Loading Times In Modern RPG's

Post by **Haruspex** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:57 am

Ok we all know the issue of loading times when consoles starting to use digital media. In most gaming genres that's isn't really a problem e.g. racing titles, sport titles and even titles like god of war, prince of persia sot, the mgs series all have minimal and acceptable loading times and they don't interfere with the gameplay. But take a look at modern j-rpg's, they suffering from the loading times.

Seriously what is up with that? Try playing most of the modern ps2 rpg's. You walk and you encounter an enemy you wait 3 minutes for the battle to start, you win the battle and you wait another 3 minutes to return to the game. Then you walk some more and you advance to a new area and you wait 3 minutes for the area to load, and repeat again all the above constantly through out the whole game. Oh and let's not forget that you must wait 5 minutes to open the menu and perhaps another 3 minutes to open the map (if it's available)

Think that will change now with the new generation of consoles or will have even longer loading times? Because i don't really watch the new generation scene much (at least for now) and i don't know if improvements to that issue were made.

Post by **Mozgus** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 10:25 am

Exaggerations aside, this was one of FFXII's main drawing points for me. It was more like a fast paced MMO with battles that weren't segmented from the overworld.

Post by **peace4myheart** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 10:45 am

Don't know what ya talking about buddy. My games load pretty quickly from my PS2 HDD, usually less than 1 second.

Only one game that I thought was ridiculous was Tales of the Abyss, one of the best RPG games I have recently played and perhaps the best of the series (haven't played those on GameCube so don't question me), but it got really messed up with 7-8 seconds loading time from a disc and 3-4 seconds time on the HDD. The problem was that it is not completely compatible with the HDD and I had to resort to playing part of the game through the disc. That's just unacceptable and ruin a gaming experience that could have otherwise been total bliss.

Post by **Haruspex** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:52 am

Oh yeah HDD, i forgot about that. The problem is here in Europe we don't have HDD for the PS2.

As you mention Tales Of The Abyss has terrible loading times and Xenosaga Episode II even worse, if you ever tried that game without a HDD.

You said it yourself, because you forced to play Tales Of The Abyss without the HDD due to comp issues ruins the gaming experience. Imagine playing all games with similar to Tales Of The Abyss loading times without HDD.

Can i at least import the HDD, will it be compatible with the PAL PS2?

Edit - Now i remembered watching some Xenosaga gameplay videos on Youtube and the game was loading so fast i thought that guy who uploaded this must have did some editing in the video and cut the loading parts. I guess i was wrong... :lol:

Post by **Mozgus** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:25 pm

peace4myheart wrote:Don't know what ya talking about buddy. My games load pretty quickly from my PS2 HDD, usually less than 1 second. Only one game that I thought was ridiculous was Tales of the Abyss, one of the best RPG games I have recently played and perhaps the best of the series (haven't played those on GameCube so don't question me), but it got really messed up with 7-8 seconds loading time from a disc and 3-4 seconds time on the HDD. The problem was that it is not completely compatible with the HDD and I had to resort to playing part of the game through the disc. That's just unacceptable and ruin a gaming experience that could have otherwise been total bliss.

Did you try Abyss with compatibility flag 1 enabled, and MDMA0 enabled in HDLoader? It's supposed to have no issues like that, but as you might guess, MDMA0 severely limits the HDD speed.

Anyways, as I mentioned in my other thread, most PS2 games aren't worth playing without the HDD method. The system just really suffered from load times, as opposed to Dreamcast and Gamecube.

Post by **peace4myheart** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:08 pm

Haruspex: You can always mod your PS2, though I think it is illegeal in GB or can be really expensive. Anyway, I don't see why you can't use an HDD with your FATTY. :lol:

Mozgus wrote:Did you try Abyss with compatibility flag 1 enabled, and MDMA0 enabled in HDLoader? It's supposed to have no issues like that, but as you might guess, MDMA0 severely limits the HDD speed.

I don't have an HD Loader. I have DMS4 modded PS2. Is there a solution for that? I just play on it and really leave the setting and setup alone. Not a very technical persons when it comes to hardware. I can't even do what people do like loading the games into the HDD from a computer. Me SUX!!! :cry:

Post by **ott0bot** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:43 pm

The loading was a little annoying in Tales of the Abyss, but it really didn't bother me that much....and I put 90 hours into that game.

Post by **Mozgus** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:44 pm

peace4myheart wrote:Haruspex: You can always mod your PS2, though I think it is illegeal in GB or can be really expensive. Anyway, I don't see why you can't use an HDD with your FATTY.

Mozgus wrote:Did you try Abyss with compatibility flag 1 enabled, and MDMA0 enabled in HDLoader? It's supposed to have no issues like that, but as you might guess, MDMA0 severely limits the HDD speed.

I don't have an HD Loader. I have DMS4 modded PS2. Is there a solution for that? I just play on it and really leave the setting and setup alone. Not a very technical persons when it comes to hardware. I can't even do what people do like loading the games into the HDD from a computer. Me SUX!!!

Oh wow. Well about 9% of the game library has issues on the HDD unless you learn to transfer the ISO from PC to PS2 using WinHIIP, and setting compatibility flags to fix them, or applying PPF patches. I'm not sure if ToxicOS support MDMA settings. It might.

Post by **peace4myheart** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:59 pm

You had me at MDMA, you know, the life changing experience mood enhancing.... H EH HE. Yeah, the compatibility is really good and 9% is about right. There's only a few games that I own that is not compatible. I am not complaining, though the one game that needs it the most was not compatible. Too bad there's no patch for it either, not that I know how to burn it to a DVD-R if there was one. So useless, that I am.