Speculation on loading time

Safe-Keeper · 12-05-06, 11:20 PM

OK, so one of the things you're bound to notice when watching the in-game footage is that the loading time for the single-player mission is so incredibly short. First I thought this had to do with the computer being high-end, the loading sequence recording being fast-forwarded and/or the game being incomplete (thus without lots of time-consuming features to load), and undoubtedly it greatly has to do with that, but then I got to thinking: Are there memory-saving features in Silent Hunter 4 that reduces loading time? My speculations are listed as such:

We've read that the ocean is "split up into 15 maps". Obviously each would have to be relatively big since the entire globe would have to be covered, but still, only loading one single small portion of the game Earth would be greatly superior loading time-wise than to load up the whole thing. It might work as the world in an MMORPG, where you load up one little portion of the universe at a time, for then to load new "segments" only when the player enters them.
If mission editors had the option to not spawn every single ship in the entire world for single-player missions (what's the point of modelling traffic near the US Coast for a single-player mission taking place near the Phillipines), loading times would be greatly reduced. Options to not spawn the ships in a certain area or even the entire world would be great in either case - who haven't experienced making a mission and having it negatively affected by entities from the Campaign Layers?

What do the rest of you think?

12-05-06, 11:20 PM	#1
Safe-Keeper Ocean Warrior Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Norway Posts: 3,234 Downloads: 11 Uploads: 0	Speculation on loading time OK, so one of the things you're bound to notice when watching the in-game footage is that the loading time for the single-player mission is so incredibly short. First I thought this had to do with the computer being high-end, the loading sequence recording being fast-forwarded and/or the game being incomplete (thus without lots of time-consuming features to load), and undoubtedly it greatly has to do with that, but then I got to thinking: Are there memory-saving features in Silent Hunter 4 that reduces loading time? My speculations are listed as such: We've read that the ocean is "split up into 15 maps". Obviously each would have to be relatively big since the entire globe would have to be covered, but still, only loading one single small portion of the game Earth would be greatly superior loading time-wise than to load up the whole thing. It might work as the world in an MMORPG, where you load up one little portion of the universe at a time, for then to load new "segments" only when the player enters them. If mission editors had the option to not spawn every single ship in the entire world for single-player missions (what's the point of modelling traffic near the US Coast for a single-player mission taking place near the Phillipines), loading times would be greatly reduced. Options to not spawn the ships in a certain area or even the entire world would be great in either case - who haven't experienced making a mission and having it negatively affected by entities from the Campaign Layers? What do the rest of you think? __________________ First Strike Mod tester. Hardcore sub skipper.