Longer loading times

DJGameFreakTheIguana

DJGameFreakTheIguana

Active member
This may just be me, but this is something I noticed only recently. I've been playing Sega Brawlers for a while now and I downloaded the latest version of OpenBOR to play it on, and I noticed the load times got a lot longer. With all the characters loaded, it took 20+ minutes for the game to load up. Last time I counted, it was 8 minutes with  only 4 or 5 less characters at the time, and even shorted since getting this new laptop. I don't know how the loading time jumped like that, but I went back to version 3697 to see if there was a difference, but it still takes just as long. Not only that, but the stages take long to load to. The fewest characters in one stage is 16(8 on screen, 8 more to spawn after enemy deaths), but it really took around 2-3 minutes to load(I have the A.I.'s set to know in models) the first one I picked. I also noticed while in window mode, the text at the top of the pane says (not responding), as if the engine is freezing for a while every time it has to load a new entity. I know about a month or 2 ago it wasn't like this, which is why I think it might just be me, but just to clarify, were there any new additions to OpenBOR may have had any effect on this for anyone else? Just asking.

As for now, the stages are loading up instantly, but only because the A.I.'s were loaded in previous stages.

X)
 
Remember that guy that made loading times unbelievably short? And then for some reason we deleted his code from the engine? ... Why did we do that, again?
 
NickyP said:
Remember that guy that made loading times unbelievably short? And then for some reason we deleted his code from the engine? ... Why did we do that, again?
Click to expand...
What happened now? So loading times were shorter and the code is gone? Man, with it like that, I have to consider some changes in plans and development with Sega Brawlers.

X)
 
One of my mods used to take 3 minutes to load, and his code made it like 15 seconds. This happened during like the last few months of the Lavalit days or so... he was a new user, made some revisions to the engine, and either DC or Matman didn't approve them. So his code got deleted and here we are. ... At least, I think that's how it happened.

:o To be quite honest with you, I haven't updated my executables since like 369#-something. So I wouldn't really know. I'll test it tonight and let you know if the loading time did indeed get longer.
 
Delete the pak and use an empty one instead if you are using a data folder.
 
utunnels said:
Delete the pak and use an empty one instead if you are using a data folder.
Click to expand...
Well I have been using my pak, didn't know it would effect loading time though, but still, what about other folks who download this game? And god forbid they pick one of the bigger stages with a lot of characters first. If loading 16 took took a few minutes, imagine more.

x)
 
They don't have the problem if they don't unpack the game.
 
Ok, so I just played it for a while with the empty pak and the loading speeds were back to normal, so thanks for letting me know that Utunnels.

x)
 
NickyP said:
Remember that guy that made loading times unbelievably short? And then for some reason we deleted his code from the engine? ... Why did we do that, again?
Click to expand...
One of my mods used to take 3 minutes to load, and his code made it like 15 seconds. This happened during like the last few months of the Lavalit days or so... he was a new user, made some revisions to the engine, and either DC or Matman didn't approve them. So his code got deleted and here we are. ... At least, I think that's how it happened.
Click to expand...

His name was Anallyst. He removed the loading bar, saying that that bar was increasing the loading time unnecesarily, then some other (Plombo maybe?) said that in that case the loading bar could be optional, up to the modder. I think somehow, Anallyst, by changing the code to speed up the loading process, messed up other part of the code (that could be the reason of why that code was removed), and because of that they all had a problem on the chat and Anallyst left. I think he was the one that introduced the .ogg function on Opnebor.
It could be interesting if DC can go a little more deep about this. It would be good to have that old speed back. All I remember was some topic with war between Anallyst and Plombo.
 
It is not the loading bar that slows the loading. But the old pak file code.

Like DJ have experienced, having the pak and data simultaneously will cause the engine to use old method so it is slow.
 
so thats why loadingbg -1 is not recognized, it was in the engine for a long time so why its now removed ?
Analyst said that checking status of loading bar slows down loading so he disabled loading bar.
 
Like DJ have experienced, having the pak and data simultaneously will cause the engine to use old method so it is slow.
Click to expand...

I had the same issue with his mod, and I don't have a data folder for that game. Maybe is something with the old packer.
 
I thought it was because my mod was 2.5 gig ???
but after i shut it down and reload its less than half the time it usually takes from a cold load.
 
Man... You didn't care it on PSP anymore xD.
Anyway, Nick mentioned someone who was deleted, I am feeling that he was REALLY important and still important at the issues like this.
 
The person in question called himself Annalyst. He was and is an excellent coder, but clearly knew nothing about collaboration or end user experience.

During his short tenure we had multiple issues with the guy:

  • Badmouthed other coders and started nerd fights in the source code itself.
  • Made several game play affecting design changes and removed backward compatibility features without consulting other team members.
  • Advocated removing cross platform support and was making code changes to this effect, also without permission.
  • Attempted to take control of portions of the engine by writing in code with his own personal license.
  • Blamed user interface on performance, in an application entirely user participation centric and attempted to remove portions of said interface.

To avoid future problems like this, SX asked me to write up a set of rules for coding. When Annalyst saw them he threw a fit and left. No one asked him to go or banned him.

Anyway, certain platforms are always going to have loading times. The progress bar has nothing to do with it. Cross platform support tends to slow things up quite a bit and bloat the code base - though given time we can mitigate those things.

DC
 
But that doesnt mean faster loading times couldnt be implemented again, as far as i know he only disabled checking of loading bar lenght and that created hug speedup, i even disabled loading bar in fightin spirit cause i liked it and i inserted some fake one and game loaded so fast people even had no clue that its fake bar.
It should stay optionable at least.
 
I don't think so. Currently loading screen update is already limited to 10fps or so by default. It can hardly lengthen loading time.

Besides between each model it loads the engine is completely blocked, no screen or key update is accepted. I don't see any space to speed it up further.

-----------------

http://dcemulation.org/?title=OpenBORManual

There is currently a screen update delay parameter after that {tf} parameter for loading bg. Default value is 100(ms),  you can change it to a 100000 so the screen hardly gets updated.
 
Well i didnt checked source code when he did that but he explained something about checking loading bar lenght and that slowed things down and when he disabled it then magically everthing loaded much much faster like a miracle and everyone was in shock that such small non important thing had impact on loading speed, i dont know if there was more than just checking loading bar lenght but maybe its in source somewhere, plombo wanted and did remove it for "graphic reasons" and i suspect also personal reasons cause he was arguing with anallyst and then we had choice to use it or not, im all for bringing it back, i dont care about loading bar graphics, in fighting spirit i used "loadingbg -1"  to use that speedup but it was removed from the engine.
By the way 20 minutes for loading mod is insane ;D I would never let my game load so long, maybe theres too much script for stuff that isnt even that important for main gameplay?
 
Maybe it was. Now it doesn't check that frequently.

But I see your point. It is not necessary to bring back loadingbg -1, just limit the update speed of the default black screen loading should be enough.



 
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