Have you ever wondered what happens when you load a game? We will tell you that it does not depend only on the speed of our back storage.
03/05/2021 – The loading screen is a situation that we unfortunately see several times a day, but we don’t like to look at it for a long time. If it appears, it does not simply mean that data is loaded into the computer’s memory, but that the program also performs other operations so that the game is just waiting for our interaction. Some games, eg. Fortnite is also trying to temper our expectations a bit with a unique loading screen wallpaper that can be obtained, with greater or less success.
Application life cycle
In the diagram below, we can see the simplified operations of the application, from launching to clicking the finish button. By definition, transferring data (data transfer) and creating the appropriate environment (environment configuration) will be important for us. Sometimes things don’t happen at the same time, the application copies some data into memory, then processes it, then copies it again, then processes it… and this sequence of events repeats itself until it’s ready.
Copy data to memory
SSD is always the best option
Undoubtedly, it will take a long time before we can get control of the game. Then the game copies the things it needs to memory and video memory. Of course, the raw speed is also very important, and it doesn’t matter what form the game has to copy this data. We can talk about a 1 GB file or a group of millions of files of the same size. This is the place “Time to seek“, the time required to retrieve a specific piece of information.
Let’s look at a simple example. Our backup volume “A” is running at 1 GB/s, but with a seek time value of 5 ms, while our backup volume “B” is running at 100 MB/s, but with a seek time value of 0.05 ms:
- the background: One million files are approximately 1 KB in size In an hour and a half Read/copy it, while using a 1GB file in 1 second.
- B Storage:The 1 million files are approximately 1 KB in size In one minute Scan/copy while copying a 1GB file for ten seconds.
Real conditions will be somewhere in between, and depend a lot on the engine the game is using. We can say that SSD is the best option in all aspects, as it will improve loading times.
Create the right environment
This also varies for each game, program, or operating system. After the RAM is full, the application still has a lot to do. In such cases, not only the power of our rear storage plays a role, but also the power of our processor, so even with a weak processor, we can lose precious seconds here.
Perfect balance
It’s pointless to have a super-fast SSD if a Pentium 4 is paired with it
As we can see, we need balanced computing power and storage speed, as well as as low a “seeking time” as possible, to get a decent loading time. From most measurements we can conclude the following:
- Data is copied in batches, i.e. the program intensively uses the device’s rear storage space for a few seconds, takes a short break and then continues.
- A faster processor can improve loading times, but this is highly application dependent.
- In some cases, a fast processor + HDD can achieve the loading time of a slow processor + SSD.
If the goal is just the game and the framerate is really tight, we should start with a more powerful processor and hard drive combination, since the loading time will probably be longer, but then the game will value the raw computing power much more. As soon as we can afford it, the SSD upgrade will come!
GTA V issue
After six years, someone has finally figured out why GTA Online loads so slowly
The case of GTA V that came up a few months ago is an excellent example of the fact that it’s not just about loading data. There also the problem was “creating the right environment”, not the initial copy, since a process could only run on a single thread, so it did not use the power of modern processors. While the other reason was also a programming error related to a 10MB JSON file. Even though we had a super-fast SSD and a 16-core processor, we didn’t do anything with them thanks to these bugs.
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