What determines CS:GO’s loading times?
I sat through over 150 loading screens to find some answers.
Here’s my setup, since it’s important to know for this video.
For most of these tests, I loaded the game up and ran the dust2 loading screen 3 times
in a row.
This way I get to see if the first loading time is different from the others.
I would then repeat this 3 times to show the variance in the results.
On highest graphical settings, it takes around 19 seconds to load Dust2 for the first time
and about 17 seconds after that.
On lowest, it’s slightly faster again with the first loading screen taking between about
16 and 18 seconds and ones after that between 14 and 15.
I aim to speed this up as much as I can.
But firstly, let’s try slowing it down more.
We all like RAM.
Can’t get enough of the stuff.
I have 16 GB normally, so I took out some so I was left with 8.
And loading times increased!
Not by much- about half a second on average, but still a bit of a difference.
On low settings, there wasn’t any difference to be seen.
So I lowered my PC down to just 4, which is the minimum that anybody should have in this
day and age.
On high settings, the first loading screen after starting Counter Strike took an additional
3 seconds.
The second or third time I loaded Dust2 also took longer but only by about a second or
so.
On low settings, the results were still the same.
If you play on low settings, you can get away with just 4 GB of RAM.
If not, then the more the merrier.
Back to 16 GB of RAM for the rest of this video, but there’s one more thing I need
to mention: there’s a difference between reloading Counter Strike from the desktop
and rebooting the computer and loading it.
And I’m sorry to say that, to make my life easier, I tried to avoid including this very
first loading screen after a system boot in these tests, but I can briefly summarise what
sort of a difference it makes.
With an SSD, the VERY first load after starting your PC takes an extra 3 to 4 seconds.
But with a hard drive, it effectively DOUBLES this very first loading time.
That’s right- I tested on a hard drive as well.
And I was pleasantly surprised!
Because aside from this massively long first loading time, future loading screens were
actually faster than from my SSD.
And this happened almost every time, both on high and low graphics settings!
Now remember, my Steam and operating system were still on an SSD and Counter Strike had
the whole hard drive to itself, so it’s probably faster than if you’re running everything
from the same hard drive.
But it makes me wonder if you could speed it up further by having two SSDs, with Counter
Strike having one to itself.
If you want to try that then please, do!
I won’t bother.
Let’s test the age-old question: does pressing buttons while the computer’s loading slow
it down?
I alternated between sitting patiently and pretending to play deathmatch frantically
and I’m happy -but somehow also disappointed- to say that it made no difference to how long
it took to load.
The same couldn’t be said for the console being open, though.
It automatically closes when you load a level, but if you quickly press it again it’ll
show up and it made it take 50% longer to load!
Don’t have the console up.
And next up, fps_max.
By default it’s set to 300.
But what if we raise it to 1000?!
Shock, horror, it made the time shoot up to 30 SECONDS- the longest in this video!
On the other hand, if you lower fps_max to 59, which is the lowest it can go, loading
screens go down to under 11 seconds!
This one console command is very powerful and shows just how broken Global Offensive
is Valve please fix.
I blame THIS bit of the loading screen, where the background image fades into view.
This takes a lot longer if the framerate is higher.
I don’t care why.
It simply shouldn’t.
I also tried fullscreen, fullscreen windowed and windowed to see if that made any difference
but it didn’t.
But bear in mind that this was tested on Windows 7!
Since loading screens aren’t boring enough for me, I then downloaded and upgraded to
Windows 10.
And loading times increased by 2-3 seconds, both on low and high graphics settings!
This isn’t good!
HOWEVER, on Windows 10 if you set it to windowed or fullscreen windowed, the loading times
end up being a second faster than on Windows 7 on high settings, and a staggering 5 seconds
faster on low!
It’s here that I saw my first sub-10 second loading time, using low settings on Windows
10 in windowed mode.
And they dropped by a further 2 seconds once I lowered my fps_max to 59.
And this was where I got my lowest time.
Just 7.38 seconds to load Dust2.
But only once it had already been loaded.
But what about if it was on a hard drive as well?!?!
Sadly, it didn’t work this time and actually took a little bit longer.
But I’m happy.
I’ve managed to shave 10 seconds off my original loading times, all through simple,
EZ console commands and options.
I’m sure there are plenty of other things I could have tried but unfortunately, the
excitement of watching the loading screens got too much for me and I had to end it here.
So, as always, Valve, pls fix.