"How I cut GTA Online loading times by 70%"

[RedDagger]

https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times-by-70/

 

Fairly technical blog post of someone reverse-engineering GTAO to see what's causing them long load times.

 

Quote

tl;dr

• There’s a single thread CPU bottleneck while starting up GTA Online
• It turns out GTA struggles to parse a 10MB JSON file
• The JSON parser itself is poorly built / naive and
• After parsing there’s a slow item de-duplication routine

 

[Ash_735]

Uh oh, reverse engineer? Take-Two will shut him down. Amazing that the issues were pretty basic to fix in the end and Rockstar NEVER did it in the past six years.

[ScrappyBauer]

10 person modding team

[SlammerRPM]

How to cut GTA Online loading times.

Do you mean your game data from your HD or loading into actual online sessions?

The article seems to address the loading of the actual game files/data from your hard drive. That issue essentially goes away with the next gen consoles and their SSDs.

The TRUE issue is the actual loading into online sessions. Which is a huge headache to everyone. That is on R*s table. They always like to compain that it's the player's fault everything is so slow and people constantly get disconnected. They REALLY need to change the session management system from the current antiquated peer-to-peer networking scheme. Which is basically Windows 95 tech.(1995). They need to go with a server side session hosting solution. not just a server managed solution. Everyone needs to connect to an actual R* server directly using some sort of certificate based authentication along with encryption. That way players with packet capture ability (i.e. modders) can't read individual player data. Players do not directly communicate with each other. Also R* needs to hugely beef up and modernize their server and routing infrastructure to handle peak player loads and add or increase redundancy across all of their worldwide server locations. This also means upgrading and adding more bandwidth to all of these locations.

It's 2021 and R* keeps saying how each new year has more and more people playing GTA Online. And they have made over a Billion Dollars off of it. They need to spend some of that money to remain competitive. Nobody is going to play GTA V Online forever.

FYI, I'm both Microsoft and Cisco certified and work in IT. So I would like to think I might know a bit on the subject.

[Tez2]

I think it's worth noting that the issue is PC-related because that catalog file serves more as server-side authentication for transactions or anything tuneable-related.

 

The console version isn't utilizing said file. So, the enhanced edition isn't likely to fix that since it's more targeted at harassing the power of the next-gen (or current-gen) consoles. Well, actually, we wouldn't have to wait for that since it can be fixed with a simple PC patch.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Tez2

[LarcenousUrsine]

40 minutes ago, Tez2 said:

harassing the power of the next-gen

 

An expression worthy of GTA Online's neverending bloat.

[Spider-Vice]

5 hours ago, Tez2 said:

So, the enhanced edition isn't likely to fix that since it's more targeted at harassing the power of the next-gen (or current-gen) consoles.

It probably will. RDR2 also has tunable files and also parses JSON's because Rockstar didn't stop using those, and it loads much faster than GTAO. Most of the issues portrayed here were already fixed with RDO, but people are already acting like Rockstar killed their families, as always, because no one understands how professional software development and issue prioritisation actually works, and how developers can't just go "whoop de do, new day at work, lemme just select this piece of code and modify it because I saw someone crying on Twitter about it", especially with other projects in development. Big surprise when a lot of people find out most games have a little hack or two (or sixty) like this, just with different consequences.

 

Before anyone starts yelling at me, I'm not saying this shouldn't be tweaked if it's one of the reasons why GTAO loads slow, but it very likely won't with E&E coming, and fully justifiably so. Not to mention E&E will likely defer some of those JSON parsing operations to the main menu (Newswire articles, Social Club bonuses) just like RDR2.

 

 

[futureproof]

OP has a FX-8350, which might as well be a xbox 360/ps3 in comparison to current hardware (amd's zen architecture, intel's 6k+ series or even the new consoles). I'm not saying that R* json parser or code is not sh*t, because it looks like it is. But I would guess that this is not that much of an issue if you own a stronger cpu.

 

edit: should have read more details than skim over it. OP did mentions faster pc having better load times. Well R* bad plz fix

Edited March 1, 2021 by SuperHolySheep

[fuzzyballs01]

completely ignoring the fact that GTAO has been out for what, 7 years now? you think they'd have fixed it by now, and that it wasn't this simple

[sivispacem]

9 hours ago, SlammerRPM said:

FYI, I'm both Microsoft and Cisco certified and work in IT. So I would like to think I might know a bit on the subject.

