Can you have too much user content on PS3?

[Grinchy]

Yep there's no doubt that the more mods you install the longer the game takes to do its initial load. This wouldn't actually bother me either if it weren't for having to install mods one at a time. The 4th time you sit through the initial loading screen you're ready to stop putting on new maps. That was good of Erp to test it officially like that though.

I would assume that the way the mods are installed could easily be changed so that you can have multiple mods on the USB stick at the same time. That would solve all of my problems, that's for sure. I don't mind the process of putting mods on, it's just that doing them one at a time is quite tedious.

On top of this: I've also noticed the time to unpack a mod in UT3 extends considerably when adding more and more content.

I noticed that too. Even the really tiny mutators take longer to unpack now. I'm ok with all of this if we can start putting more than 1 mod on a USB stick at a time.

[Erp]

The 4th time you sit through the initial loading screen you're ready to stop putting on new maps.

Yeah, espcially since adding more mods also slows down the unpacking process on the PS3 so installing mods is gonna be a sleepy business.

I would assume that the way the mods are installed could easily be changed so that you can have multiple mods on the USB stick at the same time. That would solve all of my problems, that's for sure. I don't mind the process of putting mods on, it's just that doing them one at a time is quite tedious.

Very good idea, I was thinking about that from the beginning. Also, it would be great if UT3 had some sort of shortcut to this forum. I mean, we could also upload mods to filefront without zipping them, right? That way, UT3 could just grab the USERDATA.JAM file and install that from the PS3. It wouldn't matter if we only saw links (with updatable headers) of PS3 mod releases. It also wouldn't matter if you had to install them one at a time then. And it would take away the threshold of less tech savvy users to install / run mods. At least, this way leaves the PC and USB sticks out of the equation. The PS3 has a browser already so that part is solved IMO. They just need to make UT3 use the browser's functionality.

Well Mark (Rein), sounds like a plan? I'm pattenting the idea right away. For a louzy €200.000 you can use my technological barrier breaker.

I noticed that too. Even the really tiny mutators take longer to unpack now. I'm ok with all of this if we can start putting more than 1 mod on a USB stick at a time.

Yeah, its really cumbersome this way.

[Tailsnake]

The problem seems to have to do with the unreal game data file on the PS3 HDD. The larger the file gets the longer it takes to read the file and the longer it takes to unpack/repack the file in order to add even a small mutator. The only way I could really see epic fixing this is changing the way mods are stored on the PS3 entirely (possibly just storing a list of the mods in the main game data file as reference and having the actual mod data stored as individual savedata files), but I can't really see them doing this for a while (especially not in the first patch).

[Erp]

...possibly just storing a list of the mods in the main game data file as reference and having the actual mod data stored as individual savedata files), but I can't really see them doing this for a while (especially not in the first patch).

Which is exactly how it should work. Why would they load in all the content 1st? My guess is it already works this way, it wouldn't make any sense doing it different. They should adress this is the 1st patch IMO. It hinders people from installing content, which is already to cumbersome for most users (if I look at my friendlist)...

[mage626]

I completely agree with the one mod at a time issue. Since it is just a loading screen problem and not an issue all the time, I have no problem waiting just to play, but when i want to add 3 maps, its a pain.

Even if epic doesnt fix the loading issue period, at least they could change that...i mean, doesnt the PC version do it differently?

[Tailsnake]

since discussion around this seems to have started again and we know have the attention of the developers at epic, consider this a friendly bump

[mage626]

yeah, I will bump this again too. The maps and mods i want never end, but my load time gets longer and longer.

Help epic!

[haslo]

Even if epic doesnt fix the loading issue period, at least they could change that...i mean, doesnt the PC version do it differently?

I'd guess that the PC version loads (or at least, scans) everything upon load as well. It's inevitable for some mods - like, the Ripper mod? It lets you select the Ripper in your weapon priorities in the menu as well. Map's preview screenshots? Those are actually stored as a 512x256 texture in the map file itself.

The thing is just that the PC has way more RAM (Gigabites, vs. the PS3's 512MB) at its disposal, so it can easily hold everything in there - and when RAM useage approaches its limits, the cost of memory handling increases as well. Also, the PC has more HDD (mine has 800GB), and thus there's no need to pack / unpack stuff, making the load faster yet again; and the PC also has a "proper" file system, making it easy to just dump custom content into dedicated folders that can consequently be loaded easily by the game.

I agree with you though that it would be great for PS3 users to have no barriers when it comes to custom content - apparently, Sony didn't really have that in mind when designing the console, and Epic now has to find (and has found) ways to make it work anyway

[mage626]

Thats understandable, i didn't even think about the RAM idea. That would be great if EPIC could get around that

Here's another question though: how does the PC import mods?

I think one issue isn't so much the load time period, but PS3 loads mods one at a time, so if you want multiple mods, thats multiple load times.