Long load times for maps

[Zola.6197]

I’ve been having this problem for a while where I’ll be stuck on the loading screen for 2+ minutes when going to a new map, and often times I experience the same thing just hopping to a new waypoint in the map I’m currently on.

Last night I waited several minutes to enter drizzlewood, but once I was in nothing but the ground was loaded. I had to wait 5 minutes for buildings, NPCs, trees, plants, etc to spawn.

Is this solely an internet connection issue? Mine is not the best, but it typically loads maps quickly enough in other mmos or online content.

Or is it something like my processor is getting too old to handle GW2? It’s just been really bad the past few months... Any suggestions would be helpful.

[Ashantara.8731]

@"Svennis.3852" said:I’ve been having this problem for a while where I’ll be stuck on the loading screen for 2+ minutes when going to a new map, and often times I experience the same thing just hopping to a new waypoint in the map I’m currently on

It has been a severe issue for a long time. Had it too when I used a HDD, and even my SSD that usually takes only 1-2 seconds to load a map can take up to 3 times that long sometimes. So it's definitely a server sided issue, probably when it's highly populated.

[Zola.6197]

@Ashantara.8731 said:It has been a severe issue for a long time. Had it too when I used a HDD, and even my SSD that usually takes only 1-2 seconds to load a map can take up to 3 times that long sometimes. So it's definitely a server sided issue, probably when it's highly populated.

Good to know it’s not just me, then. Too bad because sometimes by the time the map has loaded I’ve lost interest in playing lol.

[Ashantara.8731]

@"Svennis.3852" said:Good to know it’s not just me, then. Too bad because sometimes by the time the map has loaded I’ve lost interest in playing lol.

It's really weird when it happens, and it happens a lot since the EU servers are having problems. Oh well... let's pray they find a way to fix the server latency soon.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Another thing to look at: your 'Streaming' Option; make sure it is set to 'Max' so it will download areas before you get to them.

[Ayrilana.1396]

I believe one solution was to delete the local.dat file so the game would create a new one as it can become bloated over time.

If you use a shortcut with the maploadinfo command line argument, try a shortcut without it to see if that helps.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

Something sounds wrong, that's not server side issues, the fact you loaded in and no objects were loaded and had to "pop" in over a 5min time frame suggests something else, as all of those assets are stored on your local PC, not the server. When a loading screen that takes a while happens, or when you load into a map with nothing but the ground, is the hard drive seeing I/O use? Keep a resource monitor window open and set to HDD so you can keep track. If the HDD is not under load when you load into a map, there is an issue somewhere that's hanging or bottle necking the fetching of objects into RAM. If it is loading the HDD, make sure what program is making use of that I/O, is it GW or something else in the back ground? Such as a AV program etc etc?

While loading times have gotten longer, I am talking maybe 3-4 seconds, as I am on a SSD and normal loading is often under 5 second to swap maps, even when getting disconnected from the server it will still load in fast and then show a popup that it disconnected.

The suggestion above on deleting the dat file is a good start, these do seem to have an issue with getting pretty big and at some point causing errors.

What are your system specs? Is this an issue with other programs or games?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Be careful not to delete the GW2.dat file, as would necessitate re-downloading the entire game.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Another thing to look at: your 'Streaming' Option; make sure it is set to 'Max' so it will download areas before you get to them.

Well, that would make map load even longer. Yes, the textures should be there right away, but the load times wouldn't decrease with that option.

@"TinkTinkPOOF.9201" said:Something sounds wrong, that's not server side issues

How do you know? As I said before, the load times vary on my brandnew SSD as well (normally 1-2 secs, but sometimes 3 times that long). I had that same issue back when I was using older hardware and a HDD (normal load time: 13 secs; when the issue occured: up to 120 secs at worst, but mostly ~60 secs). It occurs as randomly as the latency on PoF and other maps on EU servers.

Yes, I no longer have texture loading issues, they are normally all there immediately, but sometimes it still takes a few split seconds longer, and that usually occurs along with the "longer" load times of up to 6 secs.

I am quite certain it is a server sided issue, since my whole system is new and freshly set up.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't know how that would make map downloads even longer; OP stated new maps, new Waypoints. If that is the actual case, and 'Streaming' is set to 'On Demand', the loading screen will be up much longer/map assets take longer to load than when using 'Max' (which downloads everything at the patch).

