LOADING times....

[simmo]

I just wanna make sure with you guys....when you saw the e3 demo...did you notice the loding times ?! they where quick as hell!, I was just wondering how are loading times important to you ?

To me they are VERY important....know a game called Postal 2 ?, i loved that game but the loading times where awful and it ruined my whole experience i dont play it anymore

Plz dont flame me by saying "STFU n00b just upgrade your computer"...you see i dont have the money...ok ?

One more thing....what comp where they running HL2 on at e3 ?...I wanna get an idea on how it runs on my comp

thxs for you time

 

[PainLord]

Yeah, it think the loading times will be quick for a game like that. But on lower end hardware, dont expect a miracle. I reckon the were running XP 3000+, 1gb RAM and probably a 9800 PRO.

 

[pandawan]

yeah loading times can totally ruin the mood - I think they'll be good for HL2.

Along those lines - that's one thing Gearbox massively improved on for Halo (their doing, and the fact that PCs have a decent amount of RAM!) - apparently the load times are virtually non-existent...I feel sorry for the guy who worked on the load screens, no one will see his art!

-Doug

 

[GOoch]

the Machine they ran it on at E3 Apparentley was a 2.0 gig Dell with an ATI pro.

 

[dagz]

Originally posted by GOoch
the Machine they ran it on at E3 Apparentley was a 2.0 gig Dell with an ATI pro.

They ran the videos on that. In an interview he said the demos they were running today were on a Geforce 4, P4 running a 2ghz. Even tho it was in the ATI booth. When they played the game (which wasnt at E3) it could of been on a Geforce 4. Dont mark my words tho.

 

[Mamu]

yea it is great to see that the loading times are very fast in HL2 they were in HL1 too though.......

and I bet we all hate loading times
Anyone played thief? man you could go for a long walk before you could play....
Was even worse than C64 games

 

[urban]

okay the game probably wont actually be playable at the moment and will have been rendered and a very very very very powerful computer nothing like close to a normal desktop and all we are seeing right now is animated sequences and not someone actually playing the game just a slight bit of code animated

well thats what my lecturer tells me lol

 

[Min Rizor]

2 GHz Dell with an ATI Pro? Dude... I dun need to do any upgrading at all. o.o'

 

[Dave]

I read somewhere that they actually played the Ant-Lion demo in real time?

Ahh, here we go, quote from the Gamespot preview -

Frankly, we were blown away by what we saw of Half-Life 2 here, and though this was a rolling demo (albeit of real-time gameplay), Valve proceeded to demonstrate the bug bait level in action, which looked just as good as in the rolling demo

:cheese:

 

[neva]

Hmm really strange.. About what Simmo2k3 sad about Postal2 I totally agree..

Look at Halo1 to Xbox the loading times in the level are really fast to !! :bounce:

 

[Shockwave]

notice how they didnt have AA or AF on at e3 for hl2?...hmm makes me think whether the 9800pro can run it at 2x

 

[Murray_H]

They didnt have it on.... i didnt even notice :/

 

[neva]

How can U notice it ?? It was a pretty ugly screener..

 

[Killerlagger]

They already said in an interview that they will be splitting most maps into smaller chunks and not push to the engines limits cos they dont want you to be watching a loading screen for a few mins. You'll be treated to several loading screens just like in Half-life 1 but only for 30 secs or so.

 

[MiSA]

Originally posted by dagz
They ran the videos on that. In an interview he said the demos they were running today were on a Geforce 4, P4 running a 2ghz. Even tho it was in the ATI booth. When they played the game (which wasnt at E3) it could of been on a Geforce 4. Dont mark my words tho.

Really? I hope so...

 

[2ltben]

They were using a 2Ghz processor(don't know what kind), Radeon 9800 Pro, and 512MB RAM, IIRC.

 

[Apos]

In an interview he said the demos they were running today were on a Geforce 4, P4 running a 2ghz.

It wasn't entirely clear on when "today" was in that interview. The rolling demos had to have been on a 9800 Pro though, because he talks about "what a hardware setup like the 9800 Pro can do" while they were showing the bumpmapping and rotating mirrors.

But in the interview, I also actually heard these words come out of his mouth: "very fun and playable at 700mhz and a TNT/Intel810i level card" Whoa. I'll definately have a system at least three time more powerful than that in CPU, and way better as far as a 3d card goes, when this game comes out. But if I go broke somehow between now and then, I could STILL play the game fine. That's great news

 

[h00dlum]

i dont think the demo has that mush data to load

 

[Majestic XII]

Originally posted by dagz
They ran the videos on that. In an interview he said the demos they were running today were on a Geforce 4, P4 running a 2ghz. Even tho it was in the ATI booth. When they played the game (which wasnt at E3) it could of been on a Geforce 4. Dont mark my words tho.

Its kinda dumb to run a new game on a gfxcard that dont have support for Direct X 9. It whould been alot better if they played it on a Radeon 9700 or 9800. I think they played it on a ATI card.

 

[Slash]

They played it on a Raedon 9800.

Also, we don't know much about load times... Those were demos from different areas and parts of games.

Would it be difficult to believe that they made a dynamic loading system? One that starts loading adjacent maps before the player gets to the loading area? They could have implimented a system like this by now.

If someone told me about a dynamically loading map system I would be more likely to believe that then what they did with the Source engine. I mean.. obviously I beleive it now because I saw it, but just for the sake of argument

 

[[Matt]]

A dynamic map loading system would be awsome but such a system combined with a graphically intensive engine such as source would make a fast machine with 1 or even 2 gig+ of ram choke on its own vomit due to the massive amounts of memory and bus bandwidth not to mention CPU time it would require...

 

[xXSMGXx]

THERE ARE NO LOADING TIMES, BECAUSE IT WAS A PRERECORDED DEMO, welcome and plz dont shoot me

 

[Jagermeister]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the demo being shown at E3 actually a video of the gameplay? They weren't actually playing the game at E3, but rather showing a video with a live narration, so if that's true then I wouldn't judge loading times based on that.

 

[xXSMGXx]

Originally posted by Jager
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the demo being shown at E3 actually a video of the gameplay? They weren't actually playing the game at E3, but rather showing a video with a live narration, so if that's true then I wouldn't judge loading times based on that.

Correcting..
They typed "Record" in console just like in HL1 and presented it as a video, so gameplay was prerecorded.

 

[Jagermeister]

Yea, that's what I was trying to say in my confusing post. The word(s) I should've used... pre-recorded.

 

[Slash]

Even with demos, you still have to load everything.

And after the E3 presentation they loaded up the prision level and played it live for people there. I dont know if they did it after every showing, or only a couple times... But they played it live.

 

[Bad^Hat]

It was pre-recorded yes, it was the same every time they showed the presentation. Still it was all rendered real-time with the 9800 pro (gimme), with amazing loadtimes. Also you can tell it's loading because the last sound played skips a little when it switches scenes.

 

[loque]

a little ? lol I thought it whas my pc

 

[EVIL]

haha. I notised that to.. but it will be improved offcourse.

 

[neva]

The loading times in HL was extremly short.. Hopefully they will make them like in HL...