INCREDIBLY slow loading times (Workaround available)

[Oscarachi]

I've got a pretty serious issue with load times on the game. I thought the game was locking up the first several times I was going through character creation, but it turns out it just took 20 seconds to move through each page or selection. Loading zones or save games is a good 30 seconds just at the start.

I've updated my drivers, and reloaded the game to a different HD (once an SSD, once a regular old HD) to no avail. Driver updates didn't help. It seems like an abysmally horrible read/write issue. Any ideas? Can't play with performance like that, would prefer not to request a refund.

I haven't had this issue with Pillars.

Overclocked i7-6700k
32 gb ram
2x GTX 980 TIs

Edit: Workaround; unplug your computer's network connections while playing.

 

[Searry]

Unity is abysmal with reading and writing so it's pretty standard.

 

[RPGCoder]

Hi Oscarachi,

We've determined that there is a Unity issue that was fixed for Pillars of Eternity, but has since regressed to a non-working state in the newer version of Unity we're using for Tyranny. The problem is that the mechanism we're using to load character portrait art (and potentially a few other things) from disk can also be used to download files from servers. Because of this, Unity queries the Windows Proxy Settings for the currently logged-in user prior to deciding that it needs to load the file from disk instead. On some users' machines, the contents of the Windows Network Connections will include entries generated by third-party software such as LogMeIn Hamachi and VMWare. The Windows function that Unity uses to get the Proxy Settings for the user tends to hang for long periods of time if it encounters one of those third-party network connections. It's probably not able to get what it wants and just ends up waiting for a timeout. I suggest looking in Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center to see if there are any network connections added by third-party software. If there are, try disabling them to see if it fixes the problem. Please let us know what you find.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Oscarachi]

Wow. That was a surprisingly well-researched and detailed response. I appreciate all the background information. I have several virtual network controllers and tunneling tools I've need using, and are likely the culprit. I'll see what I can do and post back with results.

 

[Bard of Reveran]

Hi! Since what my problem is kind of similiar to this thread's I'd like to write it here. I am experiencing the same things, very long loading times, along with stuttering (maybe related to fps spikes) when an event is triggered (interacting Npc's with dialogue options, cutscenes, entering combat etc.) My computer specs are decent enough to run a game like this smoothly (16 GB RAM Nvidia GTX 880M 8 GB Intel i7 4810MQ 2.80 GHz)

I don't have any other network connections from third party softwares, however the problems I am experiencing are making the game unbearable to progress and play. Please help!

 

[Randarkmaan]

I'm encountering a similar problem. All through yesterday loading games took but 10 seconds, now it seems like it's not able to load at all. I don't seem to have any other such networks as you mentioned set up either, apart from a university VPN, which I disabled.

e: Hmm.. it did work when I tried loading the game in airplane mode, though I was also running Steam in offline mode (though I suspect airplane mode is what did it), so it does really seem as if it's trying to load something from a server or something rather than the disc.

 

[Lamiosa]

Hello, I had also infinite loading screen when trying to load a game. What I did is deinstall vmware-player because it really had adapters in my network.

Maybe if people are also using vmware on desktop pc it might be the issue.

 

[Oscarachi]

So, I went through and did several things.

First I went in and removed any/all virtual network controllers/VPN/remote connection services I had. No luck.

I noticed I wasn't able to fully remove some of the WAN miniport adapters under my network adapters in device manager. Assuming a potential malware infection, I deleted all their drivers (through regedit, as it wasn't able to from device manager).

Neither of these two seemed to help, so I just did a fresh windows reinstall. No dice there either, and the wan miniport drivers are back (but hidden and disabled again for funsies).

I tried offline mode as well, no dice.

I unplugged the computer from the internet, which helped immensely, so long as the computer was offline. Upon plugging it back in, the load delays returned.

I tried creating an outbound windows firewall rule to block Tyranny.exe, which seems to have helped with ZONE loading times, but not save games or menu loading. Which is strange.

TLDR: unplug your computer's network connection as a workaround. Not really acceptable for a game that costs as much as this one did, especially for those of us who multi-task.

 

[CassetteApe]

I would like to say that the workaround presented here doesn't work for me. I disabled all my internet connections and the game still takes around 2:20 minutes to load a single save file, completely unacceptable.

 

[Luckmann]

Hi Oscarachi,

We've determined that there is a Unity issue that was fixed for Pillars of Eternity, but has since regressed to a non-working state in the newer version of Unity we're using for Tyranny. The problem is that the mechanism we're using to load character portrait art (and potentially a few other things) from disk can also be used to download files from servers. Because of this, Unity queries the Windows Proxy Settings for the currently logged-in user prior to deciding that it needs to load the file from disk instead. On some users' machines, the contents of the Windows Network Connections will include entries generated by third-party software such as LogMeIn Hamachi and VMWare. The Windows function that Unity uses to get the Proxy Settings for the user tends to hang for long periods of time if it encounters one of those third-party network connections. It's probably not able to get what it wants and just ends up waiting for a timeout. I suggest looking in Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center to see if there are any network connections added by third-party software. If there are, try disabling them to see if it fixes the problem. Please let us know what you find.

Thanks,
Dan

Oh my god, disregarding how ridiculous it is that this slipped through the cracks after PoE originally having the same (or a very similar) issue, this is probably the most fulfilling support post I've seen. Thanks for not just saying "We know the issue, try to can your extra network stuff". Absolutely top notch. I wish there was a Patreon system for individual employees.

 

[manveru1986]

Hi,

I have exact slow loading problem on my iMac 5k (2015).
Disconnecting from the internet didn't help.

 

[Lambda player]

Hi,

I have a similar problem with so incredibly long loading times that the game does no longer work : it crashes before loading a single location.

The problem is similar but different : I started the game with decent loading times between locations (20-30 seconds), but it tended to increase the further I went into the game. After 12 hours of playing, it reached 5 painful minutes before it could reach a simple house. Then it stopped : the games crashes before it can restore any save file.

I tried with my PC offline and online. It doesn't change anything. I can restore older files of the game (still takes two minutes to load a location at 10 hours of playing) but I am not inclined to do that since I am sure the loading times will increase until the game is no longer processing anything. And my config is not incriminate since the game does not slow down at any time of playing except when it comes to loading a location.

I need a solution or a refund.

Thanks,

AJ

 

[AndrewT]

I tried with my PC offline and online. It doesn't change anything.

Then you have a different cause of this problem than this thread is about. Please start your own new thread, and supply info like dxdiag.txt and output_log.txt that you'll see mentioned in almost every thread there. Thanks.