What's the deal with Precashing?

Shooter · January 2013

I know it's supposed to run whenever a map is loaded for the first time, but it keeps running no matter how many times I load the same map. Seems weird and it adds a good 30 seconds to the loading time.

SixtyWattMan · January 2013

Yes, lets cache all the maps. Nothing could go wrong.

AurOn2 · January 2013

problem is, it does it every time, i spend the same ammount of loading time veil the first time i played it that hour, and the second time i played it that hour. so it's kind of a useless thing.

Davil · January 2013

Precaching loads all of the entities and effects into memory so you aren't loading them while playing, saves a lot of time on rendering. Generally I find precaching takes some time on the first map load but not a whole lot on the ones after that. But basically if it didn't exist, performance would be a much bigger issue.

Azaral · January 2013

It would be nice if it just loaded all common things once (IE all the alien and marine models). This would provide a cut. The rest has to be loaded per map and then deleted once you change map. If it loaded everything, you would need like 2gb of video ram and 10gb of system ram or some craziness.

Davil · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Azaral @ Jan 25 2013, 08:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066832"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>It would be nice if it just loaded all common things once (IE all the alien and marine models). This would provide a cut. The rest has to be loaded per map and then deleted once you change map. If it loaded everything, you would need like 2gb of video ram and 10gb of system ram or some craziness.</div>
That's umm pretty much how it works.

AshTrai · January 2013

why does it "waiting for server" ... can't it load stuff client side while it waits for the server?

Stripetail · January 2013

If you don't want to wait as long to enter an online match, just setup an explore mode server, password it with something silly, then enter it. Walk away from your computer get a glass of water, when you come back and it's done leave that server and go to the server you want to play with. Fast loading times from there out. :D

Makas · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Stripetail @ Jan 25 2013, 09:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066888"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>If you don't want to wait as long to enter an online match, just setup an explore mode server, password it with something silly, then enter it. Walk away from your computer get a glass of water, when you come back and it's done leave that server and go to the server you want to play with. Fast loading times from there out. :D</div>
It... Actually would be faster to do the other way around...

IeptBarakat · January 2013

I'm fine with precaching but I'm a little annoyed that it can take up to a minute for my heads up display to show up in the game. Couldn't hud elements be precached as well?

Hivelord · January 2013

I don't know about anyone else, but when I first start a game and join in I always get a slight stutters whenever a new effect like gorge spit or something first appears on my screen. Very annoying.

AshTrai · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (IeptBarakat @ Jan 26 2013, 06:36 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066905"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm fine with precaching but I'm a little annoyed that it can take up to a minute for my heads up display to show up in the game. Couldn't hud elements be precached as well?</div>
erm what? I've never had that - HUD is immediate for me. Sounds like something dodgy going on there at your end.

Just FYI: If u alt tab at the moment <b>Precaching (0%)</b> shows, alt tab straight back to NS2 after like 2 seconds and it will have loaded straight in to the lobby. I don't even have an SSD.

ogz · January 2013

How about pre-caching stuff while we're still in the server browser looking for servers to join?

Roobubba · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Jan 26 2013, 02:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066921"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>How about pre-caching stuff while we're still in the server browser looking for servers to join?</div>
Because how does the game know which map you're going to join?

Precaching used to be mildly annoying when I had NS2 installed on a 1.5TB 7200rpm disk. Now it's on an SSD, it's a matter of a few seconds tops. Not everyone can afford an SSD big enough to put their games on, but steam <i>does</i>allow you to put different games on different drives, and small SSDs easily big enough for 4-5 big new titles are now available for very little cash. I absolutely, thoroughly and wholeheartedly recommend to everyone to investigate SSDs not only for their boot drive, but also for steam games they currently play (if they can't afford an SSD big enough for both)!

uffo · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Roobubba @ Jan 26 2013, 12:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066928"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Because how does the game know which map you're going to join?

