The loading times are killing me....

[hellenes]

7-8 minutes to start the game....
5-6 minutes to load the savegame...
2 minutes to start the script...
3-4 minutes to get the first turn going...
2-3 minutes to load the first battle...
25 minutes...everytime I start a game..sometimes even HALF an HOUR...
Are the lengthy descriptions/traits/faction descriptions really worth this chore?

[Dram]

unless youre running the game on a 486 theres something seriously wrong with your computer if its really taking anywhere near that long.

i run an old comp, athlon 1.7A, 1g ram, 45gb HDD etc, and it takes around 2 minutes to start the game and 1 minute to load a campaign. starting the script takes a fraction of a second.

[hellenes]

unless youre running the game on a 486 theres something seriously wrong with your computer if its really taking anywhere near that long.

i run an old comp, athlon 1.7A, 1g ram, 45gb HDD etc, and it takes around 2 minutes to start the game and 1 minute to load a campaign. starting the script takes a fraction of a second.

Ive got a P4 at 2.8ghz 512 RAM 120gb hdd and vanilla RTW loads up in a minute or 2...
Even M2TW loads up in couple of minutes...
Its just EB that takes that long...

[Teleklos Archelaou]

25 minutes to "start a game"? That's very strange. Even the slowest of all EB development computers was never anywhere near that. Take a look:

AMD Athlon 756 MHz
320 MB RAM
Radeon 9200

Total Load: 3 min 40 sec
Camapaign Load: 3 min 35 sec
End Turn: 2 min 43 sec

I will just politely say that your numbers sound like either (1) you have an incredible number of other things running simultaneously, (2) you have a computer much much worse than the ones whose specs we listed above, or (3) there is something else at work here.

[hellenes]

25 minutes to "start a game"? That's very strange. Even the slowest of all EB development computers was never anywhere near that. Take a look:

AMD Athlon 756 MHz
320 MB RAM
Radeon 9200

Total Load: 3 min 40 sec
Camapaign Load: 3 min 35 sec
End Turn: 2 min 43 sec

I will just politely say that your numbers sound like either (1) you have an incredible number of other things running simultaneously, (2) you have a computer much much worse than the ones whose specs we listed above, or (3) there is something else at work here.

The only thing running in the backround is zhotkey that operates my keyboard...
I dont know what might eb the reason...

[abou]

Do you have a separate graphics card? You might be running into a bottleneck with RAM.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

My system:

EB 0.80 (on RTW 1.5):

Equipment
-AMD Athlon 1.3 GHZ
-1.0 GB DDRAM
-Nvidia GEForce4 MX 4000 128MB (Dual Monitor - this is one of those that can't show our campaign map trees, but uses sprites for them instead)
-186 GB HD - NTFS, half full (Haven't defragged my HD in ages, it's in much need of it)

Loading times
EB Total Load Up(from double click to Main Menu): 2m 15s
EB Campaign Load Up: 1m 35s
EB Campaign End Turn: 1m 13s
EB City Battle Load: 1m 05s

(Note: Faction = Epeiros)

This is with only two other Mozilla windows open.

[khelvan]

7-8 minutes to start the game....
5-6 minutes to load the savegame...
2 minutes to start the script...
3-4 minutes to get the first turn going...
2-3 minutes to load the first battle...
25 minutes...everytime I start a game..sometimes even HALF an HOUR...
Are the lengthy descriptions/traits/faction descriptions really worth this chore?
http://img99.echo.cx/img99/5761/misc159dl.jpg


Equipment:
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Conroe 2.67GHz
- 4.0 GB Mushkin DDR2-800 XP2-6400 eXtreme
- Sapphire Radeon X1950 PCI Express 512MB DDR4
- WD Raptor 74GB SATA 10,000RPM HDD w/16MB Buffer

Vanilla RTW 1.5

Loading times:
Total Load Up(from double click to Main Menu): 25s
Campaign Load Up: 10s
Campaign End Turn: 7s
City Battle Load: 14s

EB 0.8, RTW 1.5

Loading times:
Total Load Up(from double click to Main Menu): 30s
Campaign Load Up: 15s
Campaign End Turn: 11s
City Battle Load: 15s

[Caratacos]

My load times are similar to that of Teleklos Archelaou. My machine is getting pretty old though, so i cut it some slack.

However that old saying comes to mind-- Good things take time. And i daresay that EB qualifies as a good thing. But 25mins, hellenes... i suggest keeping a book or something close-by.

[MSB]

My system:
Nvidia Geforce 4 MX4000 128MB (yes trees and such like are sprites)
32GB Hard Drive
256MB DDR RAM
AMD Athlon XP 1800+

Vanilla Load Times:
Start: 20 seconds
Campaign Start Up: 1.5 minutes
Battles: Up to 5 minutes (depending on battle size and how long I had been playing for)
First Battle: 40 secs
End Turn: 30 secs - 2 minutes

EB Load Times:
Start: 10-15 minutes
Campaign Start Up: 5 minutes
Battles: Up to 7 minutes (depending on battle size and how long I am playing for)
Script: Script loads in less than a second - time for the adviser to turn up for a script is 10 secs
End Turn: 1 minute - 2 minutes
First Battle: 50-40 secs

I may be better off because I have loaded it to optimum settings for EB on my PC:
Options - Video Options - Change the preset value to speed - (optional) Change the unit scale to normal

Don't worry about appearance - it actually looks better (for me) on lower settings!

[Tellos Athenaios]

The problem seems to be a combination of an old graphics card + 'little' RAM. I suggest you switch all programs running on the background you can miss off, and give EB high priority with your task manager. Plus I suspect some exaggeration...

EDIT: Btw, are you using some sort of Intel graphics card?

