Long loading times

[dyrk]

Hello.
For me every single paradox game have very long loading times, up to ten minutes loading in to the game. The first 5 mins or so it basically shows the first loading screen, plays the music and then freezes. After quite a while it eventually starts to load the actual game and starts up. If I then quit out and reload the game it loads very quickly all of a sudden. It happens with CK,, Stellaris, EU and HOI but not Cities skylines (which a assume has a different launcher) and its been like this for as long as I've played paradox games.
Any thoughts?

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Hello.
For me every single paradox game have very long loading times, up to ten minutes loading in to the game.

Ten minutes is..unbelievable long.

Any thoughts?

- Ancient computer/ Not good enough RAM, CPU, Graphichs card etc..., but you said Cities Skylines works, so appears unlikely.
- Defragmented harddisk.
If you still use HDDs, then i recommend to get MyDefrag 4.31 and do the Monthly (System and Data) optimisations.
Will take several hours the first time, but will be worth it...or get an SSD.
- Do a manual and clean un-and reinstall of the games
- Some progams running in the background cause trouble or use too many ressources (for ex. : Discord and other similar online/chat/gaming stuff)
- Contact tech support in one of the games' subforums or open a ticket at https://support.paradoxplaza.com/hc/en-us

 

[Kovax]

Part of the problem is Windows. All of the added virus checking and other overhead make the games load far slower than they used to, even though I've got a much faster processor, more RAM, and a faster HD. The problem gets worse if you have a lot of utilities running in lower memory, since that leaves less free RAM that the game is able to use. Many of the older titles can only utilize the first 2Gb of memory, so if something is chewing up a big chunk of that, it doesn't matter how much memory the computer has, because the game can only access the lowest 2Gb. There are utilities to expand the 2Gb limit, and a few games even have official or semi-official memory patches (such as podcat's .exe for HOI3). As ridiculous as it may be, some of the older games actually take longer to load now than they did over a decade ago with a processor less than half as fast, way less memory, and a Hard Drive with a substantially longer typical access time.

Once you've loaded the game, or at least part of it, a lot of the files will remain in memory until/unless some other program overwrites them or you shut the computer down, so reloading often takes significantly less time than the initial attempt.

Then you have the newer titles with much more graphically intensive maps, animations and shading, and far more convoluted interfaces, all of which take longer to load, and I suspect that they're not particularly well "optimized" for performance.

 

[dyrk]

Thanks for the replys. I guess my problem is what Kovax describes. I have a fairly modern computer with a ssd and have done fresh installs. I dont use discord or any other programs really, basically just use whatever windows needs to run when I play.

 

[alexti]

For some reason (that doesn't make much sense) I have recently launched EU4 on a 11 year old laptop with HDD. It took less than 1 minute. So your problem is almost certainly not due to weak hardware.

The problem gets worse if you have a lot of utilities running in lower memory, since that leaves less free RAM that the game is able to use. Many of the older titles can only utilize the first 2Gb of memory, so if something is chewing up a big chunk of that, it doesn't matter how much memory the computer has, because the game can only access the lowest 2Gb.

This part is wrong - older 32-bit programs can typically use only 2Gb of RAM, but it's some 2Gb, if you run several such programs they will use different 2Gb of RAM, so as long as you aren't running out of memory, memory is not a problem. Interaction with Windows, anti-virus, anti-malware, malware (if installed) is a more likely cause.

The first 5 mins or so it basically shows the first loading screen, plays the music and then freezes. After quite a while it eventually starts to load the actual game and starts up. If I then quit out and reload the game it loads very quickly all of a sudden.

You've said that you have SSD, so the difference between the first and the second starts wouldn't be due to reading from hard drive vs from file system cache. Most likely something (like anti-virus) has injected itself into reading the files and it's doing it very inefficiently, and, presumably, it's only doing it on the first read. If you check task manager for active processes during the first (slow) startup you might find the process to blame.

 

[rubert]

Without knowing exact specs of the computer, installed antivirus/malware etc. programs it is hard to guess on the reasons. If you have any third party antivirus or antimwalware software installed I would suggest uninstalling them and trying to run the game with Microsoft's own AV which is included in Windows.

 

[TheCheeseMaster]

Hello.
For me every single paradox game have very long loading times, up to ten minutes loading in to the game. The first 5 mins or so it basically shows the first loading screen, plays the music and then freezes. After quite a while it eventually starts to load the actual game and starts up. If I then quit out and reload the game it loads very quickly all of a sudden. It happens with CK,, Stellaris, EU and HOI but not Cities skylines (which a assume has a different launcher) and its been like this for as long as I've played paradox games.
Any thoughts?

Really slow loading times might be due to installing the games on a really slow media device. For example, an SD card, external HD, or USB stick, would all have significantly slower transfer speeds and thus slower game loading times. Does this apply here?

 

[notNSANE]

2 tips:

1. Install on an SSD (games are light anyways!)
2. If you have modes, merge them with Irony Mod Manager.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

Many of the older titles can only utilize the first 2Gb of memory, so if something is chewing up a big chunk of that, it doesn't matter how much memory the computer has, because the game can only access the lowest 2Gb.

No - at least not anymore. The game may only adress 2GB of RAM, that is correct, but _which_ 2 GB these are decides the OS.