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FPS Creator X10 / Drastically reducing loading time

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hiIamtyping
15
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Joined: 15th Oct 2009
Location:
Posted: 15th Oct 2009 08:12
Does anyone have advise on how to drastically reduce the loading time while being able to keep the quality of the game? When I first created my FPS game, It took 12 whole minutes to load. This was impossible to wait for so I drastically reduced the quality of my game. SOOO much more than I would have liked. I can barely see when I walk around now, because I had to reduce the dynamic lighting and numerous other graphics just to have my load time reduce to 2 and a half minutes. For practically having to reduce my graphics to blocky, poor lighting and still having to wait over two minutes to stare at a loading screen, this is still unacceptable. I have to be missing a step or something. When I create the exe, it compiles it into a larger directory with config files and what not. The thing is, I want to make my game available for people to play online, but I don't want for people to have to download a 70+mb file that takes over two minutes for a level that can be completed in about 3 minutes. It just doesn't make sense to release a game that does that with such low quality graphics. Please help me! Thanks in advance!
budokaiman
FPSC Tool Maker
15
Years of Service
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Joined: 24th Jun 2009
Playing: Hard to get
Posted: 15th Oct 2009 16:15
When you want to release it, you can make it better quality, it takes a long time to create an .exe and a test game, because each time it has to create the lighting, the physics, portals, and set up ai. once you have a game created into an .exe it only has to load the levels and not do all of the math so it will load faster as an .exe
seth zer0
18
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Joined: 22nd Apr 2006
Location: Fort Walton Beach, FL
Posted: 16th Oct 2009 08:21
Whats your PC specs.

Coach Shogun 20
15
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Joined: 27th Feb 2009
Location: In your mind, messing with your thoughts
Posted: 17th Oct 2009 00:16
It'll load faster in the build game.

hiIamtyping
15
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Joined: 15th Oct 2009
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Posted: 19th Oct 2009 09:28
I really should have checked this earlier.
Scorpions47,
I do want to release it now, except that the loading time takes far too long. This is even after it has built the level, physics, math, lighting.....etc. etc. I probably should have mentioned this earlier. It is already built. The .exe file already exists within the directory with all the files that it apparently requires. The painful thing is that it's still taking too long to load. So from here, I am really frustrated with how to make anything decent and have it actually run without waiting two whole minutes for it to load.
Seth Zero,
my PC specs are:
EVGA Nvidia 780i Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad 8200Q (2.33ghz) processor
4GB of DDR2 RAM
two Nvidia 8600GTS SLI cards
500GB SATA hard drive

Coach Shogun,
The Build game takes time to make, but I already have the .exe in the folder with all the other files that it made with it.
Do you guys know if there is something else that I'm just not doing right? Is there a way to make the file just an exe without all of the other files so that when released, it won't have to be a 70+ mb download? It's just too large and too slow for loading.
old_School
15
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Joined: 29th Aug 2009
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Posted: 20th Oct 2009 03:06
Well How big is the levels? I mean if u make massive sized levels its going to take time to load.
seth zer0
18
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Joined: 22nd Apr 2006
Location: Fort Walton Beach, FL
Posted: 20th Oct 2009 08:24 Edited at: 20th Oct 2009 08:43
Well those spec's should run it fine. But the 8600's might be your problem when building it, other then that it's a real good PC you got. But to find out if it is your cards release a demo or something that you made and see what other PCs do with it. A level for me max out graphics take maybe two to five(depends on the size of the level.) minutes to build.

Edit: On second thought I don't think it is the cards. Cause my old laptop had a single 8600m gt(well 570m the workstation version of the the 8600m gt) maybe it is the size of your level or the the lights. Do you have a lot of dynamic lights. Cause that will make it slow down on a build.

budokaiman
FPSC Tool Maker
15
Years of Service
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Joined: 24th Jun 2009
Playing: Hard to get
Posted: 20th Oct 2009 16:18
Also, you can use trigger zones to create and destroy entities before and after they are visible, during game, this will reduce loading time. dynamic lights and shadows are the factors that really slow it down also.
hiIamtyping
15
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Joined: 15th Oct 2009
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Posted: 20th Oct 2009 21:08
Old_school:
That's the crazy thing. It's not super huge. I only have one level to load, and it can be beaten in only 3 minutes. It just seems to me that users that are paying for this software should be able to make a fairly nice game without having to reduce every little detail that is provided. Otherwise, isn't it just defeating the purpose of the game engine all together?

Seth_zero:
I did release the demo to a couple people and it still took a long time for it to load on their machines. I wouldn't think it's the cards either unless this game engine is compiling through the GPU rather than the CPU. If that's the case, then that is total BS, because people should not have to have super hi end graphics cards just to play a 2-3 minute long FPS demo. That would be astronomically illogical on the game creators side. There has to be something that I'm not doing right. Because like I mentioned before, I have removed all additional dynamic lighting and shading. It's something that I am seriously upset about because the game looks like crap and it still takes too long to load.

Any other thoughts anyone? I really want to figure this out. I need to improve my quality of the game, while still being able to drastically reduce the loading time and file size of the game. I can't have people waiting online to download a 70mb+ size file when the level is only 3 minutes or less long.
hiIamtyping
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Joined: 15th Oct 2009
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Posted: 24th Oct 2009 05:15
Does anybody have any recommendations or solutions to this problem? There has to be a way to make this load faster without making a 30 second level with poor graphics.
science boy
16
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Joined: 3rd Oct 2008
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Posted: 28th Oct 2009 16:49
i must admit that loading times between levels takes time, but if you build the game carefully as not to use too many different entitys, too many lights and carefully build your world, it should keep it to a couple of minutes, make a nice loading screen with music maybe a message saying make a cup of tea!, but i think maybe the tgc guys could get onto this like they did with the x9 version. patience and dedication is needed and also if you send them a letter maybe they may consider this and work on speeding things up. but anger is not the way, just explore with it learn the script and maybe make models and play with it to see what is the biggest time eater in your game.

an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of game creation!!!
hiIamtyping
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Joined: 15th Oct 2009
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Posted: 29th Oct 2009 04:49
Hi science boy,
I'm not angry at all. I've just been frustrated because I've already been working on this for a long time making over 10 different changes to it. I guess the bottom line is, I'm going to have to make the levels REALLY REALLY short. So I guess I do have another really important question for anyone who can answer it. Does anybody know if it's possible to make this into a single stand alone exe file without all the other files?

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