Load Times: Blu-Ray vs. DVD

[Ze_ro]

Here's an article that has some interesting speculation on the load times of the PS3 in comparison to the Xbox 360. Despite the author being a Microsoft employee, he makes a good arguement. The basics are summed up in this bit:

Blu-Ray movies require a 1.5x Blu-Ray drive, or 54Mbits/second. Sony announced that PS3 uses a 2x BD drive, which is 72Mbits/second or 9MB/second. The Xbox360 uses a 12x DVD, which should give it about 16MB/second. That is significantly faster for games and will result in shorter load times. And that 12x DVD drive should be a whole lot cheaper. (Note that the PS3 drive will do 8x DVD, and even that is faster than 2x BD.)

Admittedly, there is some simplification going on here... ie, due to the wonders of CLV, a 12x drive is not always 12x, and one of the replies claims that the 360's drive has to slow down to 8x for dual-layer discs anyways, and it's still unknown whether there will be DVD-based PS3 games like there were CD-based PS2 games, but still...

 

Rumor has it that "Resistance: Fall of Man" (which looks damn sweet by the way) is 22GB in size (and it's not even finished yet!). I'm all in favor of bigger discs, but how long is it going to take to load a level here? The load times on the 360 are pretty bad as it is...

 

Although the article makes no mention of it, I'm curious to see how the Wii will compare. I can't seem to find any information on the speed of the drive Nintendo plans to use, although in the past Nintendo has made it a priority to reduce or eliminate load times, so I would assume that would carry over into the Wii as well.

 

(Somewhat off-topic, but I find it strange that Blu-Ray movies require a 1.5x drive... I would have thought that if video (the main use of Blu-Ray) required 54Mbits/s, then they would define THAT as 1x for BD instead of using some other seemingly random number, but oh well.)

 

--Zero

[sigma]

I thought that long load times come from loading all the content into memory and then playing (and with the speed and size, that's going to be FOREVER~, and that games that will actually stream the content will reduce load times into nothing?

[Atarinvader]

 

(Somewhat off-topic, but I find it strange that Blu-Ray movies require a 1.5x drive... I would have thought that if video (the main use of Blu-Ray) required 54Mbits/s, then they would define THAT as 1x for BD instead of using some other seemingly random number, but oh well.)

 

That would account for a buffer in the case of skippings discs.

 

I'm always skeptical about these sorts of things, the numbers are never as straight forward as they make out and I'm sure that games will be based around suitable loading times. I've not been keeping up with the industry of late, but isn't the sentiment that the PS3 is dead in the water and it is expected Sony will lose a huge market shares this gen?

[AtariJr]

So when they say longer do they mean 5 seconds longer or 30-40 seconds longer?

[n8littlefield]

I think it should be brought up, however, that given the PS3 has a harddrive as a standard, that loadtimes will likely be limited to first time startup - much like the Xbox reduced loadtimes.

[jbanes]

games that will actually stream the content will reduce load times into nothing?

Streaming from optical discs always sounds better in theory than it actually is in practice. In theory, you can load the data as you need it, taking a "Just In Time" tack toward loading. In reality, the game rarely knows what content it's going to need five seconds from now. Because it doesn't know that information, it is forced to pay for a seek (between 100-200 milliseconds) PLUS the load from disc. Combined, this can chew through half a second to a second of time. Which means that the content will only be available once it's too late.

 

Hard disk drives work much better by using paging methods to manage memory. At the beginning of the program, the entire dataset is mapped into main memory. Only what will fit is actually loaded, but the operating system juggles 4K chunks depending upon what was accessed most often and/or most recently. Since hard drive seek times are measured in tens of milliseconds, it's possible to load chunks into memory on demand without causing any major hiccups in gameplay.

 

So when they say longer do they mean 5 seconds longer or 30-40 seconds longer?

