All articles tagged with #load times
Switch 2 versions of Octopath Traveler I & II bring native visuals, 60fps in both docked and handheld modes, and much faster load times compared to Switch 1, but there is no save transfer or upgrade path and they’re full-price re-releases ahead of the Western launch—existing players may want to wait for discounts unless portability is the priority.
AMD, in partnership with Microsoft, is rolling Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) out to the entire RDNA GPU stack (RDNA 1–4), delivering up to a 95% reduction in shader load times and stutter. In Forza Horizon 6 ASD brings the game from about 1.5 minutes to roughly 4 seconds on supported hardware, with a growing list of titles and ongoing expansion to more devices and IHV hardware.
Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 brings Metal Gear Solid 4 to modern platforms and finally eliminates the PS3-era long load times, delivering a faster, definitive run of Solid Snake’s story with no added content beyond the improvements.
Nintendo says Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream sold over 3.8 million units in its first two weeks on Switch, and roughly 40% of players are Switch 2 owners, even though there is no dedicated Switch 2 edition. The Switch 2 has sold about 19.86 million units overall, while the original Switch has reached 155.92 million. Benefits on Switch 2 include faster load times and GameChat support, with the game remaining a standard Switch release at present.
A video comparison shows Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition loading about half as fast as the original, with no major graphics upgrades and a constant 30fps; it runs at 1080p in handheld mode and 4K when docked.
Nintendo’s Switch 2 Edition of Animal Crossing: New Horizons runs at 4K in docked mode and 1080p handheld with a steady 30fps, and a YouTube side-by-side comparison shows noticeably faster load times: about 8 seconds from title screen to in-game on Switch 2 vs 17 seconds on Switch, and 16 seconds from Home Menu to gameplay vs 30 seconds on the original system. The report, referencing Nintendo’s earlier notes on enhanced resolution, also highlights sharper visuals and overall quicker startup, though frame rate remains 30fps in both versions.
The Switch 2 has significantly improved performance for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, including faster load times and stable 60fps gameplay even with multiple players, but these enhancements may cause issues like insufficient load screen time for reading instructions.
Level-5 has released videos showing improvements in graphics and load times for Fantasy Life i on Switch 2, with significant performance enhancements and an affordable upgrade cost of $2.59 for existing players.
Late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's contributions to Pokemon Gold and Silver clarified - he developed an algorithm that improved load times at the start of battles, but did not help fit both Johto and Kanto on a single cartridge. Game Freak utilized a larger one megabyte Game Boy cartridge to include Kanto in the game, while Iwata's code actually decreased storage space slightly.
Blizzard's upcoming game, Diablo IV, is planning to enable Microsoft's DirectStorage API in the future, which can fully leverage the higher bandwidth in today's NVMe SSD drives to accelerate load times. Currently, only one game, Forspoken, supports DirectStorage, indicating that the API can be hard for software developers to implement. DirectStorage 1.1 promises to cut down load times even more by leveraging not just the SSD, but also a PC's graphics card to further streamline the game-loading process.
Final Fantasy 16 has two modes, Quality and Performance, with aggressive dynamic resolution scaling. Quality mode runs at a solid 30 frames per second, while Performance mode often drops below 60 frames per second and has noticeable visual compromises. Load times are incredibly short, and Square Enix has committed to improving the game's performance and allowing players to disable motion blur in an upcoming update.
Dataminers have found files related to Microsoft's DirectStorage API in the Diablo IV beta, which could potentially reduce load times in the game by taking advantage of SSD hardware. If implemented, Diablo IV would become the second PC game to support DirectStorage, following Forspoken. DirectStorage was released in March 2022 and aims to reduce CPU overhead and improve background processing. However, Forspoken's recent patch improved performance but increased load times. Diablo IV will release on June 6th and support NVIDIA DLSS 3 at launch, with ray tracing added in a post-launch update.