Loading times

[Tim Janssen]

I know this thread is a contender for the Hall Of Fame of Stupidest Topics but here it goes:
Back in my original Amiga days some games took ages to load that I thought they were corrupt, so I erased the discs. This brings me to a question:
Which game does take the longest loading-time on an original Amiga? With the loading time I refer to the total loading- and decrunch time until you see the titlescreen of a game.

Here are some contenders I still remember:
Last Ninja III: I ran this game often when my Miggy still had 512Kb of memory. It took ages to load and the final game looked like a C64 game but in a higher resolution;
Wizkid: Put your Wizkid discs in the drive, let the dog out, go shopping, take a cup of coffee, and return to your Amiga screen. Wizkid is loaded within a couple of minutes.
Theme Park ECS: This is the game I accidentaly erased. I was waiting over thirty minutes and the game was still loading! Never played the actual game on my Amiga.

Do you remember any game that takes ages to load?

[Konrad]

Walker. It takes ages to load title screen and menu and then again ages to load the actual game . Luckily I got the WHDLoad version .

[Marcuz]

i agree with wizkid, walker and theme park. i can't think anything else in the same class as those.
but then: darkmere was a pain in the ass and civilization (the aga version not patched was even worse) with the intro sequence that was real timed with the facts that showed up!

[7-Zark-7]

Haven't played it personally, but I seem to recall one of the Wonderboy games,that was once reviewed in Zzap! was panned for its loading times,they reckoned the C64 disk version was faster!
On a personal level, sierra's adventuere games were always general swapping & loading nightmares.

[Tim Janssen]

Walker: How could I forget this title! What made the loading frustrating was this status text in vector-form which constantly rotated. Yes, it took a very long while to load.

Darkmere's loading between flickscreens has kept many players away finishing the game. I still have this game on disc - only for the beautiful titlemusic.

Wonderboy in Monsterland: I remember the review (April 1990 to be precise) in which Phil King complains about the loading times. I first played this game in WinUAE with its turbo loading-system. No complaints at all.

[fiath]

Loading times are back!

We aim to give you as long (accurate) loading times as possible.

C.A.P.S.
CAmPain for game loader rightS !


Sorry, I am in a silly mood right now...

[Syko]

Seem to remember that "Panza, Kickboxing" was bloody slow to load, on the mate's A500+, but as we where pished and stoned whenever we played it, it could be just a figment of my senile brain...

Ah, those where the days. Playing for forfits Winner gets the choice of a bong or a shot glass, loser has to do the one the winner didn't want. Tactical partying, you know it makes sense!

[Marcuz]

We aim to give you as long (accurate) loading times as possible.

@fiath

[haynor]

Mortal Kombat on A1200.

[ant512]

(Shameless attempt at getting more website hits...)

I've added the world's first Flash-based Amiga loading simulator (TM) to my IK+ port:

http://ant.digitaldonkey.com/ik/ik.php

[haynor]

Nice one

[Akira]

Titus the fucking Fox! That was shit.

And I do remember Darkmere taking ages every time you entered a fricking door, but I do not remember Theme Park ECS taking so long to load!

[IFW]

Darkmere: if you have some ram, it does not take much time...
My number one annoying loader is Walker so far.

[haynor]

With 2Mb RAM Darkmere loads one level almost 10 min but during playing doesn't load data anymore.

[gary]

I agree with the games above (especially Walker) but i'd also like to add Zool to the list. It seems as though the levels are split into single blocks which are scattered all over the disk.

Can some of these load times be put down to using the cracked versions? I find it hard to believe they could program the loaders that badly and think its down to converting some games to AmigaDOS format for copying.

[IFW]

Many of the loading times/strange disk swaps are due to bad cracks, or that cracks had to use a smaller track buffer loading block by block, while the original loaded a whole track, game putting more data on track than what is possible with ados format etc.
However Walker loading time is genuine

[Akira]

Originally posted by IFW
Many of the loading times/strange disk swaps are due to bad cracks

Yup. Mortal Kombat cracked was ARSE...


Walker I agree too, what a snail!

[Paul]

This game was not one of my favourites but... Oscar was also painful.

I remember the slow grinding sound it made during loading on my A600. Also you were asked for disk 2, the drive sounded sick when ejecting the disk. And you had to type in a word from the manual to continue.

[Twistin'Ghost]

I missed the whole Walker thing, fortunately, since the BBS I grabbed it from had a HD version, so I was in 2-player heaven.

The two worst for me were Civilization (never played the game because I refused to sit through that rubbish PC intro) and Titus the Fox, which puts you through the long load times constantly through the game.

[CodyJarrett]

The intro for Civilization is played while the game generates the world - that's why it seems to take so long.

