Loading times: it's all random

Hi,

Since i'm playing GP4 again this year I noticed that, despite having the game on a SSD, loading times were quite bad, and apparently it has nothing to do with the disk speed: for the first half (loading cars) my drive LED flashes from time to time, each time the loading bar progresses. I suppose one step corresponds to one car being loaded.
I was thinking that maybe the computer was processing data / building meshes / other stuff. It takes between 1 minute and 1m30s to load. (it's a bit random)

With a default install, I don't have that issue, everything is loaded rapidly. This happens with my modded installs. My cars.wad is around 600Mb.

But suddenly last week, the game loaded very fast (barely 3seconds, as fast as with the default install). It happened only once until today, when it happened a second time. I don't know if it's linked, but both times it was at first launch. So I checked the CPU usage, and it's barely doing anything while i'm waiting.

So I have two questions:
- am I the only one to have that behavior ?
- is there anything I can do for it.

Any help is welcome.

edit: the drive is not encrypted, 80% full, and packing the wad takes a couple of seconds, so definitely no speed issue.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2021 09:56PM by zifox.

No this behaviour has been noticed before. Loading times do get slower after the first time. I don't believe a cause / fix has ever been found.

=====================================================


Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel

If you post a log file (gpxpload.txt) we can check the timestamps to see where it is being slow. Use debug mode for this with high verbosity. The log file is created even if there's no crash. Press Ctrl+Shift+L in the GPxPatch window after the game ends to open the log.

René Smit, Independent Software Developer.
Download my GPx tools here.

Here is the gxpload log:

[pastebin.com]

Second try a few minutes later.

[pastebin.com]

[13:28:52.589] >>  D3D: D3D_LoadCars [14%]
[13:29:15.730] Debug event: EXIT_THREAD_DEBUG_EVENT
[13:29:15.730]   Thread ID = 0x0000068c
[13:29:15.730]   Thread exit code = 0
[13:29:32.950] >>  Reverting to default car [
[13:29:32.950] >>  CARS\CAR_JAGUAR_CAR1_LOD_4.gp4
[13:29:32.950] >>  ]
[13:29:33.962] >>  D3D: InitVideoWallsMethod [45%]

Here's the load of the cars, there's not detail.

I don't know why there's a message for the jaguar car, all lods are identical.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2021 01:33PM by zifox.

D3D_LoadCars usually just takes a couple of seconds, so there's definately something wrong with it, and it must be the Jaguar car 1. If you are sure it's fine, perhaps it's stored in a bad sector on your disk?

René Smit, Independent Software Developer.
Download my GPx tools here.