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Posted

I took a quick look at the long loading times in TDM with Valgrind and it looks like the inflate_fast function (for unzipping) takes up a large portion of the loading time according to Valgrind:

 

snapshot1tiubm.png

 

I had a quick glimpse at the function here: https://github.com/revelator/The-Darkmod-Experimental/blob/7d86b82fce9eb587952c4963b928fd7974ecfa78/src/framework/Unzip.cpp#L3475

and it looks like it's very old and optimized for old hardware. I've never looked at the deflate/inflate algorithm before but maybe there are faster ways to do this on modern hardware.

 

Unfortunately the reality of it seems to be different.

I tested this by loading up the largest mission we have: Crucible of Omens, in TDM and timing how long it takes to go from "Start Mission" to "Click to Start" appearing.

I then unpacked the ZIP file into the BCD directory to remove unzipping as a bottleneck in the loading process, and the times were the same, give or take a second or 2.

Here is what the directory looks like:

 

PK4:

post-529-0-81053000-1454288136_thumb.png

 

Unzipped:

post-529-0-98526200-1454288139_thumb.png

            Run 1        Run 2        Run 3        Run 4
PK4:        53.32 sec    53.32 sec    52.31 sec    53.10 sec
Unzipped:    52.12 sec    51.55 sec    51.33 sec    51.76 sec

  • Like 1

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

Posted

 

 

Unfortunately the reality of it seems to be different.

I tested this by loading up the largest mission we have: Crucible of Omens, in TDM and timing how long it takes to go from "Start Mission" to "Click to Start" appearing.

I then unpacked the ZIP file into the BCD directory to remove unzipping as a bottleneck in the loading process, and the times were the same, give or take a second or 2.

 

Thanks for the test but what about all the pk4 files coming with TDM itself?

 

If you look at the Doom 3 BFG code you'll see that the Unzip.cpp changed a bit since Doom 3 and that inflate_fast() was removed: https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-BFG/blob/master/neo/framework/Unzip.cpp

I don't know how BFG's loading times compare to Doom 3 though.

  • Like 1
Posted

BFG uses binary assets. It's not quite comparable to what we have. That said, you may have a point about packed mod assets loading too. Though the SVN where

we do development has unpacked assets and mission loading isn't substantially faster there.

  • Like 1

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Posted

 

Thanks for the test but what about all the pk4 files coming with TDM itself?

 

If you look at the Doom 3 BFG code you'll see that the Unzip.cpp changed a bit since Doom 3 and that inflate_fast() was removed: https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-BFG/blob/master/neo/framework/Unzip.cpp

I don't know how BFG's loading times compare to Doom 3 though.

 

That test I did was with all the files unzipped, I'm using the SVN version which does not have pk4's.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

  • nbohr1more changed the title to [Resolved in TDM 2.10] When Will Loading Times Be Too Long?

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