[Zman edit:  This post split from here http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/23664.aspx when it was noted the The Perfect Match (and some other games)takes a very long time on some xboxes to deploy and load. It doesn't occur on everyones xbox, and it never appears in XBLCG on the 360 once a game is approved]



The loading issue is only for .ccgame file deploys. It is just something really funky with the system so we ignore it in our reviews. For some odd reason games deployed from .ccgame files just take a long time to load. This doesn't happen if deployed from the Game Studio IDE or from the Marketplace. As a matter of fact, the Marketplace versions load really fast, even faster than those deployed from the IDE.

It is a pain when you want to review something and have to wait for what seems like forever but in the end, that is just the way it is. BTW this game is available on the Marketplace already. Download the trial and see what I mean.

Trying to fix it is just a stupid waste of time. I've tried it. Our Golden Royal Blackjack was changed right before launch to load the art under the SGN Splash Screen ( It was always designed to, but we didn't activate it until all art was final ). All was nice and perfect. Then we built a .ccgame file. We deployed the .ccgame file before uploading to make sure it was valid. The music finished before the loading was done! OMG now there is a black screen after the splash screen! Then finally the game title appears. After two days of debugging, we gave up. Deploying from the IDE didn't do it. You can't debug a .ccgame file. Fortunately GR Blackjack doesn't load that much so no one mentioned it in review. The game passed, we downloaded it from the marketplace and OMG it finished loading before the music ended and the black screen was gone.

Patrick

I'll try downloading the existing Marketplace version on the same setup...let's see what happens.

I can confirm that we've seen this issue before... though I think this game is the one that has the worst issues. For some reason it only happens on some people's xboxes - mine loads the game quite happily from .ccgame in 18 seconds...

You should really add this issue (and a copy of your ccgame) to connect if you have not done it already. Maybe the MS guys can find what the issue is.

Pass from me.. as always fantastic production values, game still confusing to me.

Well guess what?  I downloaded the version currently on Marketplace and the load time was about 15 seconds.  Same console, same setup, same gamertag, controller, everything.  Just like you said, Patrick.

I hope that this version is the same way when it makes it to Marketplace.  But why should the behavior be so different?

Sorry about the rant!

Weird isn't it. Writer's Block did the same thing on my Xbox. The larger the size and larger the quantity the worse it is, yet the Marketplace version is fine. It is really annoying and seems to be just random Xboxes. I have the older 20 GB HD model and it does it, yet others I know with the "same" model it does not. I've heard of some Elites doing it and others not. It may sound weird but I think it could even be the internet connection, I use wireless for my Xbox. Who knows what Game Studio COnnect is doing behind the scenes. The Marketplace version doesn't use Connect.

Don't feel bad though, you had no way to know.

Patrick

P.S. In the future if you know about it you can plan around it. I had Dylan empty the dishwasher while it was loading since I knew from last time this game was in review that it took forever to load. I only knew the marketplace version was faster because someone playing Blackjack was raving about it so Heather bought it. I was like, man I wouldn't have bought it, that thing takes forever to load. She was like, what are smoking? It loads fast. She never tried the .ccgame version and I hadn't tried the Marketplace version.

...and yet nobody has put the issue in connect. Come on people I got severl snarky comments from the XNA team last week about how many connect issues I raise - even though well over half are ones I put in for folk in these forums. Make sure to link to this thread and list the games we have seen affected.

I have just assumed it really wasn't that important as it doesn't really affect anything once you know about it.

I posted on Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=422247&SiteID=226
I'm not really sure what they can do about it, but at least now they won't go after the Zman for making a Connect issue since I did. ;) However if they mark it as Closed, working as designed it will be the last Microsoft Connect Issue I post. I have to say that Microsoft Connect is the worst part of the process as it doesn't seem to be taken very seriously. I believe this has to do with the fact that even though few developers read the forums, even less go to Connect and vote on the issues. There are currently 200 games on the Community Games channel and most Microsoft Connect issues get like 1 vote if any.

Patrick

OK we're heading off topic now but connect is taken VERY seriously by the team especially for bug reports. The voting process is hit and miss becuase, as you say many people don't bother to vote or even know about it. So the team take their priorities based on business decisions, XNA 'pro' customers and discussions in these forums as well as votes. In fact having a really good discussion on something and linking it in the bug is one of the best things you can do after providing good repro steps or even a repro case uploaded. The worst thing you can do is sadly what many people do - post a vague issue/request with very little background.

OK I decided to split this off, especially since the XNA team are not allowed to read in the review/playtest forums so hopefully they can now see it in here...

The issue for those who do not want to read everything is that for some games deployment and initial loading takes a VERY long time but only on some xboxes. The issue doesn't show itself on the same xboxes once a game is approved.

It appears that many small files may be a contributing factor.

Games that show this are Perfect Match, Writers Block and SGN BlackJack.

When I get some time I'm going to try and reproduce this myself - I think the consensus is that it's on the audio files, is that correct?  I certainly suffered a long load time for Perfect Match so I guess I've got one of the units that's affected.  Maybe there's a threshold number of files that it slows down on.  I'm in the design stage of an audio sequencer applet for which this may well be an issue, so I'd like to find out more about when (if not why) it happens. 

