Loading screens for loading screens?

[VideoGameCritic]

[QUOTE=voor]

can someone please explain what is actually going on when something is being loaded??

[/QUOTE]

It's transferring the game from the disk into memory.  A game needs to be in a console's memory to run.  That's why you always need to wait a while for a game to start up.  In addition, since most games are far bigger than a console's memory capacity, most games have to periodically load new levels or tracks or whatever.

[Steerforth]

I always wondered why some doors were 'sticky' on Metroid Prime, it took a few seconds for them to open. Then I realized, "Hey dummy, its load time!"

I kinda felt dumb, and have never admitted it till now.

[Alienblue]

...This is yet another reason why more companies should make more simple games that will FIT into memory. Aren't many DS and GBA games good? And they fit on a tiny ROM cart! Nothing you can do about intitial load, if a system has a DVD or other disc drive of course, but for a game like TETRIS, NEW SUPER MARIO and SONIC ADVANCE, no load times are needed. In other words, YET ANOTHER REASON TO GET BACK INTO 2-D! 3D is a memory hog. Again, I'm not saying to ABANDON 3D , but at least give people the option. Like in the C-64 days, most games came on a single, quick loading disc (or even cart!) , but there was the odd adventure that filled FOUR discs. That's fine. There will always be an audience that wants the bigger, better, more realistic stuff but there is an audiance for short,sweet,simpler, too!

[bluemonkey1]

Games are moving towards the model used by the Unreal Engine 3.

An initial load when you begin a level and then as you play having a background process that swaps in and out new areas of the level.  So there is like a bubble around you as you move through the game.  This I think is perfectly acceptable.  I don't mind a 6-8 second load time if I can play for an hour afterwards without seeing one.

The DS and PSP can get away with it because they aren't blown up the size of a TV.  If you take a PSP title and blow it up to a 28 inch TV which is small by today's standards it will look pretty bad.

[VideoGameCritic]

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]Games are moving towards the model used by the Unreal Engine 3.

An initial load when you begin a level and then as you play having a background process that swaps in and out new areas of the level.  So there is like a bubble around you as you move through the game.  This I think is perfectly acceptable.  I don't mind a 6-8 second load time if I can play for an hour afterwards without seeing one.

The DS and PSP can get away with it because they aren't blown up the size of a TV.  If you take a PSP title and blow it up to a 28 inch TV which is small by today's standards it will look pretty bad.
[/QUOTE]

Actually that technique was first used in Blasto for the Playstation One.

[Marriott_Guy1]

I believe the engine used in King's Field also used this tecnology, though winding around the corridor to access the next level was essentially a loading screen for.

[Steerforth]

I'll post once again :

One thing that I did not like about Twilight Princess is  how the narrow gorges between the fields act as loading screens, too, to me it destroys the image of a big world to explore.
Advantage, Wind Waker, the ocean made the game feel seamless.

[Conn]

[QUOTE=Alienblue]...This is yet another reason why more companies should make more simple games that will FIT into memory. Aren't many DS and GBA games good? And they fit on a tiny ROM cart! Nothing you can do about intitial load, if a system has a DVD or other disc drive of course, but for a game like TETRIS, NEW SUPER MARIO and SONIC ADVANCE, no load times are needed. In other words, YET ANOTHER REASON TO GET BACK INTO 2-D! 3D is a memory hog. Again, I'm not saying to ABANDON 3D , but at least give people the option. Like in the C-64 days, most games came on a single, quick loading disc (or even cart!) , but there was the odd adventure that filled FOUR discs. That's fine. There will always be an audience that wants the bigger, better, more realistic stuff but there is an audiance for short,sweet,simpler, too![/QUOTE]

While I and probably everyone else here agrees with you, you have to remember that short and simplier games aren't what the market wants.

[VideoGameCritic]

[QUOTE=Conn]
While I and probably everyone else here agrees with you, you have to remember that short and simplier games aren't what the market wants.[/QUOTE]

Are you sure about that?  The New Super Mario Bros (DS) was the #2 best selling game (behind the obligatory Madden football) in 2006.  That game plays a heck of a lot like the original 2D Super Marios from the late 80s/early 90s.  The current two best-selling consoles, the Wii and DS, aren't known for their long, complex games.  Just the opposite really!

[Roperious1]

Keep in mind the target audience for the DS and the Wii are much larger than what we'd consider the "market" for say the 306 or the Wii.  The people who own these systems either played their way up through the console generations (with games becoming more and more complicated), or jumped on the bandwagon halfway through.  The people that are making the Wii such a smash hit are people that have not experienced the simple pleasures of Sonic 2, Super Mario Bros or Bomberman '94 and therefore are finding their initial experiences on the Wii.