Realistically? Probably 5 seconds longer. Everyone always computes with burst read speeds, but drives spend a large portion of their time jumping around a disc. Packing a dataset into a contiguous region can help a lot, but the drive will often still need to wait as the data is decoded into memory. Considering that the PS3 has extra DSP pipelines to spare, it could probably load highly compressed data a lot faster than the 360. (All of which is speculation, and is likely to have little impact on the real world.)

 

Back in the real world, you're going to wait on your 360 to load, and you're going to wait on your PS3 to load. You're even going to wait on your Wii, though given the lack of HD, hopefully not as much.

[AtariJr]

If the Wii will also have load times, what makes many GC games have the ability not to have to load even with its optical format?

[jbanes]

If the Wii will also have load times, what makes many GC games have the ability not to have to load even with its optical format?

I just spent a minute and a half over at Walmart the other day, waiting for Super Mario Strikers to load. (My wife was shopping, so I was keeping the kids entertained.) The GameCube has load times, and plenty of them.

 

The key is that Nintendo has spent a great deal of time and money in trying to hide the load times in the GameCube. This is due to their history with the N64 having no load times vs. the PlayStation which took ages. Sony and Microsoft never promised fast load times, so they've never tried to optimize them to the same degree that Nintendo has. And in any case, Sony and Microsoft have always focused on more graphics-intensive realism rather than Nintendo's more cartoony (but comparitively texture-light and model-light) look.

 

I imagine the GameCube is also doing all kinds of background-loading to hide the loads behind title screens and in-game. These are rather tricky stunts to pull off successfully, and are only worth the effort if you REALLY want that load time to drop.

[AtariJr]

If the Wii will also have load times, what makes many GC games have the ability not to have to load even with its optical format?

I just spent a minute and a half over at Walmart the other day, waiting for Super Mario Strikers to load. (My wife was shopping, so I was keeping the kids entertained.) The GameCube has load times, and plenty of them.

 

The key is that Nintendo has spent a great deal of time and money in trying to hide the load times in the GameCube. This is due to their history with the N64 having no load times vs. the PlayStation which took ages. Sony and Microsoft never promised fast load times, so they've never tried to optimize them to the same degree that Nintendo has. And in any case, Sony and Microsoft have always focused on more graphics-intensive realism rather than Nintendo's more cartoony (but comparitively texture-light and model-light) look.

 

I imagine the GameCube is also doing all kinds of background-loading to hide the loads behind title screens and in-game. These are rather tricky stunts to pull off successfully, and are only worth the effort if you REALLY want that load time to drop.

 

I said that many load times are gone, not all... so please dont think that i've never encountered a load bar on a gamecube game. However, there are many graphical intense games out there for the gamecube that have no load times (that are visible to the gamer of course).

[Hyper_Eye]

Metroid Prime is a great example of how they hide load times. When you go from one area to another it displays a scene on an elevator. You can't skip the scene but it is always seemless from one area to the next. I am pretty sure the area is being loaded during that scene.

[AtariJr]

Yea or like the long corridors connecting rooms to each other.

 

In that case though couldnt the ps2 and xbox, and for that matter 360, Wii, and ps3 have "no" load times? If its just a bunch of fog and mirror tricks to make you think its not there wouldnt you think every hardware company and software company would try to stear away from the traditional load screen as well?

[Ze_ro]

Metroid Prime is a great example of how they hide load times. When you go from one area to another it displays a scene on an elevator. You can't skip the scene but it is always seemless from one area to the next. I am pretty sure the area is being loaded during that scene.

A less obvious load is managed by inserting small hallways between large rooms. At many points in the game, you'll open a door and enter a relatively simple tunnel with another door at the end. If you rush down the tunnel and shoot the door, it won't open right away because the game is still loading what's behind it. If you enter one of these tunnels, and then change your mind and turn around and shoot the door you just came through, the delay is even longer because the game has to stop loading the other room and re-load the one it just dumped from memory. Smart programmers have found clever ways to hide stuff like this, but it's impossible to predict everything.

 

Meanwhile, I play Burnout Revenge on the 360, and the damn game has to reload the whole level if I choose to restart. What the hell?