[Ashantara.8731]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I don't know how that would make map downloads even longer

It's a preload option, basically, hence loading times take longer. Unless you don't ever clear your GW2 cache, but even then there is information that changes at every map load (player numbers and positions, etc). You can use the -maploadinfo argument to see what gets loaded when and how long it takes.

P.S. I don't know about other players, but by the end of the day, before I shut down my system, I always clear my GW2 cache. That means everything needs to get preloaded anew the next day.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Another thing to look at: your 'Streaming' Option; make sure it is set to 'Max' so it will download areas before you get to them.

Well, that would make map load even longer. Yes, the textures should be there right away, but the load times wouldn't decrease with that option.

@"TinkTinkPOOF.9201" said:Something sounds wrong, that's not server side issues

How do you know? As I said before, the load times vary on my brandnew SSD as well (normally 1-2 secs, but

sometimes

3 times that long). I had that same issue back when I was using older hardware and a HDD (normal load time: 13 secs; when the issue occured: up to 120 secs at worst, but mostly ~60 secs). It occurs as randomly as the latency on PoF and other maps on EU servers.

Yes, I no longer have texture loading issues, they are normally all there immediately, but sometimes it still takes a few split seconds longer, and that usually occurs along with the "longer" load times of up to 6 secs.

I am quite certain it is a server sided issue, since my whole system is new and freshly set up.

Because those textures and objects are not on the server and have nothing to do with the server, they are all local assets stored on the local client. Even with a disconnected client it can and will still load the map and assets if still inside of the timeout window. Players etc might not load, as that data does come from the game servers, however the map and standard assets will indeed load. It's very common for people to toss up "it's the servers", when no troubleshooting or testing has been done, as I laid out in my post. As to brush it off as server related does not fix anything, and you might as well give up, as we have zero control over that infrastructure. Even lag related issues should be looked at on the client side first, even though we know the game suffers from server side lag, that does not mean it is always the case.

[Ashantara.8731]

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:Because those textures and objects are not on the server and have nothing to do with the server

The information on what textures and objects are present and where they are located is information that is being sent from the server, though, isn't it?

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:Because those textures and objects are not on the server and have nothing to do with the server

The

information

on what textures and objects are present and where they are located is information that is being sent from the server, though, isn't it?

No. Maps, mesh, textures, structures etc etc all have default locations that do not change, and these are all stored and loaded from the HDD on your local client, only players do. If all of this was streamed from the server, it would require massive internet bandwidth to play/load the game. Also, if it's not getting information from the server for 5+ mins as the OP stated, that is WELL past timeout duration, which is about 15-20 seconds.

[Ashantara.8731]

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:No. Maps, mesh, textures, structures etc etc all have default locations that do not change, and these are all stored and loaded from the HDD on your local client, only players do. If all of this was streamed from the server, it would require massive internet bandwidth to play/load the game. Also, if it's not getting information from the server for 5+ mins as the OP stated, that is WELL past timeout duration, which is about 15-20 seconds.

Okay, I wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing things up.

Well, in that case I do wonder why load times vary greatly even on different systems.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:No. Maps, mesh, textures, structures etc etc all have default locations that do not change, and these are all stored and loaded from the HDD on your local client, only players do. If all of this was streamed from the server, it would require massive internet bandwidth to play/load the game. Also, if it's not getting information from the server for 5+ mins as the OP stated, that is WELL past timeout duration, which is about 15-20 seconds.

Okay, I wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing things up.

Well, in that case I do wonder why load times vary greatly even on different systems.

Every drive has different read/write performance, local corruption, .dat file getting out of control, other software consuming I/O, or loading the CPU, Some AV are very aggressive and will try and scan every file the game is trying to read, which can cause load times to go through the roof. Local HW issues, driver problems, OS corruption, bad sectors on the HDD, etc etc, the list is pretty long on what can be the cause.

Best thing to do is start with the easy stuff and some monitoring to make sure the local client (PC) is in good shape and not the cause of the issue. Not GW related, but had a friend who was having long loading issues in his favorite game, turned out to be a USB hub he had been using for years, didn't impact other games, and he only found out at random when he started loading in and unplugged it for some reason and the game loaded in almost instantly. We still don't know WHY it was the problem and we had some guesses, but the problem was fixed and we didn't care enough to find out why.

[Ashantara.8731]

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:Every drive has different read/write performance, local corruption, .dat file getting out of control, other software consuming I/O, or loading the CPU, Some AV are very aggressive and will try and scan every file the game is trying to read, which can cause load times to go through the roof. Local HW issues, driver problems, OS corruption, bad sectors on the HDD, etc etc, the list is pretty long on what can be the cause.

