DS has load times!

Why is it that there is loading in Animal Crossing. The DS is cartridge based so WTF. Unless I'm missing something....

KBneospy said:

Why is it that there is loading in Animal Crossing. The DS is cartridge based so WTF. Unless I'm missing something....

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If I were D-Lite I would ban you and rape your eye sockets.

But he has a fanny pack filled with infinite patience for retards.

lol

he's missing something all right

a brain

kernow said:

lol

he's missing something all right

a brain

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Jesus christ!

I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of *that* verbal lashing, sir.

You bashed him but you didn't replied his question.

Don't forget the time when you didn't know all those things about VG. At this time, you were glad to find answers to your questions.

Even the SNES had load times.

It's kinda aggravating for AC:WW to have them since they're so long.

Remember tho, AC loads all your furniture, settings, animals, etc.... there's quite a bit of info that needs to be accessed.

Yeah, Castlevania DS had some small load times. They're still negligable compared to cd loading times such as on the PSP, or NGCD.

Magnaflux said:

Even the SNES had load times.

It's kinda aggravating for AC:WW to have them since they're so long.

Remember tho, AC loads all your furniture, settings, animals, etc.... there's quite a bit of info that needs to be accessed.

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I think it's not only loading but the updating of conditions in the town. Notice how the initial load time is much longer when you start a day. Probably has to update all the plants and trees and then items as well.

My fanny pack is near fresh out of patience and is near full of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately's

Weevus said:

Yeah, Castlevania DS had some small load times. They're still negligable compared to cd loading times such as on the PSP, or NGCD.

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Yep don't I know it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH3dc7IZVPc

Magnaflux said:

Even the SNES had load times.

It's kinda aggravating for AC:WW to have them since they're so long.

Remember tho, AC loads all your furniture, settings, animals, etc.... there's quite a bit of info that needs to be accessed.

Click to expand...

This makes sense, I just don't remember running into load times on other chip based games, and AC load is a bit long so it cought me by surprise I guess, still not too bad compared to PSP, I just expect load times with PSP.

If I recall correctly some N64 games had load times like Quake 2 for example.

Try playing Street Fighter Alpha 2 for snes. Or you could try any of the games for the n-gage.

Yep, even cartridge based games can have load time.

Some GBA games even have load times. I know Rebelstar does.

I agree even cart-based games have load times. Quite evident in many including Forgotten worlds, Strider, Ninja Spirit... just a few off the top of my head right now.

So, the next question is, where does it come from?

parsing, memory mapping and allocation

am I missing anything?

Well with DS carts it's a bit different, because they aren't ROMs, they're a modified form of flash memory card. The DS has 4MB RAM, and depending on how large/complex the program itself is, how much game/graphics/sound data needs to be prepared etc. it could take a while to setup.

I think Animal Crossing is the longest I had to wait on DS, and it's never more than 5 - 10 seconds. And it's ONLY at startup, and then again at saving. I think AC is bad because it's probably using some very heavy data compression techniques since DS cards only have 128K of space allocated for save data.

But even ROM carts can experience "loading" - but it's not program loading, it's data loading, and setup time if the game is using complex arrays and/or heavy compression techniques for the data.

Now I'm going from memory here, from what I read long ago about the company (US based) that actually designed the DS card format. I long since forgot the name etc.

But the DS loading times really are nothing. Most games you experience no loading waits at all. And those that do, it's pretty negligible.

The PSP... Now that's loading time!

I believe that Quake 64 takes the bereaved crown for longest load times on a cartrdidge-based system.