Pre-caching

loonyluke5 · December 2013

Every time before i start a game, i get a loading screen with some general loading bits and bobs (can't quite recall), which load quickly, but when it gets to pre-caching, it takes a good few minutes to load. From my limited experience, I can't choose what team I'm on, because I always join late, when the game has already begun. Does anyone know why it takes so long?

Thanks,
Loony.

GhoulofGSG9 · December 2013

Mainly because of slow HDD. We can give you more details if you would post your specs

loonyluke5 · December 2013

Here are my specs. Not the greatest, but why does it take so long on pre-caching in general, whereas the others load fast?

Uzen · December 2013

for ur specs... it says the image you are requesting does not exist, or is no longer availabe.

i had the same issue with loads took minutes got a new cpu was a bit faster but still slow... got a ssd from my old mech hard drive and now im the first one in the game every time.. its the hard drive speed mostlikely like ghoulo said

Lambo · December 2013

Spending unusual amount of time to load was something I was suffering from until I moved my game to a SSD. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive) The slow loading is mostly due to consistency checking though, it takes a long time to verify all the files. You should try connecting to a server that has consistency checking disabled, it'll literally take couple of seconds.

But as for advice, I suggest having the game on a SSD if you don't already, other than that there's not a lot you can do but hope for some updates & tweaks for the consistency checking system.

GhoulofGSG9 · December 2013

Lamb wrote: »

Spending unusual amount of time to load was something I was suffering from until I moved my game to a SSD. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive) The slow loading is mostly due to consistency checking though, it takes a long time to verify all the files. You should try connecting to a server that has consistency checking disabled, it'll literally take couple of seconds.

But as for advice, I suggest having the game on a SSD if you don't already, other than that there's not a lot you can do but hope for some updates & tweaks for the consistency checking system.

One of the reasons i lighten up the consistecy check at my server

. There is also one thing ppl might try with slow HDD: Defrag them. I myself use and recommend this tool: http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

FOR ALL SSD USERS: No you do not defrag a ssd at any time!!!!!

d4rkAlf · December 2013

Another thing I'd like to add is that having a large amount of RAM will allow Windows to cache the files in memory. My game is installed on HDD but despite that I'm usually among the first 3 people into the RR after map change.

RejZoR · December 2013

Buy cache SSD. I bouht Sandisk ReadyCache just because of Natural Selection 2. But it helps with other stuff as well. This way i don't sacrifice anything, but i can still have 2TB of total space from my main HDD. SSD just goes along the way to accelerate stuff.

RaZDaZ · December 2013

d4rkAlf wrote: »

Another thing I'd like to add is that having a large amount of RAM will allow Windows to cache the files in memory. My game is installed on HDD but despite that I'm usually among the first 3 people into the RR after map change.

Yeah I switched between my usual 8GB to 4GB RAM due to a malfunction in one my cards and the load times were insanely long, more than triple the amount of time, then it would take a minute or so in game to render all the textures and jazz.

Neemh · January 2014

win 7 x64... 3Gb of ram. Eclipse loading fo 6 min and 30 sec. Everything on MAX, only textures on medium quality. 4 Gb... 8 Gb... SSD... = lots of money but as i see in this discussion it not help very well.) And yea... precaching is long for everyone, so you dont miss enything i think.)

MashpitSquared · January 2014

With 24GBs of RAM, a GeForce GTX 780, and a Samsung 840 Pro, the load times take around 15 seconds with heavy consistency check and less than 10 without.
It takes a good 20~30 seconds on my 7200RPM HDD, though.
Conclusion: Load times differ per machine. Learn to accept your computer for what it is. Water computer twice daily, be part of soil.

Soul_Rider · January 2014

The consistency check, loading of lua and game initialization depends largely on the speed of your CPU, Precaching Assets largely on the amount and speed of your RAM, and the whole process is affected by the speed of your Hard Drive.

I have an SSD, but I have a very old CPU (E7400) and 4GB DDR2 800Mhz RAM. For me loading into a map takes anywhere between 4m 30secs (No Consistency check on a listen server into descent) and 7mins (full consistency check on descent on listen server)

In General, as the post above advises, the better the computer, the faster everything is.

Maybe the new gaming pc tagline should be "But can it run Natural Selection 2?"

NS2, the new Crysis..

Twig · January 2014

I recomend as @GhoulofGSG9 said defrag your HDD with defraggler, and also check the health of your HDD (try using this hddscan). if your HDD is unhealthy you may want to look at replacing it immediately.

The better your system the faster it'll load. if you have lot's of RAM (12GB+) try putting NS2 on a RAMdrive (this is the one i use RAMDisk), in many cases a ram drive is up to 10x faster than an SSD

I would be able to help you more if you could repost your system specs.

EDIT: A computer is only as fast as it's slowest component

joederp · January 2014

Perhaps you must install NS2 to the SSD for it to make any difference? I only have a intel 80gb ssd so I do not install any games to it, only windows and some other core components since windows 7 likes to suck up 40+gb over time.
Anyway I have my 8gb page file on the SSD along with Windows 7, 8gb ram (1600mhz), fx8350 @ 4.1ghz , and NS2 installed to a 1tb 7200rpm SATA and my load times are still pretty long, probably 1-2 minutes which I consider too long given my PC specs. The amount of data that could be transferred from that 7200 RPM drive to the SSD / RAM in 1-2 minutes is probably more data than the entire NS2 game. Just to throw some arbitrary numbers out, the SATA 6gbs drive might only burst to 2-3 gbs and maintain around 1gbs because it is a platter drive. Thats 1 gigbit per second / 8 bits = 125 megabytes per second. 125 x 60 seconds = 7.5gb of data that could be sent in 1 minute. This is probably an underestimate of the drives performance too. The entire NS2 folder is about 9gb so that would take about 70 seconds to transfer.

Now I understand its not simply transferring data, its processing it which takes the most amount of time, mainly during the consistency checking. But its quite obvious that this process is not streamlined by any means. If we disable consistency checking the game will load on my listen server in about 15 seconds and in-game hitching (first few encounters with an enemy cause stutters) are down to almost nothing. So while your system specs can have an effect on this, it seems there is still a pretty substantial lack of understanding of why consistency checking takes so long, and which hardware component most directly influences this.

Pre-caching

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