Load times quantified by GameSpot

by Andrew Yoon { Oct 19th 2006 at 4:30PM }

Gamespot recently wrote an impressive feature on load times for the three dominant handheld platforms on the market. They wanted to see how long it took for a game to become playable from a completely powered-down system (no standby mode, which is available on both the DS and PSP). Here are some interesting facts from the write-up:

The three quickest loading games were Astonishia Story, Gradius Collection and Lumines. They took up to 55 seconds to load.
The longest loading game is (unsurprisingly) WWE Smackdown!: more than four minutes for that game.
Games with the highest ratings on GameSpot had the shortest load times. Joystiq asks "Does this show that reviewers appreciate short load times, or just that better games tend to be designed to load faster?" I'd say both hold true, but as games like GTA and Daxter show, developers that care about the PSP know how to get around load times.
The average load time for cartridge-based DS? 24.5 seconds. The average load time for UMD-based PSP? 103.4 seconds.

This shouldn't be surprising to any PSP owner, but it's fascinating to see the numbers. I hate load times a whole lot, and I will avoid games that have insanely high loads. That being said, I don't see one minute loads to be too bad at all. What about you? What do you think about load times?

[Via Joystiq]

Tags: astonishia story, AstonishiaStory, ds, gamespot, gradius collection, GradiusCollection, load, loads, lumines, psp, wwe smackdown, WweSmackdown

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Saffie @ Oct 19th 2006 4:54PM

Ah, I remember Smackdown Vs. Raw 2006 for PSP. It was hell! All the other games was descent for me. I hope the new games (Crisis Core) will have short load times.

Player1 @ Oct 19th 2006 5:10PM

I think this is a joke. They are counting everything until actual gameplay as load times. Most of the games I've picked up have zero noticable load times. For example, I think Tekken has a load at the beginning for less than ten seconds, and that's it.

Silentheaven @ Oct 19th 2006 5:36PM

I understand that the DS is faster but, has someone considered how much data has to load a DS for "Super Mario" and the PSP for "Smackdown" or "GTA"?
There are some differences..

Bored @ Oct 19th 2006 6:10PM

Actually, anybody who checks the actual load times will see how much those numbers have been exaggerated... This is Nintendo-sponsored propaganda, nothing more.

phlyzik @ Oct 19th 2006 6:41PM

i think that untold legends 1 loadtime is the reason i microwaved it

pixelator @ Oct 19th 2006 7:34PM

Most load times aren't a big deal. It depends as much on the developer and type of game as it does on the inherent load times of the media itself.

I do remember not liking Wipeout for that very reason, though - it just took too damned long to load for a game that had such a fast pace.

gattsuru @ Oct 19th 2006 7:38PM

The test is based on time from initial poweron til the game initiates (either control is given to the player, or the starting cutscene opens up). Menus were skipped through at high speed.

Depends on the game, and how the loadtime is set up. I'm more willing to deal with a loadtime of doom on an RPG than an action game, and on a game with regular sections than one were the loadup feels unnatural or breaks the pace.

And I hate (hate) splash screens that can't be skipped through. Such a waste.

Michael Anderson @ Oct 19th 2006 8:16PM

Regarding 'how much data' - who cares? If a portable game on one system takes ~30 seconds to 'wake up' and the other system is 'instant on' ... one *is* a portable system and the other is NOT.

30 second wake-ups an exaggeration? Madden 07, LEGO Star Wars, Godfather.

lordroba @ Oct 19th 2006 10:54PM

Your forgeting about Ridge Racer. Nothing takes more than 10 seconds to load in that game. You can pop in the game press the x button a few times and be racing 30 seconds after you pop in the UMD.

stirlo @ Oct 19th 2006 11:01PM

I agree, i've avoided buying Burnout for psp simply because the load times are abomniable...

on my ps2 the burnout series has frustratingly long load times, especially burnout 3, and loads unnessecarily... I blame EA, they don't bother porting / programming stuff properly

Biggles @ Oct 19th 2006 11:21PM

Where are the DS title load times? Hurts the legitimacy of the test when they only provide 1/2 the data.

Obviously DS will load faster given that it's cartridge based, but since you only need to load the game once on the PSP and can then use hibernate, who cares?

Loading an iso off the memory stick also solves the "problem".

Diman @ Oct 19th 2006 11:54PM

Cartridge vs. Mini DVD...obviously cartridge will have faster loading times if any at all.

How come good games have faster loading time vs half assed ports?

Don @ Oct 20th 2006 2:12AM

One game I hate the loading on is Micro Machines V4: You play a race (and of course lose) then you want to play it again... the *same* track... and you have to wait 30+ seconds for it to load all over again. That's frustrating & unnecessary. It really shows the lack of care in design as you mentioned in the article. So those kinds of loading times are what frustrates me.

I was playing Star Wars Battlefront II on PSP quite a bit. And the loading times are long, but I was accustomed to loading cause I also have it on (original) Xbox... what can I say, I love Battlefront II.... but then I started playing the Xbox version again & realized how short the load times were, compared to the PSP. But it's not really fair to compare the power of a home console to a handheld.

Alien @ Oct 20th 2006 6:05AM

Who cares , do you remember games like Syphonfilter on the PSone ??? They where long loading times there , but Ive enjoyed it . Alos , they schould have made 2 categories : until the menu , and until the game , I allways spend some time in the menu . Also games like Daxter , Tekken DR and Medieval R dont have long loadtimes at all ( yeah , I like Medieval ) .

Stephen Waits @ Oct 20th 2006 12:50PM

They obviously didn't test NBA '06 and NBA '07. We've worked hard to get reasonable load times. --Steve

steve @ Oct 20th 2006 2:23PM

@Steve - Nice to see a dev showing their face around here. ;)

Hector Martinez @ Oct 20th 2006 4:04PM

I try to make sure I have something handy to do while the load times are happening, especially since I can actually do something off of the couch on a portable system. Pfff! What kind of fanboys are you?

Peronthious @ Oct 25th 2006 4:36PM

This is a complete lie. Like what Player1 said, they count everything until actual gameplay as loading time. Since the UMD is a disc format instead of a flash format, you will have slower loading times than with flash, but some of those load times are way too high. They say that with Daxter, you have 80 seconds of loading time. Bull. I have Daxter, and there are absolutely NO noticable loading times throughout most of the game. The only time there are loading times is when you're first loading the game and in between teleportations, and even those don't even come close to 80 seconds.