Slow Map Loading....Loooooad....Pauuuuuuuuuuuuse...Hang......Load...Pause......................... etc.

[shortguy on indom]

So, even after doing some laptop upgrades, seems the slow map loading persists.  Not much if any difference at all.

When I say slow I mean about 25-30 seconds with hangs and blips of loading along the way.

 

My connection speed is solid just shy of 400mbs; 16GB RAM; 2.1GHz 4core 4 thread

 

What is the deal?  Why am I always the last one out or last one in?  lol.

 

Thx for help in advance.

 

[SuggestorK]

Well the core is a bit slow with 2,1 GHz, even if its 4... but i wondering more, how u can log in at all, servers are down for maintenance?

 

What type of storage it has, HDD or SSD? With SSD the Laos speed improves much.

[shortguy on indom]

It's a 2014 laptop AMD 5745m chip... runs the game fine at 50-60 fps 'Quality' graphical settings... can run on 'Ultra' settings but drops to 25-27 fps with little graphical improvement. so I stay on Quality settings.  All 4 threads seem to be used by the game.  Some more than others.

 

1TB Sata SSD in it now, had a 1TB HDD before.  No noticeable difference in load times at all.   Upgraded from 8GB Ram DDR3L to 16GB ram as well.  Game is only using a bit over 2GB during play anyways (CPU-X monitored.).

 

Installed a secondary heat pipe/sink with fan in exchange for the CD/DVD writer.  Laptop CPU/GPU temps now never reach over 60C temp, usually hover at 45-48C or so.  (always was a boiling egg before).  New paste and glue too.  Temps were measured in game after about 1/2 hour of team play also using CPU-X in windowed mode.

 

 

[Derek Icelord]

As SuggestorK said, your CPU is probably the bottleneck. Secondary question, how full is your SSD? If it's full to the brim, you will see lower speeds.

[shortguy on indom]

2 hours ago, Derek Icelord said:

As SuggestorK said, your CPU is probably the bottleneck. Secondary question, how full is your SSD? If it's full to the brim, you will see lower speeds.

Nothing but the lightwight operating system with whatever bloatware that came on it and only the game.

[shortguy on indom]

Searching on the web this seems to be a somewhat common problem on quite a few other games.

 

Windows systems:  Cure for slow map loads on super state of the art pc's looks to be adjustments to virtual memory settings.  Looks like easy fix for 5-7 second map loads.

 

Linux (which I am running):  it is or can be a few different things which am currently trying to test atm.

• download: 'Stacer' (this is like a CCleaner for linux).
• using stacer:  turned off unneeded start-up apps; ran auto-clean.

 

Went to this website:  https://itsfoss.com/create-swap-file-linux/

And followed easy directions to create a larger swapfile.

• new swapfile size:  went from 2GB to 17GB.  in my case i have 16GB DDR3L RAM installed
• swappiness adjustment:  left it at stock '60' for now, but still fine tuning.
•  

Will post back yea or nay if it works. in case someone else in the future (or currently experiencing) similar issues.

 

Results from above:  went from 25-30 map loading (with hangs and snags), down to 10-15ish seconds (with vshort hangs).  For me this is a win!

 

The website also has a guide for increasing 'speed' of linux Ubuntu in general.  Easy to understand for noob like me.https://itsfoss.com/speed-up-ubuntu-1310/

(i have not tried the other tweaks yet).

 

peace

Edited February 3 by shortguy on indom
updated results as of 2/3/2024

[SuggestorK]

Well this is so old... it comes from earliest Windows settings from maybe Win 3.1 or Win 95, i always used fixed virtual memory on all my PC's or Laptops.

 

Its better for the storage device especially on SSD's and overall boost performace cause Windows doesnt try to shrink or expand it continually and such delaying the wanted operation.

[GM Tock]

On 2/1/2024 at 1:34 PM, shortguy on indom said:

1TB Sata SSD in it now, had a 1TB HDD before.  No noticeable difference in load times at all.   Upgraded from 8GB Ram DDR3L to 16GB ram as well.  Game is only using a bit over 2GB during play anyways (CPU-X monitored.).

 

Another thing to consider: not all SATA SSDs are equal.  They do price SSDs on speed as well as capacity.  A value SSD from companies like AData, PNY, SanDisk (the entire Sandisk brand is a value label of WD products), etc. are going to be generally slower than “premium” ones from Corsair, Crucial, and Kingston.  (I used to put Samsung and Western Digital at the top of the heap, but they’ve been sketchy lately at the high end.  I’ve stopped recommending them to folks until they straighten out their customer support and returns a bit.) 

 

Granted, ALL SATA SSDs are going to outperform a platter-based SATA Hard Disk, regardless of what you choose.  But any read speeds higher than 600Mbps claimed should be looked at with a grain of salt, as that’s past the SATA 3 theoretical limit (Real world: 480Mbps at best).  I’d make sure the read/write speed of the SSD itself is north of 200Mbps for gaming use.

Edited February 5 by GM Tock

[shortguy on indom]

On 2/5/2024 at 12:56 AM, GM Tock said:

(Real world: 480Mbps at best).  I’d make sure the read/write speed of the SSD itself is north of 200Mbps for gaming use.

Good advice.

Since it is an age old laptop, wanted a cheap upgrade.

The brand 'KingSpec' which I installed looks slow vtrue.  But was only $43.  To grab a Samsung would have cost me double.  So got what I paid for.  210-300Mbps not the best for sure.

The Ram stick was $12, and the paste and glue were about $7 each.

 

 

[GM Tock]

That should be sufficient.

 

The worst SSD speeds I’ve seen are 120Mbps.  Which is pretty close to just using a platter HDD.

[shortguy on indom]

So, finally figured out!... and it's crazy what is causing the slow game map loading... and hangs during map loading screen.

 

Answer:  A family member using bluetooth earbuds with her phone!

 

She has been having issues with not being able to hear the caller, various disconnects, etc. 
So, she takes out the earbud (only uses one of the two) and continues with the call. 
The other earbud is always on the kitchen counter, in its little case about 10 feet away from where I play the game.

 

To make a long story short, my laptop is constantly trying to connect to that single earbud, while her phone is
connected to the other.  lololol.  This is causing her phone issues and my laptop issues.

Verified last night, where she used her old apple corded earphones... and both our problems disappeared.
As an added bonus, my occasional mapserver issues have just about gone away.

 

Still adjusting settings on my laptop to fix this issue, and tweaking swappiness.... but am confident that now it's close 
to the point of being solely hardware limited as everyone suggested above.

I do not need the latest/greatest system, satisfied with something that will just work.

Hope it helps someone.