Pillars of Eternity II - Flopped

I think in the case of the ridiculous load times you were getting, Couch, there's got to be some sort of bug. I mean, in that time a disk could have loaded enough data to fill your RAM several times over.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but it's not uncommon to have 20+ second loading screens in Kingmaker, and there are a lot of them. This is on a high end PC, so I can imagine it's pretty bad on anything else.

It's pretty crazy that I can load up Novigrad faster than some of the places in Kingmaker..

Originally Posted by Ripper
I think in the case of the ridiculous load times you were getting, Couch, there's got to be some sort of bug. I mean, in that time a disk could have loaded enough data to fill your RAM several times over.

Exactly try telling support that though. They constantly give me a link back to that net optimization problem. It doesn't even work if I unplug my internet connection.

We've determined that there is a Unity issue that was fixed for Pillars of Eternity, but has since regressed to a non-working state in the newer version of Unity we're using for Tyranny. The problem is that the mechanism we're using to load character portrait art (and potentially a few other things) from disk can also be used to download files from servers. Because of this, Unity queries the Windows Proxy Settings for the currently logged-in user prior to deciding that it needs to load the file from disk instead. On some users' machines, the contents of the Windows Network Connections will include entries generated by third-party software such as LogMeIn Hamachi and VMWare. The Windows function that Unity uses to get the Proxy Settings for the user tends to hang for long periods of time if it encounters one of those third-party network connections. It's probably not able to get what it wants and just ends up waiting for a timeout. I suggest looking in Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center to see if there are any network connections added by third-party software. If there are, try disabling them to see if it fixes the problem. Please let us know what you find.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but it's not uncommon to have 20+ second loading screens in Kingmaker, and there are a lot of them. This is on a high end PC, so I can imagine it's pretty bad on anything else.

It's pretty crazy that I can load up Novigrad faster than some of the places in Kingmaker..

I usually get 30-50 seconds for every load screen with an SSD now. I even brought up how a game like Witcher III or Assassin Creed Origins can run with no problem.

I'm reminded of the same problems I had with every new Fallout game.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but it's not uncommon to have 20+ second loading screens in Kingmaker, and there are a lot of them. This is on a high end PC, so I can imagine it's pretty bad on anything else.

It's pretty crazy that I can load up Novigrad faster than some of the places in Kingmaker..

That's weird because I don't encounter this in Kingmaker. Even the bootup screen is faster now in 1.1, but before it wasn't even 20 seconds and that's the longest one for me. The throne room is maybe 7 seconds or so. Weird. I have a 1080ti and i5 4690 cpu, 16 gb ram and ssd for anyone interested.

Similar specs then, but with a plain 1080 and an i7 4790. Not running 1.1 yet though. Waiting for the full release, in case it breaks something.

I think part of the reason for long loading time in Kingmaker is due to cached memory/items stored all over the local maps.

I actually think loading time is faster in 1.1 as well. Can't be sure though.

Originally Posted by Maylander
Similar specs then, but with a plain 1080 and an i7 4790. Not running 1.1 yet though. Waiting for the full release, in case it breaks something.

1.1. to me is really just a bunch of their hotfixes bunched together as a larger package, and probably a bit more testing. But anyway, even on 1.0 I never saw a 20 second loading screen. Could the i5/i7 difference have something to do with that?

Originally Posted by TheRealFluent
I have a 1080ti and i5 4690 cpu, 16 gb ram and ssd for anyone interested.

My specs are as follows.

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
1GB Cruical SSD
RX 570 8GB
16 GB Ram

So unless Unity hates AMD it has to be a bug or third party software problem.

I enjoyed both games and thought it was nicely done with lots of improvements. I put Kingmaker on hold till they polish it more and started another round of POE1 and 2 instead. Can't say I miss the timed quests either. Just not a fan of timed quests and the added level of stress that can add to a game.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
My specs are as follows.

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
1GB Cruical SSD
RX 570 8GB
16 GB Ram

So unless Unity hates AMD it has to be a bug or third party software problem.

SATA SSD or NVMe SSD? The latter are many times faster, and it could be that people who are enjoying quicker load times are using NVMe SSDs…?

Originally Posted by Stingray
SATA SSD or NVMe SSD? The latter are many times faster, and it could be that people who are enjoying quicker load times are using NVMe SSDs…?

SATA SSD it was a cheaper alternative to the higher priced 1GB SSD's. Frankly I don't see myself spending over $200 for a new SSD hard-rive that's ridiculously overpriced.

Buy an SSD everyone said load times will be faster, but no buy a NVMe now. Anyway just read reedit & official forums you see gamers with load problems in Unity games.

Low end, middle end, or High end systems it doesn't matter. Anyway we already established a traditional drive isn't optimal for Unity RPGs last month in another thread.

