Slow Load Screen (Map Initialization)

[Levi Ackerman]

Hi,For some unknown reasons at this situations:
-When there are more than 1 user in game

-When Red is computer

the loading screen becomes slow and it takes more than 3 minutes to load.
I don't try other situations Actually,But When there is only 1 user and when its red the load screen only takes 30 seconds to load.
Its like it will take 30 seconds to go in end but still it wont load and take more time to load(So much,like 3 minutes)
Is there anyone who know why its happening?
Thank you.

 

[Kaijyuu]

Slow loading usually means a lot of object data (abilities with hundreds of levels/etc) or a lot of triggers. I don't know why it'd be different with different numbers of players though.

 

[Levi Ackerman]

Humm....If is that so,Now i think i had 4 spells with 300 level.Maybe that's why its slow.
Ok i will try to uncheck those abilities for player And lets see what will happen...
[EDIT]Its still the same,I will try to unavailable items for player (Map has more than 1000 items)
[EDIT]Ok its and again its still the same,Its a bit weird,because even when there is only 1 user since its in red slot its np but when red is computer and user is blue or some other slot,load screen becomes slow.

 

[Marcos_M]

Abilities are the main problem, more than 4 levels per abil = troubles
Once i had 4 160 lvls abilities, turns out, 1 minute loading screen(and those where the only custom abils + 1 dummy unit)

 

[blufflegendaire]

Making something unavailable doesn't change loading time. As long as the items and abilities are IN the map (when I say in the map I mean simply created, existing), your loading time is going to be longer.
In your case, unchecking abilities doesn't remove them from the map, so it STILL does make loading time longer. Only thing you can do is : delete abilities, find another way to make those with much less levels, or accept the fact that your map is going to have a slow loading.

For items, AFAIK, they are not impacting so much the loading time.

Some insights here: How to reduce loading times of Object Editor data

 

[Levi Ackerman]

Making something unavailable doesn't change loading time. As long as the items and abilities are IN the map (when I say in the map I mean simply created, existing), your loading time is going to be longer.
In your case, unchecking abilities doesn't remove them from the map, so it STILL does make loading time longer. Only thing you can do is : delete abilities, find another way to make those with much less levels, or accept the fact that your map is going to have a slow loading.

For items, AFAIK, they are not impacting so much the loading time.

Some insights here: How to reduce loading times of Object Editor data

I See,Thanks for the link,So the problem is from purple fields.Then it means the problem is from abilities and items.

But something doesn't make sense,Why when there is only 1 user its faster And when there are more user controllers its becoming slow.
And it doesn't matter how much those users are,The speed is the same and the slow.

But something is even more weird,The process of loading will stuck at the end of it and it shows "Loading"
Its like After 30-40 seconds it reaches near of the end and it will reach the end slowly,And it will take 3 minutes to load After reaching the end.
But when there is only 1 user,The process is completely different.
Its like the normal loading,Like every map.

You know i just never saw a map to load like that,Going to the near of the end and reach the end so slow and take 3 minutes to load.
Its not normal

 

[Levi Ackerman]

Abilities are the main problem, more than 4 levels per abil = troubles
Once i had 4 160 lvls abilities, turns out, 1 minute loading screen(and those where the only custom abils + 1 dummy unit)

Even before i make abilities with so much levels there was the same problem.
It was like reaching the near of the end slowly and showing "Loading".
But it was faster.(like 1 minute and half)
But the process of loading is strange.
The real question is why its different and longer when there are more then 1 user(or when user isn't red)
And if the speed depends on the number of users(It doesn't) why 2 user doesn't have any different with 3 user load speed.

 

[Marcos_M]

By user you mean other persons?? You sure that the other people has a good PC?

 

[Levi Ackerman]

No,I mean the controllers.
Just read the first thread.at those 2 situations I wrote.
And as I mentioned how loading becomes weird.
Just read what I wrote I think it's clear enough.
I hope some one who has experience and knows WHY it's like that.
I never saw any map to load like that.

