then select Yes when Windows Prompts you to Restart your Computer now.
9) Repeat the above procedure on any additional Hard Drives you have in your system.

For Windows XP and 2000, DMA is not set for individual Hard Drives , but is set for the Primary IDE Channel and the Secondary IDE Channel instead. Each Channel allows us to have two devices connected for a total of four devices, and if both channels are set for DMA access, then all the devices in your system will be set to use DMA (if they can use it).

For Windows2K/XP Do the Following:
1) Go into your Control Panel
2) Then double click on the System icon to open up the System Properties window.
3) Click on the Hardware tab located at the top of the screen (or in the middle, depending on which Service pack of XP you may have).
4) Click on the Device Manager button in the center area of the screen.
5) Click on the plus sign [+] next to the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers to expand that section.
6) Double click on the Primary IDE Channel to display the Primary IDE Properties window.
7) Click on the Advanced Settings Tab at the top of the screen.
8) For Device 0, ensure that the Transfer Mode: selection is set to DMA if available.
9) For Device 1, ensure that the Transfer Mode: selection is also set to DMA if available.
10) Click on the OK button at the bottom of the screen to save your settings.
11) Double click on the Secondary IDE Channel to display the Secondary IDE Properties window.
12) Click on the Advanced Settings Tab at the top of the screen.
13) For Device 0, ensure that the Transfer Mode: selection is set to DMA if available.
14) For Device 1, ensure that the Transfer Mode: selection is also set to DMA if available.
15) Click on the OK button at the bottom of the screen to save your settings.
16) Close Device Manager and the Control Panel to return back to your Windows session (no reboot is needed for Win2K/XP)

I hope this helps (and your devices may already be set to DMA, so in this case, you do not need to do any of the above steps.
 
rhk0327 said:
How do you Edit your posts? Is there a time limit to how long we have before we can edit them?
Click to expand...
Yes, there is a time limit (I am not sure what it is tho). If you are within the time limit, then an EDIT button will be available (like the quote button) next to the Quote button in the window of the post you want to edit. If there is no edit button, it is too late to edit the post.
 
rhk0327 said:
Ok, I don't know how to Edit so here it goes. When I tried to restore my Steam backup it gave me "Please insert the volume containing the file: steambackup half-life 2 disk 2.dat" error. This $#%$ sucks hard because now I'm gonna have to redownload/authenticate/install. God damn you STEAM.
Click to expand...

Dude, that was pretty dumb. You could just install steam on a different hardrive and then copy the cache files over. No backup is needed.
 
I find the 'LOADING' screens really disruptive to the immersion. I'm a little surprised it wasn't mentioned in the PCG review. I wonder if the version they reviewed loaded faster? Otherwise the game is a blast! In my opinion it was well worth the wait.
 
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