Black screen for a while after level load

ampere

After the level loads (and after waiting for "Preloading" to finish) I am getting a black screen for perhaps 10-15 seconds instead of the ready room. The HDD is active for that time and I hear some sound right when the screen goes black but no more until the ready room appears.

Is anyone else seeing this?

It seems as if something needed is not being loaded in preloading.

BTW, preloading is very slow for me (over a minute I think). I do not have an SSD so I'm expecting it to take a bit. But this seems excessive. Is there anything other than disk speed that effect preload and load times? For instance would getting 64 bit windows up and running with more RAM help? (Windows is running at 4GB right now)

Thanks!

SquishpokePOOPFACE

I had this for my first run, but haven't noticed it on new level loads.

DC_Darkling

what does console (~ key) say?
Yes, preloading can and will take a long time.

Even though I have a ssd, I shoved NS2 on a mechanical drive and it can take a while to load. Seems times vary from time to time, also.

DC_Darkling

I also have it.
Console states nothing of importance so far as I can see. The game does display stuff like net_stats 1 if it was enabled, while the screen is still black.
I do not use any addons at the moment. Will check if I have some installed but not loaded.

Jekt

Also have this very frequently, thankfully the game doesn't crash to desktop. Just loads to a black screen, the game stops responding for ~20 seconds and eventually loads into the ready room. I'll try and remember to grab the log next time.

IronHorse

Feel free to use "loadtimes true" or if you can time it right (because it spams so much text!) "r_loading true" , and ofc you can always grab a profile shot.
One of those should produce the culprit!
(especially r_loading.. but man its hard to capture the exact issue and not the hundreds of lines that are irrelevant, sometimes)

DC_Darkling

ow yeh.. I forgot about those commands..
Should really write em all down.

To be continued

Ghosthree3

Also having this issue, made a dupe thread because I'm retarded.

DC_Darkling

So far I have:

* nothing with r_loading. It seems to display console, but also freeze the console so no use there.
* loadtimes true. nothing odd on it so far, but I havent had a good long lasting spike with loadtimes on.
* its not every mapchange/mapload. Freshly joined on server or not does not matter.
* black screen times differ.
* no profiler ran with this yet, waiting for loadtimes

>edit
* ping skyrockets after a long blackscreen for the better part of a minute.
* 100% choke
* achieved 3000 ping acording to netstats.
* console freezes completely during black screen.
* all is restored within a minute usually

Neoken

I usually experience this the first time I play after a patch.

IronHorse

Disable reflections and test again

Ghosthree3

That fixed it for me.

IronHorse

So that's just reflections doing "it's thing".. So don't bother the man behind the curtain. ;-)

Ghosthree3

So why is it new and how does it get fixed.

DC_Darkling

I would say that if people experience the long delay black screens they may think the game hanged on load.

IronHorse

The black screen should be ~5 seconds. 10 seconds is still not the largest priority. But 20+ seconds (up to a min for you @dc_darkling ??) is an issue.

Ghosthree3

I get 20, and it stops me alt tabbing, which sucks hard. For now I use no reflections (no biggie).

DC_Darkling

No reflections? NEVAAAH.
I will run profile command one of the upcoming days when I experience the bug.
Loadtimes vary. One time its 5 to 10 seconds, other time its close to a minute so I will see if the longer ones happen @Ironhorse.
Happened twice to me on the longest loads.

Most are faster loads soo... to be continued

Ghosthree3

Hm, before must have been a fluke because I just joined a server and had the same issue with reflections off.

DC_Darkling

Ok.. for the moment..dont go messing with profiler during level loads if you do not like crashes.
I crashed a good amount of times.. (On a side note, tech support will receive a shiny .dmp file for that shortly hahah)

Eventually the profile command gave in and desided to not crash me.
Console & screen still frooze so information is limited at best, but I catched some nice profiler shots of the aftershock sort of say. And 1 of the freezing one.
Ill include them in the tech support email.

Maybe ill throw em on a image host later, busy uploading crash dump atm. ^^

IronHorse

yea i wouldn't mess with profiler during map load.
r_loading should show you everything though.

DC_Darkling

well I DID mess with profiler during load. haha.
Check your mail.