 

[Dr Super Good]

It is possible the AI forces more stuff to be initialized and pre-loaded. Placing 1 of every unit on your map will make the map load process take a very long time as all assets and object data has to be loaded compared with a completely blank map.

It is possible AI not only forces the loading of all their race units (possibly to build some internal data structures with) but also does other computationally intensive initialization such as mapping out the terrain. Especially if the map is 480*480 or other stupidly large sizes and the AI has towns on pathing islands from its enemies it can really degrade game performance.

 

[Levi Ackerman]

It is possible the AI forces more stuff to be initialized and pre-loaded. Placing 1 of every unit on your map will make the map load process take a very long time as all assets and object data has to be loaded compared with a completely blank map.

It is possible AI not only forces the loading of all their race units (possibly to build some internal data structures with) but also does other computationally intensive initialization such as mapping out the terrain. Especially if the map is 480*480 or other stupidly large sizes and the AI has towns on pathing islands from its enemies it can really degrade game performance.

Thanks
I can't remember the exact size of map but I think it was greater than or equal to 256*256.I will check.
The red player(AI) has so many buildings and units.
Ok I'm gonna try to delete all buildings who I placed in the map(I have backup file,I'm not mad).Lets see if it's from those huge object numbers of AI.
Also there are like 800-1000 custom items,800-1000 abilities,4 ability with with 300 levels,huge amount of doodads,The map custom models and textures and music are so much,They take so much space.And it means so much purple fields.And slower loading screen.
Thanks your idea is so much helpful.
My feelings say it's gonna work.

 

[blufflegendaire]

Also there are like 800-1000 custom items,800-1000 abilities,4 ability with with 300 levels,huge amount of doodads,The map custom models and textures and music are so much

This is completely normal if your map takes time to load. Not all the maps you play have as much objects (read abilities, items, doodads, etc...), Warcraft was made to handle warcraft-size maps such as the official campaigns, sometimes there are things you can not do in Warcraft, and that's totally okay. Memory-hacks, -11,0 buttons, whatever the exploit you may use, there is no way to speed up Warcraft processing speed that I'm aware of.
If it takes time to load your models, abilities and doodads, this is legit. You don't have to worry about it, as long as the loading time is "worth it" (as long as your map has a decent quality and is enjoyable) people won't mind having to load for a longer time (do you know Twilight's Eve ORPG, the game's pretty long to load, but still my friends and I don't mind since we actually love this game).

TL;DR: Don't worry, it's okay.

 

[Levi Ackerman]

This is completely normal if your map takes time to load. Not all the maps you play have as much objects (read abilities, items, doodads, etc...), Warcraft was made to handle warcraft-size maps such as the official campaigns, sometimes there are things you can not do in Warcraft, and that's totally okay. Memory-hacks, -11,0 buttons, whatever the exploit you may use, there is no way to speed up Warcraft processing speed that I'm aware of.
If it takes time to load your models, abilities and doodads, this is legit. You don't have to worry about it, as long as the loading time is "worth it" (as long as your map has a decent quality and is enjoyable) people won't mind having to load for a longer time (do you know Twilight's Eve ORPG, the game's pretty long to load, but still my friends and I don't mind since we actually love this game).

TL;DR: Don't worry, it's okay.

You're right but the thing who is bothering me is that loading process.
The questions are:
- Why loading speed is different with more than 1 player(1 player = 40 seconds,more than 1 = 3 minutes and half)
- Why the loading process is weird(I explained in the top)

Anyway i'm going to find out which one of those are making that happens.
But models,abilities,items and etc... loads normal when there is only 1 player(40 seconds) and wow its becomes 3 minute when there are more than 1 player.Its not acceptable.And ofc it means it can be faster then that and its a weird problem.

If 1 player can load all of those objects in 40 seconds why when there is more than 1 user controller in game it become 3 minutes!!

