Who here doesn't care about load times?

I can't say I really had any major issue with load times this gen. I would have much rather have more power added to the consoles or in Sony's case use the money to focus on hardware based backwards compatibility.

I feel like this push to custom SSDs will only affect 1st party games and big publishers like Ubi, Activison, and EA. Many of the games I play are Jrpgs which are decades behind when it comes to this kind of stuff.

I guess they need a new gimmick to sell and 8K is basically off the table outside of simple games.

So SW, are the SSDs and decreased load times a real game changer for you?

I'm not sure how its even possible to not care about the insanely long load times on consoles. What i don't care about is sub 5sec load times. I can live with 5-10sec loading screens, its no big deal. A standard ssd inside the ps5 would've been fine. Then put additional resources into better cpu/gpu.

Ummmmmm I freaking care.

You think I wanna play GTA5 Cloud simulator? Hell no. I’m done sitting looking at a screen for over a minute for my game to load. I think it’s about time MS and Sony invested in SSD’s and the ability to nearly instantly switch between 5 game apps on Xbox is incredible and I cannot wait to see how PS5 SSD’s load times do.

@Ghost120x: I care. Now I know they won't be able to eliminate load times altogether, but to get them down to 10secs or under would be great.

You don't want some of that???

Both consoles will be powerful enough, even though the PS5 is weaker which is funny to prod cows (pun intended) with :)

@hardwenzen: No kidding. When I saw State Of Decay load in 8 seconds I wanted to cry tears of joy. Less waiting more playing is a beautiful thing for gamers. Than knowing I can instantly switch between 5 games and play where I left off? I about creamed myself.

@i_p_daily: Yes, the PS5 is a lot weaker. This is a 100% fact. We all know the PS5 cannot reach the pixels and frames of the Tower Of Power. But it should load those inferior 3rd party titles a few seconds faster.

@Ghost120x: you're the only one I think. Why would I want to sit through constant maybe 2 minute loading screen?

Depends on the game. FF15 on consoles and PC had night-and-day difference in loading times because my ps4 has a shitty 5400rpm drive. Less downtime, the better for gamers.

Loading times have always been annoying since the migration to optical storage.

I care. Less loading, more gameplay.

@BlackShirt20: " But it should load those inferior 3rd party titles a few seconds faster."

If it really ends being a few seconds difference, then I agree with @hardwenzen: They should've put more into the GPU/CPU/BC.

The 3D audio also sounds like waste of money/resources.

Well to be fair Sony's games are graphics/cinematics/sound etc and gameplay is an afterthought, so they need something to distract you from noticing the actual gameplay is shit LOL.

Yes, supposedly PS5's SSD setup is so fast it can act as an extra pool of RAM. No load times and 3D sound are the things I'm mostly interested in, if the guaranteed high quality exclusives are taken out of the equation.

Load times on consoles (mostly PS and Xbox) are shit. If I'd be unfortunate enough to play games on those, I'd care.

Certainly not enough to pay a heavy premium for it. Plus you have to consider that few devs will actually go that rout since Sony is allowing devs not to tap in to that feature, which means probably only Sony's first party exclusives will use it.

I care enough that if they can be avoided, lets do it. Not enough that they are a deal breaker. The load times didn't change the fact that Bloodborne is fun, and trust me the load times have not driven me away from loving Devil May Cry 5, because HOLY SHIT DO SERIOUSLY NEED THIS ITSUNO!?!?!

It's not just load times, it's also how games will utilize the memory much more efficient, and easier for devs to get games up and running without major pop in issues.

Some loading is fine, but several minutes is pretty crazy. I'm glad they went for a proper SSD and not just of the shelf 500MB/s crap. Games aren't exactly getting smaller, and now they have 16GB of RAM they need to fill up. Having a fast SSD will give devs possibilities that weren't there on previous consoles. And no more lifting logs or doing some pressing x stuff while the game loads in assets.

Time loading is time wasted.

Nothing more frustrating than dying in a certain part and having to load for 5 minutes.

Threw out all HDDs with my current PC build and now I have 3 SSDs (1TB + 1TB + 512GB)

I've been using SSD's for about ten years now iirc (and those super-awesome NVMe drives for about four), but I remember when load times were long.

To be honest, I am surprised it is still an issue we talk about; SSDs are more expensive than HDDs, sure, but not prohibitively so.

I'm not too concerned with load times. What I am concerned about is being forced to sit through a minute or two of credits, studio introductions, pointless warnings, self-praise about being a diverse workplace, and an age rating, before I even get to the main menu.

Waiting will always suck there's no way to sugar coat that.

I honestly can't tell the difference between my NVMe Samsung 970 evo, or the SSD (Samsung 860 or smth) I have hooked up through SATA cable. (It's an SSD I have that's the size of a laptop HDD)

It all depends on how well the game is optimized for SSDs.

Optimized well = loads lightning fast

___________

About your issue with boot screens: check out PCgaming wiki and Steam forums for "skip intro". I apply this on basically every game.

