Weirdly slow loadings when server changes track

While some gains can be had from further optimization I doubt we can significantly improve the loading times. In the case you have grass enabled and texture quality set to Ultra there's a lot of stuff to load especially in the case of newer tracks that have a lot of foliage variation and use multiple terrain blend maps. If you're running low on memory will cause a further slowdown to loading due to swapping (having your page files on SSDs will help somewhat in that case).

We'll check out whether it would be feasible to add a 60 second safe margin before timing out.

While some gains can be had from further optimization I doubt we can significantly improve the loading times. In the case you have grass enabled and texture quality set to Ultra there's a lot of stuff to load especially in the case of newer tracks that have a lot of foliage variation and use multiple terrain blend maps. If you're running low on memory will cause a further slowdown to loading due to swapping (having your page files on SSDs will help somewhat in that case).

We'll check out whether it would be feasible to add a 60 second safe margin before timing out.

Thanks for the reply Janne.   

I paid $240 for my 960 to have my eye candy, hate have to give it up online. I even drop grass setting to High before I tried loading Mixed 3 and the guys still got time out because track loaded to slow. I would hate to have to turn off grass, like a lot of players I am finding out, have! 

I don't do much offline except for some modding. Must my time is spent racing and derbying online with Wreckfest. 

Since this topic and turning off grass I have had no problems at all with load time race missing

It is a pity though - on some tracks they do look a bit barren. I ought to test actually how it goes on the two lower settings. Once the grass was off and there wasn't any more problem I accepted that quickly.

Seem this still an issue for me. Last night when I was hosting, I drop Zeb when I change track to Sandpit 3 and again when I change track to Mixed 3. These 2 tracks take a long time to load.


Since you a PM Janne.

Thanks Purple, checking it now.

That's a bummer to hear the issue still persists - but hopefully further optimization of those tracks (as well as others) will improve the situation.

Hmm, I see this issue is with others as well. I recently reinstalled the game and noticed, that sometimes it takes ages to load something and sometimes tracks are not loading at all.

While I hesitate to necromance a thread, a friend of mine was having this very same problem, unlike the rest of the players.  He turned down the grass and it didn't help matters notably.  We'd all be loaded and see that he'd have a steadily-increasing ping, sometimes as high as 22 seconds, and would take over a minute to load up.  If I started the race as soon as I was loaded, there'd be no way he could make it on time.

I found we could greatly improve his loading time by removing all the bots before switching tracks.  We tested it several times, both with a full complement of bots, and with an empty (besides us) lobby, and his loading times were always improved the fewer bots there were.  I also experienced an improvement in loading time, but nowhere near as extreme as his--from upwards of 60 seconds to just 5.

So, at least in his case, the extra cars caused a problem.  I don't know if it was specifically bots or players in general as I didn't have enough players to meaningfully experiment, and didn't want to inconvenience them further.

While I hesitate to necromance a thread, a friend of mine was having this very same problem, unlike the rest of the players.  He turned down the grass and it didn't help matters notably.  We'd all be loaded and see that he'd have a steadily-increasing ping, sometimes as high as 22 seconds, and would take over a minute to load up.  If I started the race as soon as I was loaded, there'd be no way he could make it on time.

I found we could greatly improve his loading time by removing all the bots before switching tracks.  We tested it several times, both with a full complement of bots, and with an empty (besides us) lobby, and his loading times were always improved the fewer bots there were.  I also experienced an improvement in loading time, but nowhere near as extreme as his--from upwards of 60 seconds to just 5.

So, at least in his case, the extra cars caused a problem.  I don't know if it was specifically bots or players in general as I didn't have enough players to meaningfully experiment, and didn't want to inconvenience them further.

Would friend be using a wireless connection?

Zeb saw this happen with his laptop and a wireless connection one Saturday night.

I don't have any issues loading tracks offline, so for me at least, this is a multiplayer problem.

Connectivity hasn't been a problem for me until the December update (besides the occasional lag), so I'm pretty confused as to what the problem is. My PC handles other games fine on medium settings, it's just this title I have connection issues with. Really puts me off of doing online. :S

Side note: I've already turned down my settings also to prevent this, and it doesn't get rid of the problem for me. Even with the grass completely turned off and everything else lowered, I still get stuck on a screen at least once within an 1-2 hour session. :/

Would friend be using a wireless connection?
Zeb saw this happen with his laptop and a wireless connection one Saturday night.

No wireless, he's oldschool and uses CAT5 cables to hook up his network, as god intended.  His throughput is pretty fast.  It's also not a server issue as other players were able to make track transitions fairly quickly.  His computer runs the game quite smoothly once everything is loaded as well.

I think it might be something to do with the way the game interacts with hard drives.   His system waits in bursts of over 20 seconds, as stated before, and when it responds he reports his harddrive chugs briefly.  He does have a bit of an unusual setup, though I don't remember the particulars.