 

--Zero

[AtariJr]

Metroid Prime is a great example of how they hide load times. When you go from one area to another it displays a scene on an elevator. You can't skip the scene but it is always seemless from one area to the next. I am pretty sure the area is being loaded during that scene.

A less obvious load is managed by inserting small hallways between large rooms. At many points in the game, you'll open a door and enter a relatively simple tunnel with another door at the end. If you rush down the tunnel and shoot the door, it won't open right away because the game is still loading what's behind it. If you enter one of these tunnels, and then change your mind and turn around and shoot the door you just came through, the delay is even longer because the game has to stop loading the other room and re-load the one it just dumped from memory. Smart programmers have found clever ways to hide stuff like this, but it's impossible to predict everything.

 

Meanwhile, I play Burnout Revenge on the 360, and the damn game has to reload the whole level if I choose to restart. What the hell?

 

--Zero

 

I have noticed that... like in Battlefront on xbox has to reload a level if you want to replay it or restart it, while other games dont have to do that. Is that just a result in bad programming or what?

[AtariJr]

If the Wii will also have load times, what makes many GC games have the ability not to have to load even with its optical format?

I just spent a minute and a half over at Walmart the other day, waiting for Super Mario Strikers to load. (My wife was shopping, so I was keeping the kids entertained.) The GameCube has load times, and plenty of them.

 

The key is that Nintendo has spent a great deal of time and money in trying to hide the load times in the GameCube. This is due to their history with the N64 having no load times vs. the PlayStation which took ages. Sony and Microsoft never promised fast load times, so they've never tried to optimize them to the same degree that Nintendo has. And in any case, Sony and Microsoft have always focused on more graphics-intensive realism rather than Nintendo's more cartoony (but comparitively texture-light and model-light) look.

 

I imagine the GameCube is also doing all kinds of background-loading to hide the loads behind title screens and in-game. These are rather tricky stunts to pull off successfully, and are only worth the effort if you REALLY want that load time to drop.

That was an interesting read btw on your second link... i liked especially how they showed Kameo as a Gamecube game.

[jbanes]

I have noticed that... like in Battlefront on xbox has to reload a level if you want to replay it or restart it, while other games dont have to do that. Is that just a result in bad programming or what?

I wouldn't say it's "bad programming". More like laziness. (For lack of a better term.) It's just plain difficult to design a game that loads on the fly. It has to go into the planning stage, or it won't be feasible. It's ALWAYS easier to simply reload the data files. While the data can usually be reset to prevent reloading, again it's far easier to simply do a reload. With a million and one other tasks on their plate, programmers won't pay any attention to optimizing the load unless someone makes it a high priority.

 

(Keep in mind that game programmers often work an ungodly number of hours in order to "crunch" for the deadline. 80 hours a week for months on end is not uncommon.)

 

That was an interesting read btw on your second link... i liked especially how they showed Kameo as a Gamecube game.

You're welcome.

[shadow460]

A little off topic, but the one disc based system I've used that hides load times sorta well is the Saturn. You know when it's loading, sure, but your character is busy with something else.

It doesn't just come up with the "Loading" screen out of the blue.

[King_Salamon]

I thought cart based systems wouldn't have loading screens but I found one on the Nintendo DS, Star Wars Ep III. I enjoyed the game but noticed a loading screen when going to the flight levels.

 

Just an observation.

[JB]

Metroid Prime is a great example of how they hide load times. When you go from one area to another it displays a scene on an elevator. You can't skip the scene but it is always seemless from one area to the next. I am pretty sure the area is being loaded during that scene.

Part of the elevator sequence IS skippable, actually.The takeoff and landing are required viewing, but the transit sequence can be skipped.

You can still hear the drive getting hammered, though.

 

 

I thought cart based systems wouldn't have loading screens but I found one on the Nintendo DS, Star Wars Ep III. I enjoyed the game but noticed a loading screen when going to the flight levels.

 

Just an observation.

Yah. There's a few ROM games with load times. It's not common*, but it DOES exist.

*Or it is, but it's short enough that they can hide it.