[MSB]

The problem seems to be a combination of an old graphics card + 'little' RAM. I suggest you switch all programs running on the background you can miss off, and give EB high priority with your task manager. Plus I suspect some exaggeration...
I have lower RAM and my computer is fine, no lag, nothing too slow. Anyway the loading gives me the opportunity to fully appreciate the music.

[Obelics]

i dont know exactly the specs of my computer, it is an HP dual core, i think it is about 2 gigahertz, but im not sure.

anyway EB is fast, really fast, have the battlemap/campaignmap at max detail every think, 1280*1024*32 video, huge settings, and the only small scrolling delay is in the campaign map playing as gauls. But that is minimum. All is very fast, haven't counted the seconds, but it is very fast playing, and im sure my comp is not a sci-fi one... (in fact m2tw dont go that smoth well like EB)

and in the background there is running shieldwall+virus+azureus+mozilla

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

System:
CPU --> AMD Athlon64 3000 (1,8 Ghz, Venice core)
MB --> Asus A8N-E (nForce4)
RAM --> TwinMOS 2 GB (4 DIMM PC3200)
GPU --> Asus Nvidia Geforce 6600 GT (128 MB, Zalman VGA Cooler)
HDD: 1 --> Western Digital Special Edition SATA2 (16MB cache, 7200 RPM, 250 Gb)
2 --> Western Digital Special Edition UATA (8MB cache, 7200 RPM, 80 Gb)
3 --> Western Digital Special Edition UATA (8MB cache, 7200 RPM, 80 Gb)


Vanilla RTW:

Loading times:
Total Load Up (from double click to Main Menu): 19s
Campaign Load Up: 14s
Campaign End Turn: 21s

EB 0.8:

Loading times:
EB Total Load Up (from double click to Main Menu): 43s
EB Campaign Load Up: 28s
EB Campaign End Turn: 33s

[hellenes]

Then it has to be my RAM... :dizzy2: ive got just 512mb...
I cant understand why M2TW loads up fast and not EB...and its not just the loading the menu is slow going into the custom battles and generally teh whole thing is kinda sluggish...
RTW vanilla runs liek charm...
BTW ive got a 9800PRO 128 mb....

[johnmk]

I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with your PC's hardware settings (e.g., something in your BIOS, etc.) OR some piece of software is gobbling up your CPU time, RAM, memory bandwidth, etc.

http://www.futuremark.com/download/pcmark05/

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=dload&location=sware_dl_3264&langx=en&a=

Run PCMark2005 and some benchmarks from the SiSoft Sandra Suite, such as the Memory Bandwidth test, CPU test, hard drive benchmark, and maybe a couple of others if they seem pertinent.

Post your benchmarks. Something's definitely up.

[Shigawire]

Maybe you have been fooled into installing some adware or malware that's eating your system's resources - or specific memory-addresses - which in turn cause a "memory leak"?

Be careful what websites you visit. :yes:

But this is a good website to visit if you have problems like these:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Ad-Aware

Finds the cretins - let you stamp them out..

[PSYCHO V]

Ouch that hurts

As for me;

EB 0.8, RTW 1.5

Loading times:
Total Load Up(from double click to Main Menu): 21s
Campaign Load Up: 8s
Campaign End Turn: 6s
City Battle Load: 7s

[johnmk]

Which CPU? How much RAM? (Psycho V)

[fallen851]

Hmm...

I have a laptop with a P3 2.6 ghz, 1024 megs of DDR2 Ram, and a fast again ATI Radeon 7500 64meg that I've upgraded to its max specs...

Hope my video card doesn't hold me back.

[PSYCHO V]

Which CPU? How much RAM? (Psycho V)

Brand new rig I'm only now getting to enjoy. Slightly overclocked Core Duo 2 6600, 4 GB RAM. Both EB and MTWII run smooth as silk.

my2bob

[hellenes]

The most strange thing isnt the loading time of EB but the loading time of vanilla RTW: 1 minute by the clock...even M2TW loads up in 2 minutes...so I guess its not my puter...
I believe that you guys shoul release min specs or something like that...

[skuzzy]

khevlan, send me your build ASAP... you bastard :)

[johnmk]

The most strange thing isnt the loading time of EB but the loading time of vanilla RTW: 1 minute by the clock...even M2TW loads up in 2 minutes...so I guess its not my puter...
I believe that you guys shoul release min specs or something like that...

No, your problem is your willingness to blame others and not yourself. Find out everything about your PC. Find out how much RAM is free, and not being used by resident programs. Not every resident program that takes up RAM has an icon in the system tray or in the task bar. Find out all the particulars about your system and then report back here. This is a deterministic process, not inclinational. I posted some benchmarks a while back and as yet you've not responded with any figures. Do so. Also, press ctrl-alt-del and click on all the tabs and report everything that might possibly interest us. Click on the "memory used" column in the task manager and find out which programs are using memory. Again, these won't always show up in the system tray and such.

We can help you. Help us to help you.

[oudysseos]

I have a 4 year old HP Pavilion 424, 2.4 Ghz processor, 512 Megs RAM, Geoforce 5500 FX 128 MB Graphics card. Basically total crap these days, runs EB 0.08 no problems. The only thing that I have noticed is a little tool-tip lag when I'm scrolling over the campmap. Solution- I increased the virtual memory cache. Problem gone.

Hellenes- there is nothing wrong with EB. There is almost certainly some kind of resource hog at work on your computer. Make sure all other applications are closed. Check that nothing is running in the background, especially scheduled processes like virus scans and security software- they are meant to be invisible. Do a virus check- AVG and Lavasoft Ad-Aware are both excellent and totally free. Possibly defrag your hard drive. Double-check that nothing else is running. There is a solution to your problem if you'd listen and not just complain.