About the loading times for the next-gen systems...

[Calvin Watts III]

I was looking through a gaming magazine, and I came across an article for an upcoming Xbox game. Something about what was said in the article caught my eye, and I wanted to share it with everyone.
The gist of the article said there would be extremely miminal load times for this game. Why,do you ask? Because the game can & will be loaded into the hard drive, making it easier & faster for it to be accessed by us,the gamers.
I just wanted to bring that up for the folks who are complaining about the loading times. If XBox can accomplish this, and by all reports the Gamecube has next to non-existant loading times..shouldn't we all be happy???
The PS2, on the other hand.....man,that ticks me off big time - Red Faction was almost unplayable because of the loading time...
Calvin
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"Never give up!!! .......... Never surrender!!!!!!!!!."

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The only problem with XB games is that they will use the HDD to store data that will be deleted in the future or they will be fully installed, which means that you will probably get 1) regular sized load times the first time you play and then quicker ones each subsequent time, 2) slightly faster load times with one somewhat large load time at the beginning, or 3) one VERY long load time and then very quick load times. I would prefer the "no load times" approach from the GCN, but if the load times are quick enough for XB games, it shouldn't really matter.
You thought Red Faction was bad? Try TimeSplitters.
The PS2 load times will probably get better since developers know what they're doing now. I heard FFX has somewhat quick load times, and seeing how good looking that game is, the future for the PS2 seems to have less loads.

 

[Dean Cooper]

quote: The only problem with XB games is that they will use the HDD to store data that will be deleted in the future or they will be fully installed, which means that you will probably get 1) regular sized load times the first time you play and then quicker ones each subsequent time, 2) slightly faster load times with one somewhat large load time at the beginning, or 3) one VERY long load time and then very quick load times. I would prefer the "no load times" approach from the GCN, but if the load times are quick enough for XB games, it shouldn't really matter.[/quote]
Actually this is a little inaccurate. The Xbox has three partitions on its hard drive.
a) is used to save game data like the memory cards
b) is used to store game upgrades such as Halo online support or the extra DOA 3 maps, costumes, etc.
c) is used only to stream data from the optical disc to the memory of the Xbox and can not used or deleted by the player.
The PS2 will use the HD for installing games thus the reason for it to big so big. The Xbox will never completely install a game on the hard drive, only the upgrades. ( and no an upgrade is NOT a patch )
Data is streamed to the hard drive during gameplay or during menu sequences. Both systems are limited by the speed of the optical drive because that is where the original data comes from, the faster you can get this data the better.
Making the most of the time that you have from when the player powers up the system to when the game starts is a big factor that effects loading times. Both the Xbox and the GCN do this very well but the Xbox does have an advantage of having a hard drive to cash from and will shine the most when it is playing a HUGE level and not have to break it down to chunks or force the player to wait while it loads the entire thing in the first place.
None of the games that are out for the Japanese GCN really show this yet because the levels aren't really all that big. The Game that has the most data for a map is Wave race and it does have a short load time before each race.
Do I think its completely fair to compare load times when both systems are not out to do side by side analysis? Not at all, all I can go by is the little experience I have playing with both the Xbox and GameCube. From what I've seen so far, both blow away the madness that PS2 is, but its still way too early to say which one will perform the best on this topic. Xbox does have more cards to play with, but I'm going to hold out on saying which is better for a while.
Dean
[Edited last by Dean Cooper on September 30, 2001 at 03:01 PM]

 

[Steve Kramzer]

I'm wondering about what is going to happen on the xbox when the hdd starts to get fragmented from all the writing/erasing going on in especially on the saved games partition. I would just find it funny if there wask ms's disk defragger app as part of all this, as that would show how much more like a pc the xbox really seems to be.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Steve-
Most of the time, fragmenting is caused by the OS and not just the files. Since the XB doesn't have a real OS, fragmentation will probably not be an issue for a LONG time, especially since its so large.
Even with the ability to cache data, the GCN load times will probably be faster than the XB. If the GCN doesn't have a HDD and can load as fast as it does (I've seen it load up to the main menu in Luigi's Mansion in seconds and then no loads between menus or loading the actual game) I think that it will be faster than the XB for loading. For large levels and such, the GCN might have a more difficult time loading stuff than the XB, but I have seen videos from Kameo for GCN where there is a huge island and the entire thing is in view and the camera rotates around the island and moves in to a girl standing on the top of it and there is no slow down and its all in real-time. The GCN also moves data in and out of memory faster than the PS2 or XB.
Nonetheless, I want to see what the XB and GCN are able to do with large levels.

 

[Camp]

Can anyone stop him?