I should add that the software used is equal on both systems, but none of the programs are running in the background except for the AV, firewall, mouse and keyboard software. The HDD on the old system was older but healthy, and the SSD on the new system is brand new, and the new system is only three weeks old (Windows and all drivers were freshly installed, a SFC scan shows no currupt system files or drivers, either, I'm not having any issues with the system whatsoever). GW2 is in the list of exceptions for the AV. The old system was healthy until the motherboard died (hence the new mainboard, CPU and RAM), and the new system is 100% healthy as well. Still, load times sometimes sike up to 6 seconds instean of 1-2 (or 60-90, sometimes even 120 secs, on my old system with the HDD instead of the usual 13 secs).

So I think that none of the things you've listed can be responsible for this similar occurance on the two different systems. The only hardware components that did not get replaced are the graphics card and the PSU, but I ran several tests and they seem to be at full health, too (I even had a pro check the PSU with electrical measurement equipment when the mainboard died to verify it was the mainboard that was faulty and not the PSU).

There is nothing that explains the completely random occurance of longer load times on EU servers. (I take it you are on US?)

Anyway, with a SSD it doesn't really matter, but my point is: if other people are having this issue as well (and I know of many whom I have talked to on TS, for instance) when loading GW2 maps on the EU servers, I still feel like there might be something server-sided that triggers it.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:Every drive has different read/write performance, local corruption, .dat file getting out of control, other software consuming I/O, or loading the CPU, Some AV are very aggressive and will try and scan every file the game is trying to read, which can cause load times to go through the roof. Local HW issues, driver problems, OS corruption, bad sectors on the HDD, etc etc, the list is pretty long on what can be the cause.

I should add that the software used is equal on both systems, but none of the programs are running in the background except for the AV, firewall, mouse and keyboard software. The HDD on the old system was older but healthy, and the SSD on the new system is brand new, and the new system is only three weeks old (Windows and all drivers were freshly installed, a SFC scan shows no currupt system files or drivers, either, I'm not having any issues with the system whatsoever). GW2 is in the list of exceptions for the AV. The old system was healthy until the motherboard died (hence the new mainboard, CPU and RAM), and the new system is 100% healthy as well. Still, load times sometimes sike up to 6 seconds instean of 1-2 (or 60-90, sometimes even 120 secs, on my old system with the HDD instead of the usual 13 secs).

So I think that none of the things you've listed can be responsible for this similar occurance on the two different systems. The only hardware components that did not get replaced are the graphics card and the PSU, but I ran several tests and they seem to be at full health, too (I even had a pro check the PSU with electrical measurement equipment when the mainboard died to verify it was the mainboard that was faulty and not the PSU).

There is nothing that explains the completely random occurance of longer load times on EU servers. (I take it you are on US?)

Anyway, with a SSD it doesn't really matter, but my point is: if other people are having this issue as well (and I know of many whom I have talked to on TS, for instance) when loading GW2 maps on the EU servers, I still feel like there might be something server-sided that triggers it.

Trying to guess at what might be the cause on slow loading in an old system that doesn't exist anymore that had a failing motherboard, well, isn't going to get you anywhere other than guessing.

6 seconds vs 2 for an SSD is normal and probably due to another process or bottleneck/hang on loading textures etc into VRAM, as variation in such short load times is going to be large and will depend on if the data is still stored in the SSDs RAM cache or if it's fetching from the onboard NAND, or if it's still prefetched in even the system RAM.

[KrHome.1920]

@"Svennis.3852" said:loading screen for 2+ minutes when going to a new mapThe loading times are mainly affected by the map population, storage hardware and your CPU (which decompresses the loaded data). The more populated a place is, the higher are the loading times. If you use an HDD, then defragmentation can also increase loading times significantly.

Example: Starting from character screen even with an SSD, loading a character, that is placed at the mystic forge in lion's arch takes very long: 30 to 40 seconds for me as an SSD user with a fast CPU. Loading from character screen into the (usually very low populated) cursed shore takes about 10 to 15 seconds. Changing waypoints on the same map takes something between 1 and 5 seconds.

2+ minutes of loading times are possible in crowded areas, when you installed the game on a slow HDD, like a 5400rpm one in most older laptops or an external USB3 case.

