PC Very old issue during game launch

[®omano]

It's been a VERY LONG TIME that this issue is in the game, and it is getting worse with every update.

When you start the game, you have the splash screen which take a fair amount of time before opening the actual game window (it's OK, I have SSD so I don't care for the suffering pleb with HDD who need to wait 5 minutes sometimes.......), then you have the intro videos that you can skip if you want. If you do not skip them, you go to the menu like normal.


If you skip the intro videos, or completely remove them from the Engine.ini (removing their respective lines in the [FullScreenMovie] section), then you end up with a frozen (yes this is the correct term, wait for it*) black screen, with the menu music playing, and after a while (like the time needed to watch the intro videos) it unfreezes and the main menu appears.

* I'm sure it is a freeze because if I wait for the steam overlay "access the community blabla" popup to appear before skipping the video, then I see this steam popup is also frozen for the time before it unfreezes and the main menu appears.


I'm sure it is not an issue on my end, but an issue with the game:

What I did so far to test if it is not a problem on my end is of course reinstall all the pre requisites, drivers, cleaning the My Games folder, and so on, you know me I think I can handle troubleshooting and fixing stuff.. I also removed, cleaned, and completely reinstalled the game (twice, more on that later**), and of course the game has the exact same behavior. if you skip the intro movies, it simply freezes for like 15 seconds before accessing the main menu.

A funny thing I also notice, is that if you start the game, skip intros (then freeze for 15 seconds with background music playing), then close game, and repeat the process it will do that again, over and over.
BUT I found something weird, if you modify a video settings requiring to restart to take effect (the game ask you to accept to restart game), then it restart and instantly goes to main menu instead of freezing after skiping intros.

This above is 100% reproducible.

** OK so another test I did was to install a Linux distribution, and play the game in SteamPlay with Proton, just for a test (which works relatively well, it at least compensates for your lies before release about the Linux client support unless this was what you meant when this SteamPlay Proton thing didn't exist yet.. yeah... off topic let continue..), and guess what, on a whole new system (Manjaro KDE), whole new hardware, the game HAS THE EXACT SAME BEHAVIOR. So for me this simple fact proves that the issue lies in the game 100%. I know this SteamPlay Linux thing is not supported but this was just for the sake of testing and proving my theories.


So now, I would like you to look at that, and find why when you apply a video setting requiring a game restart it restarts and behave properly (you skip intros and go instantly in main menu), when it doesn't behave properly if you simply manually restart the game over and over and it freezes after skipping intro videos, every time you restart manually the game.

My guess is that maybe you apply a startup parameter in the restart command line (and now I thought about it I'll try to find a way to check that later) for the game auto restart and this fixes the 'skip intro freeze'? If it is the case at least tell us, I would live OK with the issue if we can workaround it with a startup parameter. and you would not need to fix it (good for you then, right?)


If it can be of any help here is my Windows machine specs:
i5 @ 4.5Ghz
GTX 1060 6GB
Sandisk SSD
Win 7 Ultimate

Maybe not everyone is affected, I don't even recall threads talking about that, but if other people with the issue post their hardware it may help find a common ground for the affected people. I doubt it is hardware specific, but let not be so sure about that.


Hope to have at least clarification on the issue if not a fix, because it's been YEARS I think this issue is plaguing me and with the increase of instability of the game with the recent updates, I'm at a point where I can't handle these little accumulating issues anymore.

 

[®omano]

OK found something, you indeed restart the game with "-newsettings" startup parameter when applying a video settings which requires a game restart, but after testing it doesn't seem to fix the issue and I still freeze for 15 seconds after skipping the intro videos when forcing the startup parameter in Steam.

 

[s5yn3t]

I know that this kind of slow launch has began since the Patriarch update.... Which is a bloody long time ago i tell ya hwat (Hank Hill)

It would make sense if the game was pre-loading all the assets for a smoother gameplay, but it bloody doesn't.
Now the game suffers from the same things that Escape from Tarkov did, and that is stutter/mini freezes on 1st time anything.

For example: 1shot, 1st zed spawn of a new type that hasn't spawned before (wave 1 clots also count), 1st healing/healed, 1st dosh throw and so on.

And with the new steam update?
it heckin takes additional minute for it to launch and it takes 20 seconds to bring up the overlay because of how poorly it runs.
People said that Chat itself uses 100% cpu and Foster parent said that he or they would check it out and see if it happens on their end..... Nothing from it since.
Even worse when overlay crashes and fails to restart, you end up stuck with no ingame audio because overlay for no reason now mutes it.
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Specs:
i5 2320 3Ghz
Gtx 650 OC
4gb of ddr3 ram
7200 rpm 1TB HDD
Win 7 pro.

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[Kittenmittens]

This is because the game is still taking the same amount of time to load assets at launch. The videos play over some of that time filling the screen with something while loading is still happening. If these are skipped, you're just waiting a bit longer with a black screen. As we add more content, the load continues to get longer. One request we've made internally a loading bar to show that the game is indeed still loading and to take away from some of the confusion.

 

[s5yn3t]

This is because the game is still taking the same amount of time to load assets at launch. The videos play over some of that time filling the screen with something while loading is still happening. If these are skipped, you're just waiting a bit longer with a black screen. As we add more content, the load continues to get longer. One request we've made internally a loading bar to show that the game is indeed still loading and to take away from some of the confusion.

If the game loads assets on launch, wouldnt it eliminate the whole "freezing on 1st action/spawn" thing during the gameplay?
​​​​​​Feels as if the game is still loading assets dynamically into your ram during every wave when a new type of zeds spawn or a player action happening that didnt happen before hand (healing someone or picking up ammo for the 1st time and so on...... Basically what escape from tarkov suffered)

 

[®omano]

UP I still have hope because forum looks nice now.

 

[s5yn3t]

Lol wtf happened to those letters?

 

[®omano]

Something changed recently, I can't tell since which patch as I'm not really playing anymore, but now the game instantly launches to the menu after the intro video that you can skip (or remove all together from the config file so it boots straight to main menu).

So good job, maybe it is not actually fixed and that's something on my side that fixed it (as I play on Linux). It only took 3 to 4 years to fix this problem.

Can someone confirm it is the same for everyone?

//EDIT: OK I switched back to default Proton and no the issue seems to be there. The custom Proton-GE I was using fixed the issue (but created new ones with empty inventory and Item Server Connection issue).
Just a fluke, nothing to see there..