[AtariJr]

Aren't there still loading in the hallways of Metroid Prime Hunters for DS cause sometimes when you shoot a door to go into the next room it doesnt open for a while like the GC prime series. Also, it still has to "load" the data.. so its not like cart games dont have loading, its just faster than an optical format right?

[jbanes]

Also, it still has to "load" the data.. so its not like cart games dont have loading, its just faster than an optical format right?

There is no loading with cart games. With systems that rely on carts, the ROM part of the hardware is missing. That hardware is contained inside the cartridge. Just plug it in, and the hardware is complete. Ergo, no loading.

 

However, a memory card like the one used by the DS is NOT a cartridge. Memory cards are media storage devices that can occasionally act like ROM, but are often too slow to be mapped directly into memory. Which means that data often needs to be relocated from the memory card into speedy RAM. Thus the load times.

Edited September 6, 2006 by jbanes

[JB]

Also, it still has to "load" the data.. so its not like cart games dont have loading, its just faster than an optical format right?

There is no loading with cart games. With systems that rely on carts, the ROM part of the hardware is missing. That hardware is contained inside the cartridge. Just plug it in, and the hardware is complete. Ergo, no loading.

ROM and RAM have maximum transfer rates. They aren't truly instant access, and there ARE load times(especially if you're using bankswitching). They're just very small and don't require a load screen to remind you that the game isn't busted.

 

The main cause of cartridge load time will be compression, though.

Compressed data can't be used as-is, and has to be decompressed into RAM, generating a signifigant delay as the hardware does the decompression. And compression became a common practice once systems were beefy enough to decompress data and stick it in RAM, because ROM was a rather expensive media and reducing the amount of data was always better than more or larger ROMs.

The fact that some companies(Say, Nintendo) controlled the production and restricted what ROM sizes a given developer had access to also fueled the issue.

 

 

However, a memory card like the one used by the DS is NOT a cartridge. Memory cards are media storage devices that can occasionally act like ROM, but are often too slow to be mapped directly into memory. Which means that data often needs to be relocated from the memory card into speedy RAM. Thus the load times.

Actually, you're assuming that form factor and storage format are related.

There's no reason whatsoever a DS card has to use flash RAM, just like the TurboGrafX cards didn't.

Your logic says that since a Channel F game LOOKS like an 8-track cassette, it has to use a magnetic tape to store data.

 

 

I'm admittedly not aware of the actual construction of a DS card, but ROM is far more likely for the non-writable portion.

The most likely cause of DS load times is heavy data compression.

[jbanes]

ROM and RAM have maximum transfer rates. They aren't truly instant access, and there ARE load times(especially if you're using bankswitching). They're just very small and don't require a load screen to remind you that the game isn't busted.

That's true of all most hardware, including built-in RAM. That's not a "load time", it's just the system operation. "Load times" are caused when you need to move large amounts of data from permanent storage to active memory.

 

The main cause of cartridge load time will be compression, though.

Compressed data can't be used as-is, and has to be decompressed into RAM, generating a signifigant delay as the hardware does the decompression. And compression became a common practice once systems were beefy enough to decompress data and stick it in RAM, because ROM was a rather expensive media and reducing the amount of data was always better than more or larger ROMs.

The fact that some companies(Say, Nintendo) controlled the production and restricted what ROM sizes a given developer had access to also fueled the issue.

Granted, I've never mucked inside the details of modern consoles, but I'm not aware of any situations where the data had to be decompressed from a cartridge before use. IIRC, the N64 had a texture decompression engine in the hardware (which helped alleviate the small texture cache issues), but I don't know any of the details. Perhaps CPUWiz could chime in here?

 

 

Actually, you're assuming that form factor and storage format are related.

There's no reason whatsoever a DS card has to use flash RAM, just like the TurboGrafX cards didn't.

Your logic says that since a Channel F game LOOKS like an 8-track cassette, it has to use a magnetic tape to store data.

 

I'm admittedly not aware of the actual construction of a DS card, but ROM is far more likely for the non-writable portion.