Regards,

Mike

I also noticed that these games slow down the dashboard a lot. When returning from a game it takes 'ages' for the list to fill (even running from a hd).   The delay increases with the number of community titles that are installed but I suspect its linked to the number of files on the HD because the more games I install to the HD the slower the dashboard UI is to repopulate game list.

- René

EDIT: And no the delay does not increase linearly with the number of titles installed.

The slowdown on the 'games' list on the dashboard is a separate, non XNA related issue that that Xbox team are already aware of.

This issue is specifically when you deploy and run games you downloaded from peer review/play test.

There was some speculation of audio files becuase I think Perfect Match has a lot (or a large XACT project can't remember) but really we have not confirmed any repros. Oh and it doesn't appear to happen when you deply from Visual Studio - though that is an incremental deploy so it may just not be visible.

Microsoft responded to the Connect issue:

Hi, Thank you for reporting this issue. We will investigate it further and see if we can narrow down the cause of this game loading performance issue in some cases where the game is deployed via a .ccgame file. Thanks! Aaron Stebner Program Manager, XNA Community Gaming Platform team Microsoft Corporation

Hopefully they will be able to reproduce it.

Patrick

Great, thanks for your efforts in discovering and reporting the issue to them!

Can those of you who can repro this try some things for me?

Looks like Fish Racer Arcade is the current repro game of choice unless you happen to have a copy of  Perfect Match around.

1. Remove the game 100% from your xbox - this means going into the storage settings and removing it - Did that speed it up
2. How much free space do you have on your hard drive? [in case its a full drive issue]. If its not much can you free up space and try again

ANyone local to the Seattle/Redmond area who can repro this might help becuase without a repro case this will be hard to find.

I did happen to have a copy of The Perfect Match around.

The ZMan:

1. Remove the game 100% from your xbox - this means going into the storage settings and removing it - Did that speed it up

No

The ZMan:

2. How much free space do you have on your hard drive? [in case its a full drive issue]. If its not much can you free up space and try again

8.4 GB free ( it is a 20 GB Xbox ). When I last tested I had 1.23 GB free. With Over 8 GB free it was no better.

As a matter of fact. I waited until it was at 45% loaded. Came up here, found the thread, wrote this response, and it is still loading.

The ZMan:

ANyone local to the Seattle/Redmond area who can repro this might help becuase without a repro case this will be hard to find.

Unfortunately I am no where near Seattle.

Patrick

This problem is happening all the time for me, and I'd love to help but I'm also no where near Seattle, wrong country.

Sorry for failing the game in review Star Gaming Network. I saw it as unplayable, but it was my Xbox being annoying, not the game :(

Using Fish Racer Arcade...

The ZMan:

1. Remove the game 100% from your xbox - this means going into the storage settings and removing it - Did that speed it up

No luck.

The ZMan:

2. How much free space do you have on your hard drive? [in case its a full drive issue]. If its not much can you free up space and try again

6.7GB free.

The ZMan:

ANyone local to the Seattle/Redmond area who can repro this might help becuase without a repro case this will be hard to find.

Unfortunately, no again.

Mark

Hi guys,
I'm the developer investigating this issue.  It would greatly help me if anybody that is experiencing the issue reply with the following questions answered for the game exhibiting the behavior.

1) How many files are in the game?  (Please include all content and code assemblies in this list)
2) How many sub directories are used in the content directory layout? (A simple 'dir /s' inside the content directory should show a total for both files and directories at the end.)
3) Is any of the data during game load originating from a saved game container?
4) Are all of the content loads on the main thread or are they done from a worker thread?
5) Is the loading of all content done at the start of the game, or is it loaded last minute before using it?

Thanks

Hi, I didn't know my game was suffering from this issue until it got published, I didn't note a speed difference between debugging from Visual Studio and loading the ccgame, but the Marketplace version loads levels like 10x faster.

Answering aeloros questions:

1) The ccgame contains around 400 files, most of them small XML's and textures. The code is divided in 5 assemblies and the main Exe.
2) 94 directories, 11 of them on the root, the others are spreaded across the tree.
3) No. All the game load is done from the Content dir.
4) Both, depending on the game section, happens on both cases.
5) The load is done before each level, not at game startup, so I suppose is the second option.

I'm using a Custom Content Importer to parse all the XMLs in my game, maybe it has something to do with it?

Hi Aeloros,

I'm too experiencing slowdown when deploying.
1) 14 assemblies + 1391 content files.
2) There are 149 folders.

My game is currently crashing as soon as I start it up, therefore I cannot tell whether load times are slow, too.
3) yes, I load one simple settings file as well as one for storing game progress
4) data is loaded by the main thread as well as by several worker threads
5) most content is loaded as soon as it is needed (mainly when loading a level)

It seems as if deploying the first couple of files is really fast, but all of a sudden there is a significant slowdown.

Thanks for the information!

I've posted some information related to the investigation I did for this issue over on this thread.

Thanks
--Scott