Civ V start-up times

[danaphanous]

So every game I wait for civ V to go through the start-up and it isn't too long but it is slow enough it can make me impatient. I like the intro video but as it takes just as long to load the game after playing it I usually skip it. I wonder why it was not programmed so that the game is pre-loading in the background while the intro video is playing? This would seem more streamlined instead of a static picture and 1 minute of waiting. I mean seriously, who plays a video and does nothing else when you have a ton of resources to load in the background...seems awfully inefficient. Not a huge issue, but I wanted to hear a modders/programmers opinion. I actually don't know a ton about resource-loading or allocation. Just basic C++ for more text-oriented processing. How hard would this be to mod?

 

[joncnunn]

The game actually is loading during the video; it really does take over 1 minute load.
Dad said on his that it took until roughly halfway thru the video to finish loading on his (really old) machine.

You can test this by going to the settings and turning off the video and be treated to a random screenshot while it loads.

 

[docbud]

Lately it's taken around two minutes on my Mac. Sometimes I get impatient because I think it may have frozen. I do have video turned off and get the random screenshot.

My Mac configuration is more than adequate for what is needed, and it didn't seem to take as long until the latest patches.

Don't know if it matters or not, but I have the App store version.

I basically go grab a beer from the fridge while waiting for it load.

 

[subtledoctor]

It is BRUTALLY long to actually get to playing this game. On a more-than-capable 2013-model MacBook Pro, with a SATA3-connected SSD, the routine is:
1) Double-click app. Stare at a random pic for 2-3 minutes.
2) Click 'Mods;' be warned about the dangers of mods;' click 'okay;' stare at a static screen for 2-3 minutes.
3) Get to the single-player menu; click 'load;' rearrange the extremely long list of savegames so I can find my most recent quicksave; stare at a civ's intro for 2-3 minutes.
4) Play.

10 minutes just to get to playing the game? Is this 2014 or 1994? The worst part is loading the mods anew, every time I play. Totally redundant and a waste of time.

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

Even with an SSD the loading times are pretty bad, but nowhere near 2 minutes fortunately. I guess there's nothing we can do about it.

 

[cpm4001]

It is BRUTALLY long to actually get to playing this game. On a more-than-capable 2013-model MacBook Pro, with a SATA3-connected SSD, the routine is:
1) Double-click app. Stare at a random pic for 2-3 minutes.
2) Click 'Mods;' be warned about the dangers of mods;' click 'okay;' stare at a static screen for 2-3 minutes.
3) Get to the single-player menu; click 'load;' rearrange the extremely long list of savegames so I can find my most recent quicksave; stare at a civ's intro for 2-3 minutes.
4) Play.

10 minutes just to get to playing the game? Is this 2014 or 1994? The worst part is loading the mods anew, every time I play. Totally redundant and a waste of time.

Yup, and what doesn't say much for Firaxis is the fact that it takes about that long to load up on my rather weak laptop...

 

[subtledoctor]

I suspect that it has to do with the structure of the game, using lua & XML etc. As best this non-programmer can describe it, a lot of the game seems to be running as high-level scripts, rather than low-level programming. This means that throwing modern PC horsepower like graphics cards and SSDs will do next to nothing. Even as far as CPUs go, modern CPUs have tended to improve by way of parallelism & efficiency rather than pure speed (in single core mode a modern Haswell i7 is not really *that* much faster than a Pentium 4 from 5-6 years ago), and I bet the XML processing doesn't much benefit from that.

The benefits are there: patchability, moddability, etc. I wouldn't trade those away. But man, it is brutal loading this game.

 

[Heerlo]

Since getting an SSD, my load times have noticeably improved on Civ5. I just tested the loading screen and it only took 29 seconds.

It is BRUTALLY long to actually get to playing this game. On a more-than-capable 2013-model MacBook Pro, with a SATA3-connected SSD, the routine is:
1) Double-click app. Stare at a random pic for 2-3 minutes.
2) Click 'Mods;' be warned about the dangers of mods;' click 'okay;' stare at a static screen for 2-3 minutes.

If I'm correct, you don't have to go to the mods section of the game to load a game with mods. You should just be able to load the game normally and it should load all the mods that the save uses.

 

[shaglio]

It is BRUTALLY long to actually get to playing this game. On a more-than-capable 2013-model MacBook Pro, with a SATA3-connected SSD, the routine is:
1) Double-click app. Stare at a random pic for 2-3 minutes.
2) Click 'Mods;' be warned about the dangers of mods;' click 'okay;' stare at a static screen for 2-3 minutes.
3) Get to the single-player menu; click 'load;' rearrange the extremely long list of savegames so I can find my most recent quicksave; stare at a civ's intro for 2-3 minutes.
4) Play.

10 minutes just to get to playing the game? Is this 2014 or 1994? The worst part is loading the mods anew, every time I play. Totally redundant and a waste of time.

Also being discussed in this thread:

Automated savegame load at startup

 

[subtledoctor]

If I'm correct, you don't have to go to the mods section of the game to load a game with mods. You should just be able to load the game normally and it should load all the mods that the save uses.

I'm curious to know for sure whether that's true, and whether there's a difference playing on a Mac vs. on Windows. But I don't feel like risking my savegames to test it. See the thread linked by Shaglio.

To be fair to Firaxis/Aspyr, when I say 2-3 minutes, I'm not timing it, that's just what it feels like subjectively. Part of the problem might be that this is the most modern game I own, most of the others are at least 5 years old. (E.g. I'm still playing Oblivion, haven't yet picked up Skyrim.)

 

[cpm4001]

If I'm correct, you don't have to go to the mods section of the game to load a game with mods. You should just be able to load the game normally and it should load all the mods that the save uses.

Yes and no...it'll load the necessary mods (at least on a Windows), but not auxiliary ones. So, say I start up a game with the Civ IV Diplomatic Features mod and the R.E.D. Modpack. I play for a bit and then save. If I go to load the game from the main Singleplayer menu, it'll load the Civ IV Diplo mod but not the R.E.D. pack. So if I want the auxiliary "fun" stuff I have to load the save through the mods menu.
It's dumb, yes, but...

 

[Heerlo]

I'm curious to know for sure whether that's true, and whether there's a difference playing on a Mac vs. on Windows. But I don't feel like risking my savegames to test it. See the thread linked by Shaglio.

I just ran a test by starting a game with several mods in the mod section, and then saving it and loading it in the normal load screen. Tried two or three times and the whole game crashed every time. I went back into the mods section and it loaded perfectly.

Yes and no...it'll load the necessary mods (at least on a Windows), but not auxiliary ones. So, say I start up a game with the Civ IV Diplomatic Features mod and the R.E.D. Modpack. I play for a bit and then save. If I go to load the game from the main Singleplayer menu, it'll load the Civ IV Diplo mod but not the R.E.D. pack. So if I want the auxiliary "fun" stuff I have to load the save through the mods menu.
It's dumb, yes, but...

Mine won't even load the game at all now.

 

[primordial stew]

I load once, and then play till it ends/give up/forced reboot and use hibernate or sleep in between.