Obsidian put themselves in those troubled waters. They started to develop a MMO free-to-play to compete with World of Tanks in 2014, actually a clone called Armored Warfare. They tried to establish a franchise and become a reference in eSport. 4 years of develoment, very high production value, very high costs and an usual Obsidian result: Failure.
RPG is an after thought, certainly not something which could have delivered the kind of money they were after.

They enjoy a lot of good will from their past games and they ride it for what it worths.

I cannot understand why MS wants them for, their management is a joke and the grunts can certainly leave easily, they have the resumé for that.

Originally Posted by Stingray
SATA SSD or NVMe SSD? The latter are many times faster, and it could be that people who are enjoying quicker load times are using NVMe SSDs…?

I was about to ask the same thing. I imagine NVMe drives are where you'll see the biggest difference. Still, even if that's 10-15 seconds of loading on a NVMe, that's atrocious in my mind.

My specs:
EVGA FTW3 1080 Ti, overclocked
i7 5820k @ 3.3 GHz, overclocked to 4.4 GHz currently
32G ADATA XPG RAM @ 2400 MHz, CL16 latency
Samsung 860 Evo 512 SSD

My most optimistic take on the Microsoft/Obsidian scheme, is that MS wants to combat the dominance of Sony's platform exclusives, by using Obsidian to make AAA games in style of the successful past Bioware. Which I think actually could turn out quite well, in the best case scenario.

I don't know your problem couch but i didn't get anything close to 30 seconds (I do use ssd). On linux I know how to monitor both the system and what the program is actually doing but on windows no clue. On linux I would watch the disks perf and trace the program to see what system calls it is making and how long they are taking. Since people like to talk up windows I have to assume these things can be done on windows so perhaps someone with more knowledge of system debugging on windows could monitor the system to isolate the issue.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I usually get 30-50 seconds for every load screen with an SSD now. I even brought up how a game like Witcher III or Assassin Creed Origins can run with no problem.

I'm reminded of the same problems I had with every new Fallout game.

This might be their plan but Obsidian has no clue how to make an AAA game; imho it has a good chance to be a disaster if they tried to make a large scale high quality game. Perhaps I am mistaken but isn't fallout nev the only game close to AAA they have made and in that case the engine was provided ?

Originally Posted by Ripper
My most optimistic take on the Microsoft/Obsidian scheme, is that MS wants to combat the dominance of Sony's platform exclusives, by using Obsidian to make AAA games in style of the successful past Bioware. Which I think actually could turn out quite well, in the best case scenario.

Originally Posted by you
Perhaps I am mistaken but isn't fallout nev the only game close to AAA they have made and in that case the engine was provided ?

KOTOR II and Icewind Dale 2, they also worked on a Alien cRPG that was never finished.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
SATA SSD it was a cheaper alternative to the higher priced 1GB SSD's. Frankly I don't see myself spending over $200 for a new SSD hard-rive that's ridiculously overpriced.

Buy an SSD everyone said load times will be faster, but no buy a NVMe now. Anyway just read reedit & official forums you see gamers with load problems in Unity games.

Low end, middle end, or High end systems it doesn't matter. Anyway we already established a traditional drive isn't optimal for Unity RPGs last month in another thread.

If you're using a SATA SSD and getting slower load times than other people who are also on SATA SSDs, you might want to check in your BIOS setup and make sure that the SATA controller your SSD is connected to is in AHCI mode, and not IDE mode. Some boards default to IDE (for compatibility with old OSes), and it absolutely kills performance. (This goes for hard disks too, but for SSDs it makes a much bigger difference)

Alternatively, could run CrystalDiskMark and make sure your numbers look reasonable compared to other posted numbers for the SSD you've got. If your controller was in IDE mode, you'd get poor numbers in there.

Originally Posted by Ragnaris
I was about to ask the same thing. I imagine NVMe drives are where you'll see the biggest different. Still, even if that's 10-15 seconds of loading on a NVMe, that's atrocious in my mind.

Eh, I kinda think the opposite, there's a much huger difference between a hard disk and a SATA SSD than there is between a SATA SSD and NVMe SSD, for most purposes. Just removing the whole need to physically "seek" changes everything. NVMe adds a lot more throughput and IOPS, but for most general desktop or gaming situations it's overkill. I can notice the difference while doing everyday activities, but it's not night & day like going from an HDD to a SATA SSD.

Yeah more Bios fiddling just kidding I'll give it a look.

Also just installed the 9GB Beta patch and my loading times decreased.

Probably due to some code optimization finally.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Most sales for a game usually come from the first week on Steam.

Huh, call me highly skeptical. Where's your data for this assertion? I'll buy that the peak sales rate is in the first week, as it is for most forms of entertainment. But the majority of the sales? I doubt it. Maybe you mean small indie game sales?

I'll give an example: D:OS sold 160,000 the first week. That's a few percent of their total sales.