How to reduce loading times?

[iambecomelife]

The title says it all :x . How can I reduce the amount of time I spend watching that little red bar? I'm currently working on several new units for the game, and it's so frustrating to wait for the game to load up before I can examine the changes I've made. I've tried memturbo, closing active programs, and I'm at my wits' end. The amount of time needed didn't even change after I upgraded my computer. Any suggestions?

[martes86]

The main reason is possibly the large amount of files the game loads at start. I think that nothing more than having a good HD and lots of RAM will speed up that load. No miracles for that. :cry:

[tycho102]

A Raid-0 ("stripe") across two drives will help quite a bit. SH3 loves to use memory, and it takes time to get it off the hard disk. And then your processor. Get the fastest processor your mainboard can handle.

I think I have under 30 second load times. Probably close to 20.

[Kalach]

I think he means coding tweaks, not buying a new super-computer ;)

[Cdre Gibs]

I stated that this would be a problem ages ago and was basicaly dissmissed. I made mention then that we as modders had a duty to TRY to keep any mods we made as small as possible.

Its simple, the more textures u have in the tex folder, the longer the game will take to load, also the bigger they are - the longer it will take.

This is why I have, where ever possible, placed textures back into the dat files at the same size as the original texture. Plus I have deleted entirely my low res tex folder ( if u have all the textures the game needs in either dat files or the Tex folder - whats the need for the low res textures ? ).

This also apply's to any skins/textures u have in the SEA folder's. The bigger and the more of them, the slower the game will take to load.

Another thing is, the more units in ur game, the slower it will become at load up (IE: Milkcow mod, HT Mod an so forth.) Now I'm not saying ppl should not run these mods, but that with every mod comes a price. That price is a hit to ur PC in 1 way or another. The most common is a slower Load time.

So again I say, pls to all mod makers, TRY to keep mods as small as possible and where it is possible, replace files, not just add.

But at the end of the day its up to U the user, what u D/L and add, as a MOD will in some way impact on ur PC, as MOD's runs ontop of the original game (as a rule).

[Col7777]

If I'm altering a mission for whatever reason, AFTER the main sim has loaded and I want to modify the mission I exit the mission but keep the sim open and shrink to desktop.
I then open the mission file from the desktop, after altering it I can quickly open the sim from the task-bar again to load the modified mission.
Having said all that it is annoying when you are modding to keep waiting for it to load every time, I know on some occasions you need to exit the sim altogether for it to load for you to test your mod, then back out again if it needs more tweaking. :damn: