So the fantastic new patch has got me playing a huge amount more R3E, which is great, but is exposing me to the slow loading times of the game, which is not so great. For my edification I tried loading all my games and compared how long it took for each game to arrive at its main menu screen, and how long it took to load a track and a field of opponents (if applicable). The numbers speak for themselves: Game | Load to menu | Load track AC | 26 sec | 12 sec Dirt Rally | 22 sec | 8 sec GSC | 16 sec | 19 sec pCARS | 19 sec | 13 sec rF2 | 9 sec | 13 sec R3E | 50 sec | 62 sec For all games there's little variation in loading times between tracks. I have an i5 with 16GB and an SSD, and waiting around a minute or more to try out each new car/track/replay gets old pretty quickly. Is there a technical reason why the game loads on average 4X slower than comparable titles, and is there any room for improvement?
Their servers are involved in the loading process for drm afaik. While most of the other games don't need such querying.
Which brand of graphics card are you using? If NVIDIA, turn of the shader cache for R3E. The engine itself handles the cache, enabling it in the driver can increase loading times for tracks significantly (when loading the track).
Thanks FunkyChicken, but it only makes maybe 3-4 seconds of difference on my GTX970. I actually thought it might have something to do with shaders. In rf2 changing many gfx settings forces the shader cache to be rebuilt for the track, resulting in 60 second loads. I wonder if they are just being rebuilt every time in R3E regardless?
The same here, since the last update the game is slower than it used to be; becoming a little infuriating.
If you tell me you're getting ~15 second track loads like all my other driving games I might cry! R3E has loaded like treacle since the day I first downloaded the free to play version a couple of months ago, before I fiddled with any settings whatsoever. Taking your comments on board and forcing a cache rebuild by eg changing shader quality settings only makes the track take 90 seconds to load instead of 60. It doesn't help that all the log files are binary (encrypted?) and so I can't track down what the hell might be going on.
I never payed much attention to it as it didn't feel too long for me. So I did some measurements. (Single race; full grid (setup and visible); track/car detail, textures and shaders high; 1080p) DTM 2015 @ Macau | 38 seconds GTR3 @ Spa | 37 secs Group 5 @ Mid Ohio | 33 secs M1 @ Bathurst | 25 secs Multiplayer GTR3 @ Spa | 38 secs start to main menu | 21 secs It obviously depends on how big/detailed the track is, having the best looking tracks takes its toll. It also depends on the class you chose, if you chose GTR3 there are up to 10 different car models and 24 different liveries for the game to load. I don't know what car/class/track combo you tested in the other sims, but if you want to compare it to R3E's GTR3 class you'd have to chose a class with the same amount of models and liveries. Don't know what to suggest...I always keep my system well maintained (driver updates, disk cleanups, defrags) and reboot regularly to clear physical/virtual memory.
Thanks for your input and help Christian. You are correct (as per usual) about the cars stressing out the game. An empty track loads in 20 sec, the same track with 10 GT3 opponents loads in 60 sec. I think it's the models rather than the liveries, because a track with 23 opponents takes 70 seconds, rather than 120. Whether it's due to the game engine, or DRM/server involvement (or both), I can only speculate. Like you I keep my computer in tip top shape, and as mentioned I don't suffer these loading bottlenecks in other driving titles. I guess I'll just have to add slow loading to my list of annoyances with R3E. Thanks again mate.
Np, always welcome. But the startup time you described seems particularly long... Can you identify when during startup it takes that time? Does it take a long time after the first splash screen, when the moving dots are in the lower left? Then it might be connected to what @pixeljetstream mentioned, the connection taking a long time. I know and have to admit that connecting from Germany probably gives me a significant advantage in terms of network stuff, iirc (some) servers are situated in Germany, making it an advantage for us over here... Yeah, it's definitely connected to the number of models, single make classes (M1, Aquila, Radical etc.) load much faster. But the main factor is file compression I think. Some time ago Jay or Sonat said that for them it takes just a few seconds (well under 10 iirc) to load a race, but that's due to them being able to use the uncompressed build. The thing is that that build is probably about 100 GB heavy. Don't know if there's room for improvements in the file compression department tho. Cheers
Hi Christian. So here's the time line from clicking "start game" in steam 0-20 sec: R3E splash screen on desktop 20-34 sec: fullscreen black screen 34-47 sec: fullscreen R3E loading screen 47-50 sec: moving dots 50 sec: click here to start The game loading should not be dependent on models/tracks/liveries, so I wonder what slows it down so much?
Hmm, I don't click the game in steam but use a desktop shortcut (after having started steam manually). And I've set R3E to admin mode, but on my end the little splash screen appears more or less instantly after confirming the User Account Control message. 20 seconds sounds suspiciously long. But I assume you start AC or pC the same way and there it obviously doesn't take that long, so I'm a little puzzled by that as well.
Ja, just realized that I misread that when I was launching the game.. But it also doesn't take that long to progress here...
I tested a few more settings, worst until now was: Custom Championship,Nordschleife VLN, GT3, 59 Opponents. Loading Time: 10 Min 19 Sec. Almost as bad as my Laptime Once loaded it runs fine, no fps problems. Specs: i5 4460@3,2 Asus GTX 1060 OC 16gb ram Graphic settings not maxed out completely, but even setting them to very very low doesnt change much. i guess my cpu ist the problem? Or can the internet connection influence the loading time? Btw: The AI takes the wrong pit entry on the vln-layout. Or are they supposed to do so by the vln rules? because if thats the case i am the bug.