I feel that every game should have a skip intro function built in after you've seen them once. Show me once? Ok. Show me each time I load the game? Not ok.

How many of you use your phone while waiting for something to load? It’s like the TV industry, they found a lot of users are looking at other screen when they look at TV.

I go on Twitter, gamefaqs etc. to look up forums topics on said game while I wait.

I am pleased they are substantially faster,but I couldn’t give a shit who’s fastest

Faster the better. Why not?

@R4gn4r0k: Yeah my NVMe is my OS disk, that's the only way I know it's faster. Windows boots in about six seconds, took a few seconds longer with a standard SSD.

I got a good deal on a 1 TB NVMe and got it for games and I can't tell the difference between it and a standard SSD.

I mean we are talking seconds worth of difference here, it's definitely a luxury lol.

@Pedro: There were load times on cartridge games as well, something a lot of people seem to forget. But yeah it got a LOT worse when they switched from carts to cds.

The biggest difference is when moving from HDD to SSD.

And a ton of these consoles are still using 5.400RPM laptop HDDs (vs 7.200RPM desktop HDD)

In conclusion: SSDs are just awesome!

I don't mind so much because there's usually game tips or lore on the loading screens, and I'm a slow reader.

Honestly, with games getting so massive (installs often over 100GB now) the load times are becoming an issue again.

Hell... I tried to play Division 2 last night. Had yet another update. Then it has to copy the update. Then install the update. Then load the game. Then connect to the main lobby. Then connect to the server... only to join a friend and load into their server... it was 40 minutes before I got to play. 10 minutes just to load into the damn game with my friend.

Now that may just be horrible optimization on Ubisoft's part but still... it sucks. I'll be happy to move on from that.

If a better option is available and reasonably affordable, why wouldn't you want a better experience?

After reveals of both console Specs I think both MS and Sony are trying to point out why consoles still matter in a streaming future.

3d Audio, best performance, and no load times sounds awesome for an enthusiast level gamer. Which with the rise of smartphones and tablets.....this kind of puts consoles to the more enthusiast level gamer category.

I think Anthem's loading time would like to have a word with you.

I care about the loading times, but if it lasts a few seconds I don't mind

The longer load times the better. My load time is about 10-15 mins these dayzz. Perhaps longer sometimes if I concentrate on baseball statistics. lol :P

If you dont care about load times, you probably havent seen how the other side is living.

There is always "load times" but I can't recall playing any game on cartridges in which there was an actual loading screen.

you know what is funny everyone ignoring the fact sony made the custom ssd that will be over twice as fast. which will change the way the game is being played during gameplay. meaning while your playing its 5.5 gigs of content uncompressed or 9 gigs compressed from the ssd is being loaded the textures around you while only 2 gigs per second on the series x. ps5 going to king for open world games lol.

Maybe like once a year I boot up a game on a console and remember how bad loading times can be of an HDD.

I can't imagine all that time added up.....

I very much do care about loading times. I am delighted that the new consoles are using SSDs instead of HDDs. Loading times just suck. they get in the way. the more they can be kept to a minimum the better.

I will be interested to see what benefits the high bandwidth will bring though. out of the box the main plus points for an SSD are more the low seek times and latency rather than the sheer throughput. but if devs are building for multi GB/s SSDs rather than crappy 5400RPM HDDs maybe they will find other advantages too. it should certainly make ram usage more efficient (less buffers n such like) so we shall see.

should they have used off the shelf Sata 3 SSDs instead and put the other resources elsewhere? or maybe something PCIE3 based. perhaps.

but yeah: great to see. i dont want to even think about how bad loading times would be on the PS5 and XsX if they stuck with laptop HDDs (or HDDs of any sort). *Shudder*.

This right here. Most load times aren't so bad that I can't just grab my phone for a minute and read some comic book news or something.

GTAV online is really the only load time that I can think of that will drive me nuts sometimes.

"I'm floating in the fucking clouds again", is very commonly heard in our parties.

In BFV the load times are excruciating and I don't like them.

I grew up in a time when 1-4X CD-ROM's were the height of technology. Load times have never been an impediment to my life.

If people think that the SSD in PS5 will only change loads times they're a f'kin idiot.

PC I/O is way way behind what Series X can do and way way way way behind PS5 so you can have 7GB/s drives all you want, they'll be no better then a SATA3 SSD.

Why do you think Sony spent time and effort on dedicated decompression chips for PS5?

While I can generally tolerate most loading times I’m most definitely looking forward to these next gen consoles significantly shortening them.

I think load times have been a noticeable issue this gen. Like the witcher 3 had some pretty nasty ones I remember. It also matters a lot in games which you die plenty.

If it loads slower than my Neo CD that is when I start to care. Otherwise it doesn't matter at all.

@PSP107: it will be seconds. XSX SSD is 50% performance of the SSD that PS5 is aiming for. State of Decay 2 would have loaded in 3-4 seconds on PS5 in theory. But I can wait an extra 3-5 seconds here and there.

If the game is designed for either systems the load times can be the same. If the game is not designed to take advantage of the SSD tech it would load as you described.