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Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:39 pm
by ttjhowell
This obviously isn't a competition because it would depend on what scenario and at what stage the game is, but I'm sure I would win (loose?) if it were.
From a clean boot then double clicking on the game, then getting through the "YOUR FILES ARE BEING ORGANISED SIR!" screen then immediately clicking through both of the intros and then getting through the splash screen to the main menu... Always exactly 75 seconds.
From selecting my turn and waiting at the loading screen then getting to the password box... Around 2min 30s to 2min 45s. I using a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a 1.5GHz Intel processor with 1/2 gig of ram. I'm playing CHS scenario 157 in mid '42.
Can you beat that?!
Actually the slow load up times are a blessing. I find I can do things like take out the trash, empty the dishwater use the loo and still come back and be waiting for the password querrybox to pop up. Brilliant! I am so lucky [8|]
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:57 pm
by jwxspoon
Here's what is amazing. My desktop is AMD64 X2 4600+, 4 GB Ram, dual nvidia 7900GS SLI cards... my new $700 Toshiba laptop SMOKES it in terms of starting and running WITP. Drives me crazy.
jw
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:02 pm
by VSWG
ORIGINAL: jwxspoon
Here's what is amazing. My desktop is AMD64 X2 4600+, 4 GB Ram, dual nvidia 7900GS SLI cards... my new $700 Toshiba laptop SMOKES it in terms of starting and running WITP. Drives me crazy.
jw
Let me guess: old notebook: WinXP, new desktop: Vista?
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:49 pm
by Anthropoid
ORIGINAL: VSWG
ORIGINAL: jwxspoon
Here's what is amazing. My desktop is AMD64 X2 4600+, 4 GB Ram, dual nvidia 7900GS SLI cards... my new $700 Toshiba laptop SMOKES it in terms of starting and running WITP. Drives me crazy.
jw
Let me guess: old notebook: WinXP, new desktop: Vista?
Don't you have that reversed VSWG? I thought it was Vista that was the preposterously slow memory hog?
Actually the slow load up times are a blessing. I find I can do things like take out the trash, empty the dishwater use the loo and still come back and be waiting for the password querrybox to pop up. Brilliant! I am so lucky
Heh! Sorta like waiting for AE to come out eh!?
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:02 pm
by VSWG
ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
ORIGINAL: VSWG
ORIGINAL: jwxspoon
Here's what is amazing. My desktop is AMD64 X2 4600+, 4 GB Ram, dual nvidia 7900GS SLI cards... my new $700 Toshiba laptop SMOKES it in terms of starting and running WITP. Drives me crazy.
jw
Let me guess: old notebook: WinXP, new desktop: Vista?
Don't you have that reversed VSWG? I thought it was Vista that was the preposterously slow memory hog?
I thought jwxspoon said that his old notebook (WinXP?) runs WitP much faster than his new machine (probably Vista)? [&:]
EDIT: Now I see what you mean, you're right. Still, the notebook is much less powerful than the desktop, so maybe it's faster because it has XP installed?
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:09 pm
by niceguy2005
How fast does the game itself run. It seems to me that some of the startup animations might have some quirks to them and some computers could have troubles with them. I know my startup runs a little slowish, but the game is smoking fast.
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:17 pm
by Anthropoid
I got a 1.8GHz AMD 64 Athlon with 1G of memory and the game runs fine. Some of the behind the scenes calculations seem after giving orders seem to take a bit of time, but that might partly be that I have animations and ~1.5 sec for most message screens turned on.
Soon though I will four--count them! FOUR!--gigs of memory and a MUCH better vidi card Mwahahahaha!
I'll time my startup and let you know next time ttjhowell.
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:41 pm
by eloso
I had an AMD Athlon XP 3200 with 2 GB of RAM. The game would boot in about 25 seconds. This system died in May and I rebuilt a 2.4 GHz Quad core (Intel chip) with 4 GB of RAM. The game now takes 3 times as long to boot. I don't notice any difference in replay execution nor in display/scrolling performance.
Both systems have/had the same OS (WinXP pro). I have a Vista Ultimate partition on the new rig but don't use it that often. When I do use it, it is for taking advantage of DX10. I have not tried installing WiTP on the Vista partition to see if it makes a difference.
