SvennoJ said:
Maybe it's very different from the other souls games, but as I remember it is you die, you go back to the last bonfire, everything resets, except the stuff that you left lying around. Cache the pristine start area as 1 chunk and apply the change log you have already.
Yes it gets slow when you create a new instance, allocate and load each object separately. You don't have to do that, you can create a fully initialized start state and apply changes from there. It's harder to debug sure, but direct memory writes shouldn't be an issue on consoles.
I've done plenty such optimizations in the past. It's not part of the standard object oriented guide of practice, but screw that, it's just a block of memory with a bunch of pointers in the end. Especially on consoles you have full control of the memory layout.
I worded it wrong by using the word lazy I realize. Developers are anything but lazy. It's the easy, safe, initial get it working way. I bet they already had a much faster loading version ready. The fact that they announce a patch for the loading times on release day says 2 things: They were well aware of the problem, and a proven significant improvement is currently stuck in the testing stage.
I've been there myself. Work overtime to get big improvements ready months before release. Then management comes by: We reverted to an older version since those changes have only been in stress testing for 2 weeks and figured it would be a good thing to add in a later patch to sneak in / draw attention away from a bunch of less pleasant fixes.
I'm not hating on the game, just annoyed with the process of how these things go. As a buyer I'm not getting the finished version on disc. As a developer I read complaints in reviews that have been solved long ago.
Anyway I'm buying the game first opportunity I get. However I'll finish the new DC content first (The Lamborghinis events are great so far) and wait for the finished version before starting the game.
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you have to load that state from hdd when you die, regardless, because that state cannot sit in memory for the exact same reasons the game dumps obsolete data from memory when not in use and streams in new data as you progress.
the configuration isnt the issue, parsing the required data for the area is.
dumping a state to memory is not a fix, its an illogical waste, as you progress the state becomes obsolete, frequently updating the state in memory requires a variable pool, wasting a chunk of memory that the game needs for streaming its assets as you progress.
Let me put it bluntly.
Instanced states is not possible on consoles, there is not enough memory, and saving state to hard drive would decrease load times SLIGHTLY for disk based games, but INCREASE load times for digital download versions.
As someone with extensive experience working with memory management for shaders and texture data, as well as model lod, uvw streaming and as an ex employee of From software, I will simply leave it at this, your view of memory management does not work for the XBO or PS4.
