Long loading screens

[Slinxx]

ok so, i have a pretty nice rig and a kickass video card, unfortunately i have no SSD at the moment. Even still i feel that loading screens shouldn't be NEARLY this long with my setup. Is something badly optimized? Does the game structure inherantly make it load slower? Is my HHD really THAT slow? I know others have been having problems with this, i'm just wondering what is causign the problem, how it is, and suggestions for fixing it. I hate the interuption of fuidity and shattering of immersion. Here is my GPU,CPU, and storage.

 

Video card Saphire Firepro W8100

Imagine a Titan X, but with 512 bit interface width

 

WDC WD20EARX-00PASB0

2TB HHD

5400 RPM

 

[intel® Core i7-2600 CPU @ 3.4GHz]x8

says it all in the name

 

 

Any suggestions for reducing load times would be greatly appreciated

[SharraShimada]

First of all: the firepro is a workstation-graphics adapter, not designed and optimized for games. Maybe this card will not be the best choice for gaming. But it has raw power, and so you should be fine.

 

I see the problem in your hard disk.

a) its a green series. They are designed for power-saving not for speed. Furthermore it rotates only with 5400rpm. Next i assume you have only this one disk, so your Windows, the page file and the game are sharing access to the same disk.

 

And by the way: Your CPU is a quad-core with hyperthreading. That means, you have 4 physical cores and 4 virtual cores. But thats only for claryfication. Thats not a problem.

 

I woul suggest to buy a fast hard disk for games, better a SSD, and you will see a major improvement in loading-times.

[Dhegonus]

SSD is irrelevant really, it is only for loading times for the most part and in most games it is not that much faster. You need a game geared graphics card and a better cpu.

[SharraShimada]

SSD is irrelevant really, it is only for loading times for the most part and in most games it is not that much faster. You need a game geared graphics card and a better cpu.

Have you even read, gluumbas post? He has loading-screen problems, and they are related to poor data-transfers. Yes, the GPU ist not designed for gaming but it is powerful enough. And i dont know whats your problem with the CPU. Ich run FO4 on a much inferior CPU.

Gluumaba´s system is strikly not able to get the data to RAM and GPU, and so he has insanly long loadingscreens.

He did not mention any problems, when everythin has been loadet.

[bben46]

Your long load time is related to your HD speed - 5400 RPM is typical for a non gaming business level laptop. Most desktop systems have a 7200 RPM drive, and very high end ( expensive) drives are 10000 to 15000 RPM. The faster the drive spins the quicker it loads things. A SSD has no RPM setting as it does not rotate, so you have to look at data read speed.

 

The drive you have is a WD Green - meaning it is low power consumption, runs cooler and is quiet running. But the trade off is in spindle speed and performance

 

A HD is easy to replace. On a desktop you don't even have to remove the current HD, just add the SSD as a second drive and use it for the game. I recommend going with the SSD as the prices have dropped a lot in the last year and the standard capacity ( up to around 500GB) are not that much more expensive than a spinning HD. I recently replaced the old 5400rpm HD in a older laptop with a SSD and the cold start up time ( using Linux and not Windows) went from nearly a minute to about 20 seconds. Start up (load time) was cut by more than half.

[Slinxx]

Thanks a lot for all your responses. Makes sense that my HHD is low RPM, explains quite a bit actually. one question though:

 

I know my video card is not made for gaming, but how would it even be optimized for gaming? I thought all there was to video cards' effectiveness was their specs. how is it set up so that it doesn't utilize them to its best? and is there a way to optimize them through software either manually or automatically?

[SharraShimada]

There are 3 kind of GPU-boards out there. Low power office boards, poor 3d-ability but its enough for word excell and some low-end video games. Intel integrated graphics for example.

Then we have more or less powerful gaming-cards, optimized both hardware and drivers for a maxmum output needed by games.

And third we have professional cards, made for huge displays, raw power, or multi-monitor use.

 

The low end integrated graphics are obviously not very well suited for games, due to theyre limited hardware.

The firepro series for example is designed to use it with 4 displayport-monitors, or to do heavy floating-calculations on the GPU instead bothering the CPU.

These cards are nearly similar to theyre brothers and sisters of the same generation of chips, but they are optimized for precision, not for games. Also the drivers are made for reliability, while gaming-drivers are often optimized and tweaked to suit games needs far more.

 

Or in short: Cards like Firepro are Vans, Gamingcards equals Porsche to Ferrari. All of them have 4 wheels, but they are designed for different intentions.