[Zola.6197]

I'm not sure if this is meaningful or helpful for any of you savvy folks, but this is my build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tH287T

The game is installed on the HDD, though I recently bought a secondary one that may (perhaps) do a better job of running the game if reinstalled there? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H2RR55Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o08_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

In the end, I think I may just need to update my CPU. I built this PC about 6 years ago (thought graphics card is newer), so maybe it is just getting old to handle GW2.

I got lost in the back and forth of the thread though, so not sure if there's a good strategy to alleviate this problem in the meantime.

[Ashantara.8731]

@"Svennis.3852" said:I'm not sure if this is meaningful or helpful for any of you savvy folks, but this is my build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tH287T

The game is installed on the HDD, though I recently bought a secondary one that may (perhaps) do a better job of running the game if reinstalled there? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H2RR55Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o08_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

In the end, I think I may just need to update my CPU. I built this PC about 6 years ago (thought graphics card is newer), so maybe it is just getting old to handle GW2.

I got lost in the back and forth of the thread though, so not sure if there's a good strategy to alleviate this problem in the meantime.

1. I cannot in good conscience recommend Seagate drives - I had two failing me in the past (the last one in 2011). Western Digital, for instance, is 100% reliable.
2. I wouldn't buy from Amazon after their terrible policy of paying and treating employees (including the lack of COVID-19 protection measures), while dodging taxes worldwide, has been revealed. But that's up to you.
3. You would fair better with a SSD. Load times of maps vary between 1 and 6 seconds, and textures immediately pop up.
4. Your system could use more RAM.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Not all, if any, maps load between 1 and 6 seconds on an SSD.Just so you know, should you install one, and find longer load times, and think something else is wrong.

[Zola.6197]

Yeah, after consulting reddit it seems my PC build is pretty old at this point. Upgrading anything requires changing out several parts, so I have some research to do.

[KrHome.1920]

Please don't buy HDDs anymore if you don't need the disk space. Buy a 250 GB SSD (a good one from samsung, not some sandisk crap to save a few cents!) instead for the same price (better: 500 GB for 20 more dollars/euros) and install your OS and games on it. I guess you have no idea how much of a positive impact an SSD has on your PC performance in terms of latency an loading times.

Besides that: there is nothing wrong with seagate. Ignore that post of Ashantara. He had 2 failed Seagate drives, I had none in 20 years. Statistically we are both completely irrelevant. In general: if you buy a HDD, then it is most likely to fail within the first 3 months (so don't be lazy with backups in the first few months) or it will last for more than 10 years. In between very few HDDs will fail.

And a ram upgrade is also irrelevant for GW2. 8 GiB is fine for that specific game if your PC is not messy as hell. Anyway you can check that in the task manager before (!) you buy more ram for no reason.

Your PC:1) Defrag your HDD just to be sure this does not cause your problems.2) If it does not help: buy an SSD.3) If you have the money: upgrade your PC, which means CPU (ryzen 3600) + board (some cheap B550 board) + 16GB DDR4 3200 CL16 ram. This will cost you about 300 dollars/euros and would fit well to your GTX 1060 and leave some performance headroom for a later GPU upgrade. Currently your graphics card is too good for the rest of your system. Your current CPU would even be too slow for a GTX 1050 in some games.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Not all, if any, maps load between 1 and 6 seconds on an SSD.

They do on my system. How long does it take on yours then? If it takes more than 10 seconds, then you clearly have a slower system than mine, which is fine, but doesn't mean it's impossible to have faster load times. ;)

@"Svennis.3852" said:Upgrading anything requires changing out several parts

Not the RAM, though, if you are considering adding more.

@KrHome.1920 said:Besides that: there is nothing wrong with seagate. Ignore that post of Ashantara. He had 2 failed Seagate drives, I had none in 20 years.

1. I am female.
2. There even was a running gag in German for many years that goes: "Sea gate, sea gate nicht." - A play upon words, as in "Sie geht, sie geht nicht", which translates into, "It (i.e., a HDD from Seagate) works, it doesn't work", meaning that you couldn't be sure whether you got lucky and bought one that actually worked properly without issues, for the chances were 50/50. So just because you got lucky doesn't make my claim less true.

@KrHome.1920 said:Please don't buy HDDs anymore if you don't need the disk space. Buy a 250 GB SSD (a good one from samsung, not some sandisk kitten to save a few cents!) instead

I, too, can highly recommend Samsung SSDs. However, having a HDD in addition isn't a bad thing for backup purposes or for installing stuff on it that doesn't require constant loading/writing, thus super fast speed, as games (especially online games) do.