Precaching used to be mildly annoying when I had NS2 installed on a 1.5TB 7200rpm disk. Now it's on an SSD, it's a matter of a few seconds tops. Not everyone can afford an SSD big enough to put their games on, but steam <i>does</i>allow you to put different games on different drives, and small SSDs easily big enough for 4-5 big new titles are now available for very little cash. I absolutely, thoroughly and wholeheartedly recommend to everyone to investigate SSDs not only for their boot drive, but also for steam games they currently play (if they can't afford an SSD big enough for both)!</div>

I have my NS2 on SDD and it still spends ridiculous amounts of time caching and creating the shaders every single map load. Usually the game has already started and both teams are half full when I finally get in to the lobby after map change. And I'm playing with fairly powerful rig, there's no FPS stutters for me.

EDIT: Clocked the process. From Start to lobby it took 1:18 minutes and of that 48 seconds are spent on precaching.

Roobubba · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (uffo @ Jan 26 2013, 04:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066933"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>I have my NS2 on SDD and it still spends ridiculous amounts of time caching and creating the shaders every single map load. Usually the game has already started and both teams are half full when I finally get in to the lobby after map change. And I'm playing with fairly powerful rig, there's no FPS stutters for me.</div>
Hmm might be worth you starting a topic on the help forums here: this sounds like something isn't quite right at your end.

I have 4 mates all with NS2 on SSDs, and we all load in before anyone else. The rest of my machine is about 3 years old, and my SSD is only on SATA 3Gbps, there are plenty of people with FAR more powerful rigs than mine...

AurOn2 · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Davil @ Jan 26 2013, 02:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066853"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>That's umm pretty much how it works.</div>
that's how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't.
all it is doing at the moment is doubling load times at all times, instead of doubling it the first time. precaching happens all the time, it recaches every time you reload the map.

Rautapalli · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AuroN2 @ Jan 26 2013, 01:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066964"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>that's how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't.
all it is doing at the moment is doubling load times at all times, instead of doubling it the first time. precaching happens all the time, it recaches every time you reload the map.</div>

Sounds like your game is broken then, the precaching stage goes through in about 2 seconds for me when it does it the second time, it only takes long the first time.

CommunistWithAGun · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shooter @ Jan 25 2013, 08:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066813"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>I know it's supposed to run whenever a map is loaded for the first time, but it keeps running no matter how many times I load the same map. Seems weird and it adds a good 30 seconds to the loading time.</div>

I pre-cache in 2 seconds.

Time for an upgrade?

Roobubba · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CommunistWithAGun @ Jan 26 2013, 12:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067054"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>I pre-cache in 2 seconds.

Time for an upgrade?</div>
Yeah about 2 seconds here, as well - I just loaded the game from a cold boot, ran my own server and the precaching stage took less than 2 seconds.

I'm running an i7 860 at 3.5GHz on a P55 chipset with 8GB of RAM and an AMD HD5780. NS2 is installed on a Plextor M5Pro 512GB.

piratedave · January 2013

ive also got the 1 minute long pre-cache bug, happen on every map change, and this is with a SSD -_-

Gamerkatze · January 2013

im using a ssd aswell and still get around 30 sec precaching sometimes. the alt tab trick works for me but it still remains an issue.

paradoxum · January 2013

I have an SSD and my game loads blisteringly fast every time, I'm always the first person in the ready room after a map change

ScardyBob · January 2013

It used to be that many of the items being precached were loaded as needed during gameplay. It led to tons of hitching/freezing occurring in the worst moments (e.g. in the middle of combat). The precaching delay could certainly be improved, but its an improvement over the previous method.

AWhite · January 2013

Pretty sure particle lag is from particles not being pooled. So it's creating and destroying a million game objects. Has nothing to do with cashing the shader and texture which should be very small files.

terrible spammer · January 2013

My game tended to precache for around a minute even on an SSD. Turning VSYNC off somehow fixes this problem. :/

Sherlock · January 2013

turn on texture streaming in the options. problem solved.

piratedave · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sherlock @ Jan 27 2013, 09:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067421"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>turn on texture streaming in the options. problem solved.</div>
nope

Ghosthree3 · January 2013

Like discovered in another thread, turn off vsync and you'll precache MUCH faster. Should be fixed next patch.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sherlock @ Jan 28 2013, 04:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067421"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>turn on texture streaming in the options. problem solved.</div>

Sure, if you want to crash every 10 minutes in game.

uffo · January 2013

Just came to confirm that turning off vsync fixed my precaching problems. From ~50 seconds it dropped to about 2-3 seconds. This was with nvidia card.

What's the deal with Precashing?

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