Topic: The reason the Switch has loading times

When the Switch was being announced to use cards/cartridges, a lot of people thought it would mean no loading times. This was a big debate during the N64/PS1 era, where an argument for N64 was that it used cartridges and because of this had no load time.

The reason why the Switch has loading times, and the N64 doesn't is this:

When you insert a cartridge into an N64, the CPU gains direct access to the data on the cartridge and can run the program directly of the cartridge. When you insert a card into the Switch and start the game, the data on the card gets read into the RAM and the program is run from RAM. This process of reading the card and loading the data into RAM is what the loading time is.

The reason why you can't run a modern game directly of a card is that the card is too slow given how much data a modern game has, which would mean massive slow downs if you tried it.

I'm not an expert on this, but here is a video from an expert who explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLEMsw1SjDY

A lot of you probably already know this, but I thought it was an interesting topic. Back when I was a kid I thought it was super interesting how you could keep playing PS1 games after you had taken the disc out of the console.

Peoples just need patiences.
Waiting for several seconds before playing will Not hurt them.
Only Impatient peoples keep moaning about Loading times.

@Agriculture Some GameCube games allow for that as well. I know that most games can be partially loaded onto the system's RAM, so you can take out a disc and keep playing, provided you don't force the game to load something that isn't pre-loaded on the RAM.

Kids today have no patience. When I was growing up, in the 8bit era, a game could take anything from 3 to 15+ minutes to load - if you were lucky: they didn't always load! Truly had time to make a cuppa while watching the squiggly lines on the border do their thing. And listening to the data sounds, hoping that the game would start once the sounds stopped! Those were the days. I appreciated them at the time, but I wouldn't ever go back!

Yes, no disc system run the game of the disc, so it's always possible to keep playing until the disc needs to be read again.

I assume you are talking about tape storage? That's also a very interesting way to store games given that you had to play the entire part of the tape that had the data. Before that, people had to actually type the entire games code that they got from computer magazines.

@Agriculture Probably true, but difficult to test with the other systems. Maybe it works with one of those top-loaded Wii systems.

Yes, as soon as the mechanism for getting the disc out isn't mechanical, most manufactures interrupts the game if the eject button is pressed.

@zitpig Oh, the days of tape storage. And some of the more high-end games would need to reload every time you died. I think I could practically hum some of those data whines.

@zitpig I think you mean prior to 8bit era, the 8bit era is speed run by many gamers, hard to speed run a game with 15-20 minute loads

I remember on the C64 sometimes when the tape was loading this would come up:

@ValhallaOutcast. No, I didn't mean prior to the 8bit era (there weren't that many home computer games prior to the 8bit erea! I did state and mean 8bit era. I was there, with my trusty Amstrad CPC 464 and my mates with their ZX Spectrums and C64s. "Sultan's Maze" on the Amstrad took 17minutes to load from casette tape.

Speed runs don't include initial loading anyway, do they? Once the game was loaded (unless it was a multi-load, as mentioned above), that was it; you didn't have to reload the whole game every single time you died.

@Octane I remember the OoT GameCube disc did that.

Once you loaded either version of the game, you could remove the disc and keep playing the whole thing just fine.

It's interesting how a big previous gen game could fit entirely on the GameCubes ram.

@Yosheel Yep, that's true. You can do the same thing in Mario Sunshine, provided you don't enter a world or go back to the HUB world. I assume the same applies to Wind Waker, since a single island is loaded as a whole, just make sure you don't leave the quadrant you're on.

All games loaded from cartridge, disc or HDD/SDD will have load times to think it won't is just cynical. cartridge is much alike SSD more reliable in load time compared to Optical media where a single bump could cause major fault load time. This is the more likely reason Nintendo uses cartridge based games they will keep doing so. And I will support them on that front.

Switch's load times are still nothing compared to most modern games.
BoTW and Odyssey load an entire open world in seconds. Mario Kart barely has loading times probably disguised in the screens you click through, and Hyrule Warriors takes a few seconds to load a map, but you've got story cinematics to watch.
Longest loads for me are Lego City, but I think it was poorly optomized. still not as bad as joining a map on Xbox One Star Wars Battlefront though.

Back in the day there were some Gamecube games where you could never hear all of the music because they were attached to cutscenes or else. In a few cases, you could eject the disc, and the music went on playing.
I enjoyed being able to listen to parts of the music that were not accessible by regular use.

Switches first party titles seem to have pretty good loading times on the whole. I can load up ARMS and get into an online match before Far Cry 5 is even at its 'continue' screen.

BOTW is an oddity though. Found it really frustrating to fast travel to a shrine - only to watch another loading screen to actually enter the shrine. Should have been a third option.

Don't agree with anyone who says loading times are not an issue though. They can seriously effect the flow of a game. Imagine if the Trials games didn't reload instantly after you died. Compare this to BOTW where, during the DLC boss fights you died -> loading screen -> approach the beast -> cut scene -> loading screen -> play. That feels like a punishment.