The most likely cause of DS load times is heavy data compression.

(raises eyebrow)

 

I am not assuming that form follows function. I am stating that the function of the DS cards are as a storage medium, and that the data is copied off the card before use. The actual card (from my understanding) contains up to 128MB of Matrix 3D ROM (a multilayer, "fuse" WORM memory), plus some rewritable Flash memory for saving user settings. I don't know the transfer rate or access times, but I'd bet quite a bit that they're not fast enough to be used directly, and are not mapped into the system's memory.

 

Ergo, the DS uses the game card as a media device, and NOT an integrated chip on the main bus. This design allows it to load its software from multiple sources, including Wifi. The slot on the top, however, is an actual expansion port designed to be pin compatible with the Game Boy Advance circuit cards. Anything plugged into there will be added to the DS's expansion bus.

 

If anyone has specs that refute that, I'd love to see them.

Edited September 6, 2006 by jbanes

[Ze_ro]

I wouldn't say it's "bad programming". More like laziness. (For lack of a better term.) It's just plain difficult to design a game that loads on the fly. It has to go into the planning stage, or it won't be feasible. It's ALWAYS easier to simply reload the data files. While the data can usually be reset to prevent reloading, again it's far easier to simply do a reload. With a million and one other tasks on their plate, programmers won't pay any attention to optimizing the load unless someone makes it a high priority.

Funny thing is, I was reading an issue of Offical US Playstation Magazine a while back, and it was about the (then upcoming) 4th installment of Burnout. In an interview with the developers, one of the issues the developers brought up was the issue of having to reload a whole level when you restarted, which was especially frustrating in Crash mode. Yet here we are, and Burnout Revenge still does that. Crash mode has a nice pull-back instead of a load if you pause and choose restart, but there are still circumstances even in Crash mode where the game ends up reloading the whole level.

 

That's true of all most hardware, including built-in RAM. That's not a "load time", it's just the system operation. "Load times" are caused when you need to move large amounts of data from permanent storage to active memory.

Sure, and that still happens with cartridges too. The ideal case is that the entire ROM of the cartridge is mapped into memory, but there are many situations where it's impractical to keep the data in ROM. For example, because in some situations it needs to be accessed faster than the ROM can provide (while caching it in RAM may be able to achieve these speeds), or because the data needs to be altered on the fly, which isn't possible without loading it into RAM first. If it's a sizable amount of data, then it may take a noticable amount of time to transfer.

 

Granted, I've never mucked inside the details of modern consoles, but I'm not aware of any situations where the data had to be decompressed from a cartridge before use. IIRC, the N64 had a texture decompression engine in the hardware (which helped alleviate the small texture cache issues), but I don't know any of the details. Perhaps CPUWiz could chime in here?

Well, one perfect example here is Street Fighter Alpha 2 on the SNES. There are noticable pauses while it decompresses the character graphics. It's usually only a second or two, so it doesn't give you load screens or anything like that, but it's definitely loading.

 

--Zero

[Flojomojo]

games that will actually stream the content will reduce load times into nothing?

Streaming from optical discs always sounds better in theory than it actually is in practice. In theory, you can load the data as you need it, taking a "Just In Time" tack toward loading. In reality, the game rarely knows what content it's going to need five seconds from now. Because it doesn't know that information, it is forced to pay for a seek (between 100-200 milliseconds) PLUS the load from disc. Combined, this can chew through half a second to a second of time. Which means that the content will only be available once it's too late.

But since the Blu-Ray discs are so freaking massive, couldn't you just load hundreds of copies of every possible piece of data you would need, all over the disc?

 

You could fit 100 copies of the FMV in Final Fantasy 7 on one of these discs, after all.

 

$600 console, no games I want ... I'm honestly quite happy without this thing.

[jbanes]

But since the Blu-Ray discs are so freaking massive, couldn't you just load hundreds of copies of every possible piece of data you would need, all over the disc?

You *might* be able to speed up the seek by a few milliseconds that way. More likely, you'll just make a mess.