On an accelerated Amiga, the world is generated very quickly and then you can skip the intro.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by CodyJarrett
The intro for Civilization is played while the game generates the world - that's why it seems to take so long.

On an accelerated Amiga, the world is generated very quickly and then you can skip the intro.

I only tried the game when it was first released, but even then I did so on an 030/33, yet the time still was agonizingly too slow for my taste. There was some other quirk in skipping the intro...I remember someone telling me how to years ago but it's been years and I cannot remember. Pyro, was it you?

[JudasEZT]

Yes Zool take a lot of time to load levels. I always thougt ir was a crack problem because it took too many time to be a commercial game which was supposed has passed tests before release.

also ShadowOfTheBeast took many time, even to show death sequence.

SalesCurves ruled with NinjaWarriors and SWIV loaders

btw, ant512 your IK+ rulez!!

[Marcuz]

if you press ESC during the intro of shadow of the beast 2 (maybe a couple of time) the intro freezes and you have to keep pressing like one hundred times the key to move ahead frame by frame!

[Shatterhand]

I also have to agree with Walker and Wizkid.

Walker took a LOOOOONG time to load the intro, the levels, and everything else. Everytime it had to load something, it would take ages.

Wizkid was slow-loading only before the title screen. After the game started, it was pretty fast.

I always believed the reason for Zool loading being so slow was something with the crack. The game played a music while loading the level. The music stops, and the loading still keeps going for a loooooong time.


Panza Kick Boxing indeed takes a while in the initial loading, but not even remotely close to Wizkid or Walker, and it's pretty acceptable. After that, everything else is pretty fast (Even the automatic save after you win a fight).

Swiv loader was great indeed. Also, Double Dragon II would show the story while loading, so you had something else to do while the game is loading. I think EVERY game should do something interesting while loading. Agony, have great music and very beautiful backdrops (Though it loads pretty fast).

The best idea I ever saw was with PSX Tekken and Ridge Rage, you could play a bonus round of galaga while the game is loading (And you could even keep playing it AFTER the game is finished loading, if you want so). I wonder why they didn't keep this idea in their other games (I would love play Dig-Dug or Pacman while waiting )

[gary]

Originally posted by Shatterhand
The best idea I ever saw was with PSX Tekken and Ridge Rage, you could play a bonus round of galaga while the game is loading (And you could even keep playing it AFTER the game is finished loading, if you want so). I wonder why they didn't keep this idea in their other games (I would love play Dig-Dug or Pacman while waiting )

Actually I think that idea was done first on the 8-bit machines. They had several games using 'invada-load' (or something like that) where you'd play a small space invader clone while loading from tape. But I agree - if there is no way to speed up the loading then a small game to play while waiting is a great idea.
Rob Hubbard had 'mix-e-load' on the C64 where you could change lead/bass/etc tracks of a song while loading the game - that was good too.

[ant512]

I think C64 Joe Blade 2 was one such game.

[plasmatron]

GREMLIS 2 takes years to load.

The looading game feature was also on some tape games from FIREBIRD for c-64. I think it was also a Galaga game.

Mig 29 Sowiet Fighter takes also ages to decrunch. I had tried only the crracked ANGELS version. But i think it was on the original too.

BUNDESLIGA MANAGER PRO from Software 2000 takes also nearly 5 10 minutes till completly loadet. But when it was allready loaded in RAM.It only reloads the single action goalscenes.

[7-Zark-7]

Originally posted by Shatterhand
Swiv loader was great indeed. Also, Double Dragon II would show the story while loading, so you had something else to do while the game is loading. I think EVERY game should do something interesting while loading. Agony, have great music and very beautiful backdrops (Though it loads pretty fast).

The best idea I ever saw was with PSX Tekken and Ridge Rage, you could play a bonus round of galaga while the game is loading (And you could even keep playing it AFTER the game is finished loading, if you want so). I wonder why they didn't keep this idea in their other games (I would love play Dig-Dug or Pacman while waiting )

SWIV & Ninja warriors etc. loaders that sales curve did weren't too bad, but the games they did lent themselves to it by being horizontal/vertical scrollers,(eg:Swiv,ST Dragon etc were shoot-em-ups), although Silkworm (also by the same team),had a very fast loader too.

I think there's probably the same old bugbear of maybe licensing crossover,but its probably moreso technical. To be able to play a game,(in memory),whilst loading in another means either of/both can't be occupying much memory/ram-I'd dare say virually all current stuff is probably using the PS1/PS2's memory to its limits- which is the same reason why we didn't see it used that extensively in the past either.

