NS2 Load Times
Argathor
Join Date: 2011-07-18 Member: 110942Members, Squad Five Blue
Join Date: 2011-07-18 Member: 110942Members, Squad Five Blue
<div class="IPBDescription">Better than I thought possible!</div>There is one aspect of NS2 that has really surprised me and exceeded my expectations, the game/server load times.
I am running NS2 (like most other games I play) from my SSD (120GB OCZ Agility 3).
Starting the game takes a fraction of a second and even joining servers takes merely 1-2 seconds. This is simply amazing.
Even with my SSD most modern games still take a considerable time to load, especially BF and CoD.
<b>So congratulations UWE</b>, you have made the fastest loading FPS I have ever played. So I was wondering, what is it that makes NS2 so fast to load? It looks fantastic on max settings, it does not appear overly simple, etc.
I am running NS2 (like most other games I play) from my SSD (120GB OCZ Agility 3).
Starting the game takes a fraction of a second and even joining servers takes merely 1-2 seconds. This is simply amazing.
Even with my SSD most modern games still take a considerable time to load, especially BF and CoD.
<b>So congratulations UWE</b>, you have made the fastest loading FPS I have ever played. So I was wondering, what is it that makes NS2 so fast to load? It looks fantastic on max settings, it does not appear overly simple, etc.
Comments
but yea, loading is awesome. not only the speed, also the fact that it is animated which should not be taken for granted.
For me NS2 is one of the slowest-loading games I've ever played... though I don't have a SSD, admittedly.
For me NS2 is one of the slowest-loading games I've ever played... though I don't have a SSD, admittedly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Have you played the battlefield series of games? BF2 used to take what felt like hours to open on my PC, and then it was only a 50-50 chance of the game actually working, although that was due to dice patch problems rather than anything else. NS2 is a lot faster than BF2 for sure, and I don't have a SSD either :)
When I join a server there is a 30-45 second black screen period showing only the version number in the corner, between showing the map art and actually seeing the ready room.
<!--quoteo(post=1907125:date=Feb 26 2012, 07:04 AM:name=Codeine)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Codeine @ Feb 26 2012, 07:04 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1907125"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I wish i could fit my steam games on my SSD, 300+ gb -.-"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Use mklink to create a folder shortcut, i have most games on a 2tb drive but a few get a place on my ssd.
You can install steam on your ssd and use a softlink so your games are located on a hdd. Or the other way around: install on hdd and softlink to ssd. I'd recommend the first option.
To create a softlink open the start menu, search for cmd, open cmd.exe with admin rights, use this command: mklink /d "linkname" "targetpath"
Note that the quotation marks are important.
For example: you have your steam installed on your ssd, which is C:/. Your Hdd is D:/. To prevent a game from using space on your ssd do this: create a folder. D:/gamefolder. Now move your steamapps folder in the new gamefolder, delete the old one which is on C:/. Now use this command: mklink /d "C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps" "D:/gamefolder/steamapps"
Steam will now write everything on the HDD. Although I've never done this, I think you can use another softlink, this time on your HDD, to redirect your "important" games to the SSD. mklink /d "D:/gamefolder/steamapps/common/natural selection 2" "C:/Program Files (x89)/natural selection 2". Ofc you would have to create/copy the ns2 folder to the ssd first.
To topic: I've noticed a massive improvement of the loading time after one of the last 3 patches....