Notorious loading times on C64... is that normal?
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I'm absolutely not familiar with Commodore 64. I've always been a "console kid" and back in the day the only experience I had with a micro computer was playing some games on a schoolmate's Amiga 500.
I installed both VICE and lr-vice and tried out several titles. They all load fine but I get those loading colourful lines and it takes minutes for each game to load. I literally went to fry eggs and when I came back I was able to start playing after a few seconds!
I remember hearing this being a thing back in the day: micros taking forever to load games. But is that normal for emulation? Is there a setting to avoid the negative aspects being emulated?
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@matchaman lr-vice auto runs warp during loading. Vice you have to turn it on then turn it off once you get to game. In real life on a c64 the load times are far longer for cassettes and floppies. 30 minutes or so I believe.
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@edmaul69 vice has auto-warp, that's where lr-vice got it from :)
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Thanks, I'll check auto-warp :)
@edmaul69 said:
In real life on a c64 the load times are far longer for cassettes and floppies. 30 minutes or so I believe.
Sweet mother of God! No wonder consoles took over the marked since the NES era...
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@matchaman Note, if you are using Tapes then Warp mode sometimes only warps the first part and then continues at the original speed. This could be what you experienced in your first post, (also happens with some disks). You should map the warp feature to a button so you can turn it on or off at will. The last time I tried lr-vice the Warp mode didn't actually warp as it is using the SID 6581 sound which is more accurate and the RPi doesn't have the power to warp, not sure if it's been changed now, I haven't tried as regular Vice does everything I need and is fully mappable to Gamepads.
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Ahhh, the joy of tape based games ..... waiting an hour for a big game to load then find it crashes as the tape heads are slightly out of alignment so you have to tweak the tapeheads and try again. Hoping you haven't done it to much and messed all your other tapebased game up
ZX-81 was just coming out when I was in the last couple of years of school and the wobbly RAM pack was the biggest issue then. Being able to play a game in your own home was an amazing sight
The BBC Model B was years ahead of its time when that came out and that used sequential tape loads as most people couldn't afford the disc drives. That could take agggges, and involved fast forwarding or rewinding the tape if you were using the intro tapes. Insert side B, now insert side A and it was actually suggested writing down the tape counter so you knew where to play the next part from in the instructions !!
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@steptoe ZX Spectrum Hyperload. Didn't load faster and made it easier to corrupt a tape!
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30 minutes? Not on a C64, you could get about 10-15 games on one side of a C60 ;)
Was a small relief when 'Invaderload' arrived, and the joy of an Action Replay cartridge, that could crunch time down when used.
Happy days, although even with this modern era of gaming, some games have me crying at them long loading times (Yeah any WWE 2k title).
As mentioned, set a button for 'Warp Speed' or slow it down, listen to some of them awesome loading tunes (Rambo) and admire the great loading screens.
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@madrikxiv said in Notorious loading times on C64... is that normal?:
Happy days, although even with this modern era of gaming, some games have me crying at them long loading times (Yeah any WWE 2k title).
That's why I prefer "indie" games, or those who are several years old. They tend to load and run delightfully fast on my not-so-often upgraded hardware.
For example, I played through System Shock 2 again a year ago and every level loaded in seconds, whereas right after its release in 1999, you could go for a walk or clean your flat until you could actually start playing. :p In addition, the co-op multiplayer is way more stable on today's hardware than it was back then when it lost sync on a regular basis.
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I've got an early PS3 that I have had hardware jailbroken so I can play off an external USB hard drive, the loading times for Sonic Adventure are pathetic. Cut-scene again, ohhh joy. Loading level ... please wait. arghhhh
As for disk swapping, that was the joy of having an Amiga and multiple disk games even with 2disk drives. Rise of The Robots AGA was tedious. Hence I didn't play it after first couple of games. Insert disk 1, insert disk 3, insert 1, insert disk 3 ... again. All 13 disks
Maybe why I never really took to consoles. No fun. Just plug 'n' play. No waiting to play the game and playing it to death just so you didn't have to wait forever for the next game to load
I used C120's to 'backup' my C64 tapes with a nifty device I bought from a magazine. No internet. Then took it apart to find it was just one chip to reverse the bits and cost me a fortune to buy for a couple of pounds of IC
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@steptoe said in Notorious loading times on C64... is that normal?:
I've got an early PS3 that I have had hardware jailbroken so I can play off an external USB hard drive, the loading times for Sonic Adventure are pathetic. Cut-scene again, ohhh joy. Loading level ... please wait. arghhhh
As for disk swapping, that was the joy of having an Amiga and multiple disk games even with 2disk drives. Rise of The Robots AGA was tedious. Hence I didn't play it after first couple of games. Insert disk 1, insert disk 3, insert 1, insert disk 3 ... again. All 13 disks
Maybe why I never really took to consoles. No fun. Just plug 'n' play. No waiting to play the game and playing it to death just so you didn't have to wait forever for the next game to load
I used C120's to 'backup' my C64 tapes with a nifty device I bought from a magazine. No internet. Then took it apart to find it was just one chip to reverse the bits and cost me a fortune to buy for a couple of pounds of IC
The annoyance on games like Batman the Movie, get to second level on C64, wait for it to load, die quickly, back to reloading level one (The Action Replay Cartridge was such a bonus to save level 2)
I recall the might of the Amiga 1200 with the built in hard drive, was a revolution for me, Monkey Island 2 was playable at last.
I know it cost a fortune way back then, and was tiny in size, never thought that one day, my humble Amiga would be running with a 4gb hard drive, and USB drive.
I looked at the loading times as a chance to forage for food and toilet break...
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@madrikxiv said in Notorious loading times on C64... is that normal?:
I looked at the loading times as a chance to forage for food and toilet break...
You have a point there, quick loading games are sometimes very bad (and painful) for my bladder. :)
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if you use the standalone vice emulator, you can configure it to use a turbo cartridge by default, which can significantly speed up loading from disks etc, without having to use warp mode in the emulator (which is limited due to CPU speed on RPI).
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