We need to solve the SLOW LOADING issue w/ customart 1

by **Celtic Tribesman** on Tue Dec 17, 2002 11:48 pm

This issue can and will be solved, it's just a matter of how fast we can solve it.

Facts:

The slow loading has nothing to do with what cyberfaces or other graphics files you have added. I know this because I took all the custom files out but kept customart 1, and still found just as slow loading times.

Not everyone has slow loading times with customart 1 on. Some people say the loading speeds have not changed, some people say at one time they were slow but they did something that made it work right, but they aren't sure exatly what they did.

The slow loading times with customart 1 have NOTHING to do with the speed of your computer! I have heard people complaing about the loading times with a nearly 3ghz machine fully loaded and have heard many people say the speeds have not changed with their 1ghz or lower end system.

Ok, so now that we can get over the theories above, maybe we can get down to business and figure this out. Sorry that I can't go any further than this but I just wanted to rule out all the above stuff, considering everyone was claiming something different.[/list]

by **poorch** on Wed Dec 18, 2002 7:29 am

about a week ago i updated my drivers for my gfx card (atiradeon8500)
an now with customart on it loads like it was off, nice and fast

my theory: even tho it might not hav anything to do with ur pc speed,
it jus might be ur gfx card thats making the long load times
with custom art on instead...

by **Nick** on Wed Dec 18, 2002 1:09 pm

I have the lastest driver for my video card (GF 2 MX/400 65mb) but i still get waaay long loading times...So that acn't be it.

I really hope somebody figures out a way to solve this...it's almost impossible to run a franchise with customart set to 1. Unless you fix yourself a meal between game startups and exits.

by **nmje2k1** on Wed Dec 18, 2002 8:12 pm

you'd be one fat bastard by the end of the season

by em on Thu Dec 19, 2002 1:57 am

nmje2k1 wrote:you'd be one fat bastard by the end of the season

LOL

by **bchogan** on Thu Dec 19, 2002 4:42 am

Try defragmenting your hard drive. Thant's my guess as to why some people have longer load times.

by **Celtic Tribesman** on Thu Dec 19, 2002 11:29 am

Remember, the only thing that is being changed here is customart 0 to customart 1. And changing that 0 to a 1 completely changes the load times. Even if you add no new files, for some reason when you change that number, something makes it load a lot slower.

by **LegoSHAQ** on Thu Dec 19, 2002 11:57 am

As soon as you set the custom art value to 1 you WILL have slower load times. EA Sports told us this and it IS documented in the customisation tutorial. Its just a fact that if you have custom graphics switched on that the game will run slower because it has to check outside the VIV files for any additional graphics.... I think what EA Sports were trying to do with this custom art stuff was a good idea but is poorly implemented... I mean this is just an assumption because I don't know the full details of in the background why the load times increase so much... The ONLY solution is to not set the custom art setting to 1. Which means you have to install any patch you want into the VIV file for patches to work... hopefully this will be easy and relatively error free with Don Dailey's new EAZIP tool... I personally use EAGRAPH to install any patch I have into the appropriate VIV file... and I have had no problems so far... So I get fast load times and patches .. ... If updating VIV files is too technical for you or causes your game to crash.. the only way you can play with patches is to have the custom art setting to 1 and have slow load times.... too bad... Hopefully EA will work on improving these load times with Live 2004...

by **joemimic** on Thu Dec 19, 2002 1:09 pm

I've got custom art enabled and i've never had a problem with loading times, i got 320 megs of ram and a Ati Radeon 7000 64MB. Weird thing though i downloaded the newest drivers for it and then XP said I didnt have any 3D devices so I just rolled my drivers back.

by **Nick** on Fri Dec 20, 2002 9:39 pm

you have to install any patch you want into the VIV file for patches to work...

Hmm...then you can't cyberface patch for created players...

If some people get slow loads and some people don't...then there HAS to be some sort of setting or something that is the difference...I hope we can find (if any) the way.

(No need to sigh...that's what i meant by "solving the problem" :roll:

)

by **neo_177** on Fri Dec 20, 2002 11:01 pm

I have to nearly wait 10 min to enter a game with customart set to 1. That's unplayable. Even for the player animations in the main menu i have to wait several seconds. Annoying

XP 2000, 512 MB RAM, GeForce 4 Ti 4200 with Detonator 40.72, Win98

YouTube · by **Andrew** on Sat Dec 21, 2002 12:45 pm

I've started a related Sticky thread on this in General Issues: http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~nbalive/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2186.

by **Diz** on Sun Dec 22, 2002 7:54 am

It would be helpful if you guys would post your pc specs.

by **benji** on Sun Dec 22, 2002 8:17 am

I think David clearly hit the nail on the head here.

Hmm...then you can't cyberface patch for created players...

You can't? Why not?

The slow loading times with customart 1 have NOTHING to do with the speed of your computer! I have heard people complaing about the loading times with a nearly 3ghz machine fully loaded and have heard many people say the speeds have not changed with their 1ghz or lower end system.

Wrong! It has everything to do with the speed of your COMPUTER. Not necessarily your CPU (since it's only doing the text search on the file names), but your Hard Drives, your bus speeds, graphic cards memory speed, etc.

Rather than going straight to the BIG file every time it now has to do the search, then once it finds it send it to your graphic card and then do the next graphic. Rather than just loading them all from the BIG which it knows where it is and thus doesn't have to search. And since that's already in memory it doesn't have to load it every single time like it does after it searches and comes up empty.

At least that's what it appears to be doing. Back in 99/2000 with the update folder there was a slight delay as well, though not as noticible as now, I can only theorize that that less loading times was due to less complexity of the graphic files and the fact that everything was in one folder making it easier to just go there rather than have to search.

by **Nick** on Sun Dec 22, 2002 2:45 pm

I got fast loading times on customart 1 one day and then the next time i ran the game it was slow again...i'm not sure what i did though...Does that mean my computer had better specs that day? No. That's why i'm stressing the subject because i belive it could be fixed...
Well now i'm not so sure but anyway.
Ben, is that the info EA told you?

We need to solve the SLOW LOADING issue w/ customart 1

Have the loading times changed for you since setting customart 1?

We need to solve the SLOW LOADING issue w/ customart 1

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