And if loading depends on number of user controllers,Why the number doesn't matter,The thing who matters is being more than 1 user controller!!

And why when there is 1 user since it isn't the Red its becoming slow again.

The only situation with normal load is only 1 user controller and user must be red.

So it means its not from object data or something like that since it loads normal when there is only 1 user.

And this slow load problem is some how related with red AI.

Anyway Nothing can explain those things i said except what Dr Super Good said.

Thanks blufflegendaire.Yeah since the map is good,people doesn't care about loading speed.Also as you said it has worth to wait.
But still 3 minutes and half is so much.But i think it can fix.

 

[Levi Ackerman]

Yeah the problem is from number of objects.Exactly as Dr Super Good said.
Map loaded in 20-30 seconds when i removed all of units and buildings who belonged to red.
Any suggestion to how place them without direct way?
Or Anything else to make those objects don't make load speed slow??
[EDIT]its like 1552 units in the map. i can place with triggers.(It will take time to make region for all of those 1552 units and write the angel for all of them).
Any idea to do it faster? I don't want to start placing units with triggers if there is a faster way.

 

[Kaijyuu]

I'm not sure triggering the placement will make it any faster (though it might spread out the load).

 

[LordDz]

1000 custom items, do the players really need that many items? What kind of map are you making?

 

[alexdahobo]

do certain units the red player has have lots of abilities or ability levels? if yes you could make trigger for only those units and have the trigger set to wait 5 seconds then create those units for player red. like i see some big rpg do before players can play but after loading screen. otherwise idk what you could do

 

[Levi Ackerman]

I'm not sure triggering the placement will make it any faster (though it might spread out the load).

I can write those triggers in 0.01 second event so it will be a huge lag after game but still it will take less than 10 second.

And its possible to write them in map initialization event and i think that load problem will solve.I'm going to do it.

 

[Levi Ackerman]

1000 custom items, do the players really need that many items? What kind of map are you making?

Its an rpg map.Also it isn't from items.its from number of objects in the map.
there are like 1552 objects in the map.
I tried deleting them and the load process became normal.More objects i delete more faster load screen will be.

 

[Levi Ackerman]

do certain units the red player has have lots of abilities or ability levels? if yes you could make trigger for only those units and have the trigger set to wait 5 seconds then create those units for player red. like i see some big rpg do before players can play but after loading screen. otherwise idk what you could do

Thanks for your idea.

Anyway it seems i don't have to delete all of those 1552 units.
Only deleting 700 of them and placing them with trigger can fix that problem.
At that case i only have 2 options:
-Placing with 0.01 second after game Event.So it will be a huge lag in unknown time.
-Placing with map initialization event.It's possible to make that load screen becomes like that.But i'm not sure about it.

 

[LordDz]

Or 3, use triggers to drop an item when an enemy unit dies.

 

[Levi Ackerman]

Or 3, use triggers to drop an item when an enemy unit dies.

Thanks for your idea.
But can you explain it with more details?

 

[Wark]

I had a similar problem myself with excessively long load times. But yes, for each player it needs to preload whatever units with its abilities.

I once had close to 80 abilities with 100 levels each, and the load time was ridiculously long.
I figured out a different way to have the same abilities but with 12 levels each, and it literally made the map load 10 times faster.

Hidden purple fields in the object editor also slow loading time:
If you change an ability to lvl 100 then modify a text field on the 100th line, and then set it back to only having 1 level, it will need to load all 100 text fields of that ability.
Be wary of what you change - then change back.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I looked through what WC3 does when loading such a map and from what I could see it seems to do a lot of linear search. This seems to fit quite well with why it takes so long to load as linear searches have bad scaling complexity.

 

[Levi Ackerman]

I looked through what WC3 does when loading such a map and from what I could see it seems to do a lot of linear search. This seems to fit quite well with why it takes so long to load as linear searches have bad scaling complexity.

Thanks for the time you spend.
It seems i will have hard time to fix that.