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:03 pm
by wdolson
The good news is that WitP AE takes about the same amount of time to start and run a turn as the original. I've measured about 10% longer. We've done a lot of improvements in that area, which are offset by the added complexity of the game.
I run AE on two different computers and I usually have lots of other things loaded like the development environment and sometimes the editor or Excel. One machine is 1.5 Ghz and I think the other is 1.3 Ghz. I think my load times are slightly faster than ttjhowell, but I forget what I measured right now.
What eats up the most time is drawing the map. Anything that requires a map redraw will have a delay.
Bill
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:19 pm
by pasternakski
ORIGINAL: wdolson
The good news is that WitP AE takes about the same amount of time to start and run a turn as the original.
Yeah, yeah, Bill, rub it in. You got the goods, and we's all just down in the hood...
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:23 pm
by Nomad
For those of you running XP, try right clicking on the desktop icon, choose properties, choose compatability tab, and select "run this program in compability mode for" and select Win 98/Windows Me. It might work for Vista too, but I don't know. It cut my loading times to 8 seconds and 17 seconds. I also have renamed the Video folder to No_Video to completly bypass that.
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:06 am
by Anthropoid
I kinda like the video . . . you can just type a keyboard key (might need to be Esc) to bypass it when it gets boring. But I'll try that Win 98 compat mode thing.
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:50 am
by Chris21wen
ORIGINAL: wdolson
The good news is that WitP AE takes about the same amount of time to start and run a turn as the original. I've measured about 10% longer. We've done a lot of improvements in that area, which are offset by the added complexity of the game.
Bill
That's only here say. Now if I had a copy.....[:D]
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:46 am
by Anthropoid
Is there a way to advance purchase AE?
Now I too am really starting to suffer the anticipatory twitches . . . reminds me of this caver-girlfriend tease who once caused me tremendous chaffing from all the clothed dry rubbing . . .
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:10 pm
by hawker
Just check my time on lap. Toshiba dualcore with 2 gb ram and 1.8 ghz proc. with Vista OS
14.5 seconds takes from click the icon to PBEM[;)]
Vista rules[:D]
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:18 pm
by ttjhowell
ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
I kinda like the video . . . you can just type a keyboard key (might need to be Esc) to bypass it when it gets boring. But I'll try that Win 98 compat mode thing.
I did this and I'm still at exactely 75 seconds. Just seems like this is the number for me. I should add that the game runs just fine when it is loaded. The only problem being that if I click on a part of the map I haven't been to before in that session then it takes a second or two to load, but otherwise ok. So it's liveable. I like the zen element of waiting for the turns to load.

Oh so I convince myself at least. [:)]
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:56 pm
by R8J
45 seconds....seems like an hour
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 5:47 pm
by bradfordkay
I use the Elf's pinup loading screens, so I relish the time it takes to load the game or a save...
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:02 pm
by eloso
ORIGINAL: Nomad
For those of you running XP, try right clicking on the desktop icon, choose properties, choose compatability tab, and select "run this program in compability mode for" and select Win 98/Windows Me. It might work for Vista too, but I don't know. It cut my loading times to 8 seconds and 17 seconds. I also have renamed the Video folder to No_Video to completly bypass that.
Thanks for the tip. It has been so long since I've had to use that feature that it was forgotten. It still takes longer to load than on my old rig which I never ran it in compatibility mode but its about half as long to load. I deleted my videos right after I installed it-I never included that with my original figures on loading. Vista has that same compatibility mode feature but from what I remember it doesn't go back further than XP.
RE: Who has the slowest WitP Startup Time?
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:51 pm
by Anthropoid
I timed two different segments: (a) from double-clicking icon to getting to Main Menu; (b) double-clicking a .sav file to game opening.
Keep in mind, I have the videos all set to run, and I just hit Esc repeatedly to skip over those after just a second or two.
I did three times to get an average, but there was virtually no variance.
(a) = 13 seconds (no variance)
(b) = 20 seconds (first trial was 30 seconds, 2nd & 3rd were both 15 seconds)
That is running WinXP, with the icon set to compatibility mode and the rig specs I described above. Now that I've timed mine, your 75 seconds does sound frustratingly slow. I'm not a techie, but my hunch it isn't your hardware though. Maybe some conflicting code, or spyware or malware, or some other kinda software issue I'd guess.