What could be possible reasons for slow loading time?

[Duffman]

Before, i was using integrated video which uses system's memory through it's shared memory architecture. that was about 1GB/s.
Now, i got Radeon card with DDR(230MHz x 2)but i say loading time in games is about the same. In RTCW multi-player, games finishes as soon as loading is finished for me. often. LOL.

Is higher speed memory supposed to reduce loading time or not?

I use 1024 x 768, 32bit, high on most options and I don't use anisio or FSAA. Something is fishy here.

[Pufferfish]

load time = system RAM + hard drive speed
not video card

[Duffman]

wow, really?
Guess that means my system is pretty crap, eh?
hmm... I have Maxtor 20G 5400RPM but I don't think this drive is too slow. I got DMA enabled and so on. I only 256MB PC133 SDRAM. My mainboard don't support DDR. I read my mobo's memory controller is pretty crap. Guess that's one of the reason.

[BrainPiercing]

Originally posted by Duffman
wow, really?
20G 5400RPM

Slow harddisks will slow down your everyday WINDOZE experience, will make your programs, like Word, etc, run slower, and make your games load slower.
People think a slow harddisk doesn't matter, but if you've once compared a Win2K or XP comp with a fast HD, and one with a slow HD, you'll find how big the difference is.

[Joshua17]

its probably not your ram its your 5400rpm for some reason rtcw doent load fast on a 5400rpm drive

[magicknight0233]

5400RPM drives really can hurt performance big time. The actual data transfer rate may not suffer much since the data density on drives is so high now but the access time sucks big time. Not just does the drive not spin that fast, but there is a lot more data to search through so the access time can be pretty slow.

[ErrorS]

hey, just my addition(no real help)..

a while back.. i tweaked my radeon, and messed with some new options.. somehow I got quake3 to load slow as hell .. the game ran fine, "loading" the game at start, whatever.. but once it came time to load levels, it would just stall ... and i know for a fact my radeon playd a part in it..

/me dunno why, but I wanna blame z-compression being too high... (no proof)

hmm.. most likely you can "feel" wether or not it is your HD+CPU+RAM, or something completely out of place ...

you could always defragment... nothing helps more then defragmenting when it comes to slow loading times, or when opening shiit just feels sluggish..

and i dunno if it being a 5400RPM drive could be the problem.. i mean, my old 7200RPM maxtor was only 1ms faster(overall access time) then a newer 5400RPM HD... however, my 5GB WD from a few years ago is a good 4MS slower then my 7200RPM maxtor..

also, again I say.. defragmenting will probably help you out quite a bit(unless your drive is a old slow SOB) ..

AND! what could be more damaging then a 5400 RPM drive, dealing with a 35% fragmented file that weighs in at over 200MB?

oh and duff.. the game RTCW is stored on your HD ... even if you had hella fast RAM, that data has to move from your HD, across the ATA cables, through your southbridge into PCI/AGP/Northbridge .. and of course, memory is the last stop (not counting what your vid card does) ... so...

photoshop/windows/word/desktop shiit.. and actual in-game playing at very very high res with an agp card is the only place you will seriously notice any difference when using DDR memory, or anything faster then PC-133... loading levels will still be slow.. but uh, look at it this way.. with faster memory, reloading levels will be nice and fast

EDIT: I wanted you to all know! I hate vB code, it wont work for me...

[stargate]

first of all... if you are using a win9x based OS that wasn't reinstalled for more then two months then this is your answer. win9x tends to run slow and slower in time. just regestry aglomeration i guess. you may want to try and defrag your drive. also don't keep so-called memory managers and generaly don't keep many programs running in systray - especially antivirus programs.
hope this helps

[ZaijiaN]

Case in point:

I moved my half-life/counterstrike install from my IDE maxtor 20g 5400 drive to my quantum 9g u2w scsi drive... and load times went from minutes to seconds. The difference was night and day. The maxtor was fully defragged too, didn't make a difference. And I know for a fact that my quantum is fragged up the wazoo w/ win2k & all my apps on there, yet it still loaded HL in seconds.

[Type-G]

A single 5400rpm drive is pretty old-fashioned by today's standards.

Try 2 ata-100/133 7200rpm drives in RAID-0 formation...
That will get you about 2.5x your old speed.

A *very* noticeable all-around improvemnet, specifically a major improvement in game load times, all for a modest upgrade price.

[Flapjack]

Before runnig to hard drive shop, check this out...

Have you updated your chip set drivers?

Check: My computer - properties, select 2nd sheet - find your hard drive - properties - 2nd sheet and look if there is mark on DMA. Take it off if so.

It helped with me when I had updated my VIA 4-in-1 drivers. Loading times were really slow, sound was crappy and so on...

I hop this help you...

- Flap -