Broadly I agree with most of what you've said, but I actually laughed out loud when you cited Microsoft and Cisco, both of whose accreditations you get from cereal boxes, as the justification for your authority

[Gridl0k]

I did like how the article references a Blasterman thread

 

Someone mentioned how the bink video player is single core still - just goes to show that some bits of this game were old when it was new.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Gridl0k

[Yellow Dog with Cone]

23 hours ago, Spider-Vice said:

Most of the issues portrayed here were already fixed with RDO, but people are already acting like Rockstar killed their families, as always, because no one understands how professional software development and issue prioritisation actually works, and how developers can't just go "whoop de do, new day at work, lemme just select this piece of code and modify it because I saw someone crying on Twitter about it", especially with other projects in development.

If they have fixed this on RDO already, you'll think that they would have found a way to implement this on GTAO too at this point, right?

 

Yet they still haven't, for whatever reason. And it's not like it's that complicated either, seeing how the author of the original post explained that it was a rather simple solution.

 

Sure, the developers at R* have their own deadlines and stuff they have to focus on, but you'll think that finding a way to decrease the infamous loading times would be one of their priorities or something.

 

And no, people having legitimate concerns and complains isn't "crying", that's just being dismissive of actual issues.

 

1 hour ago, Gridl0k said:

I did like how the article references a Blasterman thread

 

[Gridl0k]

You'd think this wouldn't be a problem on word processors I MADE A COMPSCI JOKE

[Spider-Vice]

14 minutes ago, Yellow Dog with Cone said:

If they have fixed this on RDO already, you'll think that they would have found a way to implement this on GTAO too at this point, right?

 

Not the same engine version. It's a nightmare to backport stuff sometimes.

 

14 minutes ago, Yellow Dog with Cone said:

And no, people having legitimate concerns and complains isn't "crying", that's just being dismissive of actual issues.

 

I thought it was very clear that "crying" does not apply to constructive criticism.

[Geisterfaust]

Logged on today ready to create this very topic, good thing it is already here. Hilarious stuff, just hilarious.

[MayoChiki]

"Just buy a SSD, bro :^)"

[Geisterfaust]

1 hour ago, MayoChiki said:

"Just buy a SSD, bro :^)"

Jokes aside, that helps a lot in the initial stage of game loading. No matter if you're playing Online or not, SSD is a game changer for GTA, speaking from personal experience.

[tsto]

15 hours ago, Geisterfaust said:

Jokes aside, that helps a lot in the initial stage of game loading. No matter if you're playing Online or not, SSD is a game changer for GTA, speaking from personal experience.

 

I concur. I installed a SATA III 2TB SSD in my PS4 Pro early last year and the difference was monumental. I messed around with SSHDs before but they're a waste of money and time. True SSDs are the way to go.

 

I got the PS5 at launch and hooked up the 2TB from the 4Pro as an external for PS4 games. Still runs like a charm. Night and day difference between running this slog of a game on an HDD.

[Jimbatron]

 

22 hours ago, Yellow Dog with Cone said:

 

23 hours ago, Gridl0k said:

I did like how the article references a Blasterman thread

 

 

 

 

To which I reply "do you know him?" and you say "well of course I know him...."

 

What ever happened to that guy out of curiosity (in the same sort of curiosity at asking how the Great Plague of 1665 went away)? For all his drivel, he was actually on to something in this (although not exactly exclusively), I do find loading SP, then Invite Only, then Find New Session is quicker than going straight into Online from the get go. My theory has always been that you don't give the game too much to do in one go as it blatantly struggles. This latest discovery offers the explanation as to why it still takes a fair time to load invite only from SP the first time, but not on subsequent loads.

 

@Geisterfaust is right, SSD does make a massive different to the game's load of assets, but having changed this on my PC a couple of years ago, this problem which affects the first load of Online is still noticeable. There's only so much better hardware can compensate for sub optimal coding. See GTA IV's port (much as I love the game, it's very telling that an RTX 2080 isn't getting 3 figure FPS on a 12 year old game).

 

A bit bizarre that such a basic inefficiency exists. But R*'s a big company, either they gave it to someone who wasn't that strong at the job, or someone who was too busy as rushed it. It's never stopped people buying the game or shark cards, so I guess there's been little commercial incentive to fix it, although it looks like there's a very quick win here.

[Geisterfaust]

1 hour ago, Jimbatron said:

@Geisterfaust is right, SSD does make a massive different to the game's load of assets, but having changed this on my PC a couple of years ago, this problem which affects the first load of Online is still noticeable. There's only so much better hardware can compensate for sub optimal coding. See GTA IV's port (much as I love the game, it's very telling that an RTX 2080 isn't getting 3 figure FPS on a 12 year old game).

