Customart Loading times/Installation Type

[Andrew]

In the interest of determining why some of us are experiencing slow loading times with customart enabled, which installation type has everyone chosen? Perhaps if we can continue to brainstorm, we can find out a solution (or at least an explanation).

[Nick]

Well i chose Custom installation the chose everything.

Oh, and i get slow loading times, by the way...

EDIT: Heh, forgot to add the main reason to posting in this thread.

[macbit]

Hey,

i have full installation

Marc

[n\a]

forget custom art option!(if you consider slow loading times as a big problem)
just use ea graphics editor import wizard like I do that doesn't make any
change on loading times

[Nick]

Yeah, but you can't do that for created players...which my main purpose of patching....to add what's missing.

[benji]

I assume you could do it for created players. Don't see why not.

As for loading times, rather than going right where it knows the player is, it has to check for each player and team in the extra folders to find that player and then go to the BIG files if it doesn't find them. It would be determinate on the speed of your Computer (CPU, Hard Drive, Graphic Card, the busses, etc.)

[Brad]

ok how do you use eazip or eagraph to put in patches for the game?

[Nick]

Yeah, but you can't do that for created players...

I assume you could do it for created players. Don't see why not.Ben

Well it's because they don't have there own player .viv file in the player.viv...

[LegoSHAQ]

Well it's because they don't have there own player .viv file in the player.viv...

Well then you create a player.viv file for them... if you are putting custom graphics for a created player under C:\Program Files\EA SPORTS\NBA Live 2003\render\xplayer\[player name] then what is the difference in creating a player.viv and importing it into the xplayer.viv? It is not hard... and it makes the game load quicker... despite what people say abot not getting slower load times, most people will get noticeable delays when using custom art 1 option... it will be worse for some then others based on hard drive speeds ... memory types.. etc.. I think for some reason to the game seems to do more CD checks when using custom art 1 option.. I don't know why.. but if your CD rom goes into sleep mode then this can pause your game while the cd player powers up again for the CD check... very anoying...

[Full Surface]

This problem has to be one of the worst I have ever seen from all the NBA Live games in the past. We really need to get someone to try and fix this with a patch or something.

EAZip seems to be to complicated to work as well

[Nick]

Would it make any difference to the loading times if you install a No-Cd crack?

[Full Surface]

Nope. I already tried it. Didn't work at all :/

[Dirtdog1- David]

I haven't noticed any difference in loading time at all, the game loads in about 5-10 seconds with all the addition's the same as it it did before the patches.

[hetoft]

I know it's a little of topic, but DreamSpeaker, how do you create a .viv file?

[nba2kstuff]

yes it seems odd. after correcting the USB problem under win98se, with custom art 1, and custom pacthes for dream team and others it seemed to load very very quick. after upgrading the BIOS of my video card to allow seeing the jersey numbering (which didnot work), the load time with custom art 1 became dramitically slowerer. as dreamspeaker had mentioned. it appears there is an intimate relation with the hardware level drivers and most likely dtx texture compression loading that also affects the game load time.

in anycase, the custom art feature is very good for installion and orgranization of 2003 patches. i always discouraged the use of destructive patch edting (done 2 much in 2000). (meaning replacing default EA files with customized user files) as when not done properly it causes a number of obscure instablities in an already sometimes very picky system! lol! the most proper method is through non-destructive insertion of addtional code and graphic sets to the game.

but, in order for 2003 to correctly handle overloaded custom logo graphics, the use of eazip or other BIG viv file compatible utility is required (that i could determine?).

anyway, if there is interest, i will share some details and sublteties with regards to the safe use of eazip.

for example, this one way to create a new viv file:

>>> this command creates a new old VIV format file
eazip -n chbarkl.viv

>> this adds your head files to that new viv
eazip -a chbarkl.viv chbarkl.fsh chbarkl*.o

>> convert this VIV file to new BIG VIV format that required for stability
eazip +V chbarkl.viv

>> should display BIGVIV file type info
eazip -l chbarkl.viv


this is all experimental and may not work on your system the same, so be very very careful!!! and backup evrything, and don't expect too much either too lol!

but i will continue to update it as i can, and as interest for it use. a new version that is compatible with the nfshtool will be coming soon also!

thanks and if there is any aditional question that i can (easily) answer i will try!
dondaily
peace!

[bats]

i dont use customart but im able to put all the created players that i find on the net in my xplayer.viv. just use the EA editor. use the import wizard and add the *.fsh and *.o of the new player to xplayer.viv

[bats]

but the aboce method is dangerous, ive reinstalled the gamed about 6 x times already. the best thing to do is to make back up copies of your orginal .viv files like the xplayer, xteam etc.
This way you wont have to reinstall in case you mess up. just overwrite your corrupted .viv files with your backup.


customart is waaay to slow for me. my pC's fast but i takes 15 minutes to load a game.

[rkont]

I had very slow loading too (4-5min) when i had custom arts enabled, and when i had WinXP. Then one day i made format: c and installed Win 98. Now my game loads 10-15secs. Main thing that slowed it down was Win XP with 128MB of RAM in my PC.

[Guakao]

I no longer use customart because of its tendency to make my game lag at high frame rates and when all the players crowd together. So I've decided to just manipulate the big .viv files. I've managed to change cyberfaces and various add-ons, however I can't get the shoe files and headbands to work for specific players. Apparently, I don't know what '.fsh name' to use for the file to work. I tried everything from bsho to sh_home, even "playername"_acc, the game just can't read it. Same for headbands. What the game can read are bskn in "playername".acc files(like tatoos and elbowpads). So does anybody know how to give specific players shoes through adding it onto the xplayer.viv file. I know by simply just editing the shoe files from xplrcmn.viv will do the trick, but that is something I don't want to do as it changes some of the shoes of all players in certain teams.

[Nick]

I've been imprting into .viv files this whole time.

No, you can't use custom shoes whatsoever with customart off.

[Colin]

No, you can't use custom shoes whatsoever with customart off.

Well you can, but only as the default 1-51 shoes.

[Nick]

No, you can't use custom shoes whatsoever with customart off.

Well you can, but only as the default 1-51 shoes.

Well, they aren't custom shoes are they.

[Colin]

No, you can't use custom shoes whatsoever with customart off.

Well you can, but only as the default 1-51 shoes.

Well, they aren't custom shoes are they.

I mean importing other custom shoes into the default shoes in x----.viv so they'd only be the ones you use in the create a player screen for example.

[Nick]

I stand corrected.

Hmm, never thought of that... if i hadn't fixed my customart problem by now then i'd do that.