I'd say quicker level loading is looked upon as the preference- although it does touch on how even in the early days programmers didn't tend to write stuff for A500's with the ram expansion eg:loading in extra level data etc.) to speed things up, in fact who remembers how some poorly written stuff needed the extra ram switched off?!

BTW-C64 Dragon's Lair was another one with play-while u load the level bonus game-I remember because of Zzap! replying to someone asking about the sub-game loading a new level question too.

[Galahad/FLT]

X-Out and ATR.

X-Out because the cracker cracked it to AmigaDOS files and there were lots of them!

ATR because if you died, it quit back to the titlescreen and had to reload the whole bloody level back in.

I disagree with Mortal Kombat. It is only slightly slower because of an extra disk swap with the boot disk, but other than that, its as fast as the original.

Zool was a slow loader because of the way it was cracked (Crystal version).

[IFW]

Mig 29 the Codemasters game? No.

[haynor]

Originally posted by Galahad/FLT
I disagree with Mortal Kombat. It is only slightly slower because of an extra disk swap with the boot disk, but other than that, its as fast as the original.

But it still very slow.

[mtb]

Originally posted by gary
I agree with the games above (especially Walker) but i'd also like to add Zool to the list. It seems as though the levels are split into single blocks which are scattered all over the disk.

I was adding zool too. I have a non-tosec first disk ( transferred ) and it plays beautiful music from the disk drive.

Also a crack of super cars 2 is very very slow.

[DrBong]

BTW-C64 Dragon's Lair was another one with play-while u load the level bonus game-I remember because of Zzap! replying to someone asking about the sub-game loading a new level question too.

I think it was even better than that.....it actually loaded the next level of the game and somehow kept it in memory (perhaps crunched) while you played the current level. If you advanced to the next level then there was no waiting for it to load.

Software Projects were perhaps the only company to do that sort of thing with multiload games on the C64. I remember a Zzap reader writing in and asking why companies weren't doing this for all multiload games and the response was that it wasn't possible because of some technical limitations to do with the game itself or the C64. Anyway, Software Projects' multiload system was certainly way ahead of its time!

[gary]

I remember a Zzap reader writing in and asking why companies weren't doing this for all multiload games and the response was that it wasn't possible because of some technical limitations to do with the game itself or the C64. Anyway, Software Projects' multiload system was certainly way ahead of its time!

I think it was because the game wasn't pushing the C64 very hard if they were able to load the next level into memory (obviously not using all of it) and especially during play (must have been some free processor time too).

[Muzkat]

I remember the Immortal taking absolute yonks to load at the start. And the Beast games.

[7-Zark-7]

Originally posted by DrBong
Software Projects were perhaps the only company to do that sort of thing with multiload games on the C64. I remember a Zzap reader writing in and asking why companies weren't doing this for all multiload games and the response was that it wasn't possible because of some technical limitations to do with the game itself or the C64. Anyway, Software Projects' multiload system was certainly way ahead of its time!

Thats the letter I'm referring to,a fellow Zzap fan here!
But as Gary mentioned, later stuff like the Last Ninja series, Creatures, Turrican, Turbocharge,Myth etc. were all pushing the C64 to the limit,so it wouldn't have been possible,& I'm guessing it would be same story these days too.

Whilst they didn't do a bad job given technical constraints,(maybe arguably more playable/interactive than any other conversion), Dragon's Lair was never known for its playability.

[Syko]

Generatiion times for Civ were dreadfull on the A500, and I thought it was worth it!

On the A4K (040/40) it was about 15s of intro.

The worst thing about the intro was the fact that instead of re-writing the code so it used amiga anim or even just colour-cycling, they still used the PC method for the anims.... absoloutly piss-poor convertion, as where the in-game anims, and yet I still played it to death. Sid's the man for TBS games!

[CodyJarrett]

The Aminet patch for Civ AGA works very well. You have to edit the main file using a hex editor, but it gets rid of the annoying fades in and out between screens.

If anyone wants it, I'll upload the patched file to the Zone (although you'll need the manual for the codes - which can often be guessed).

I recently played through a game of Civ AGA and it was still great. I haven't played the Amiga version for ages, as I've had Civ 2 and 3 on the PC.

[Syko]

Thanks Cody, that'd be great.

I've also got Civ & CivIII on the PC as well as both versions of Civ for the Amiga (AGA on CD). Also worth a mention is 'Alpha Centauri', which deserves to be called 'After Civ' as it's what happens after the colony ship gets to AC... and if you've not got it yet, and like Civ, go buy soonest!

[CodyJarrett]

I've got Alpha Centauri and Test Of Time, but I haven't played them much.

I also need to play through the Amiga Civs on WinUAE to grab proper screens for HOL!