Fully agree with you on that, because as my hardware got better since 2015, the actual increase of performance was not that noticeable and sooner I've started feeling that the game is actually getting slower. With further updates that feeling only got worse, tbh. I'm not playing for probably a year now, but in 2020 it was impossible to get stable 60 fps on 1080ti paired with 3700x in 1080p in Online. Laughably, because in modded SP with better assets and higher traffic density the thing was always 60+.

[Excalibur Voltaire]

GTA Online's code is so shoddy, it can't even efficiently analyze lines of code required to run.

If he gets banned for fixing their shoddy code, I'm gonna laugh in disbelief.

[Tez2]

@GaffaTo answer you, yes it has to do with matchmaking. Finding the better-suited host and other factors.

[Gaffa]

4 minutes ago, Tez2 said:

@GaffaTo answer you, yes it has to do with matchmaking. Finding the better-suited host and other factors.

So "a lot of work, probably" to get fast load times, consistently, across all the consoles? 

[dieseltech20]

Can download and install the fix for PC but I'm not too sure about it.

[suicidal_banana]

52 minutes ago, dieseltech20 said:

Can download and install the fix for PC but I'm not too sure about it.

 

I'd steer clear of it & hope R* sees all the attention this gets and properly fixes it themselves, long story short the dll:

- might cause false positives leading to a ban, and that would suck

- might be shady & trying to steal data (R* social crap login?) and that would suck too

 

If you want this fix badly just spam the feedback thing here:

https://www.rockstargames.com/GTAOnline/feedback

[rollschuh2282]

57 minutes ago, suicidal_banana said:

- might be shady & trying to steal data (R* social crap login?) and that would suck too

i mean...it´s open source.

so you can just check the code and download and compile it yourself.

but yeah, i personally wouldn´t risk it

Edited March 7, 2021 by rollschuh2282

[dieseltech20]

1 hour ago, suicidal_banana said:

 

I'd steer clear of it & hope R* sees all the attention this gets and properly fixes it themselves, long story short the dll:

- might cause false positives leading to a ban, and that would suck

- might be shady & trying to steal data (R* social crap login?) and that would suck too

 

If you want this fix badly just spam the feedback thing here:

https://www.rockstargames.com/GTAOnline/feedback

I don't really want it, load times never really bothered me all that much. Mostly just putting it out there.

 

The DLL that I saw is loaded AFTER the mod menu, so any ban I got from it would not be a false positive.

Edited March 7, 2021 by dieseltech20

[suicidal_banana]

1 hour ago, rollschuh2282 said:

i mean...it´s open source.

so you can just check the code and download and compile it yourself.

but yeah, i personally wouldn´t risk it

 

Ah didn't know that, I just based my reply on seeing mention of a ready-to-use dll in my google news feed from the usual trashy websites, didn't click to actually read those articles for obvious reasons, my bad I guess.

[Tez2]

19 hours ago, Gaffa said:

So "a lot of work, probably" to get fast load times, consistently, across all the consoles? 

Considering that Rockstar always says there have been improvements to matchmaking with each update, you would think they have experimented with all sorts of methods to reap faster load times. Regardless, the same traditional matchmaking is applied here. It looks up nearby hosts based on geolocation, checks connection quality to cherry-pick hosts, and expands search scope if no decent hosts are found.

 

I ran some tests on my Xbox Series X to see how long it takes to load up online. It takes 33-34 seconds to load up into an invite-only session (I even checked a yt vid of a fellow console player, and it takes nearly the same timing to spawn in), so with that in mind, subtract it from the public lobbies tests. Most of them still took a minute of matchmaking to spawn in, one run took nearly a minute and a half, and the worst one took me 3 minutes, which of course, landed me in a session with remote players. Overall, with pure loading and matchmaking, it takes me at minimum a minute and a half to land into a session.

 

In my case, even if that 33-34 seconds became instantaneous, it would still take me a minute to spawn into public lobbies, but obviously the timing will differ from one player to another and is also dependent on the factors above. So, I don't imagine it's a case of "a lot of work", since it's more of dealing with those outside factors.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Tez2

[kenmy13999]

29 minutes ago, Tez2 said:

Considering that Rockstar always says there have been improvements to matchmaking with each update, you would think they have experimented with all sorts of methods to reap faster load times.

And they still haven't succeed with either better matchmaking or faster loading times