Slow startup of the game

[vladdu]

Hi all, I'm taking it slow with SpaceAge, it's a lot of fun so far. I notice though that starting the game is very slow, it takes a couple of minutes for all the sprites and whatnots to load. This is only the first time after restarting the PC, if I restart the game it's faster. I take it that there is some caching involved, but my question is why doesn't the cache survive the PC restart?

[MechBFP]

It is caching it into RAM. RAM doesn’t survive computer restarts, or if something else you are doing when not playing the game ends up overwriting that part of the RAM (like playing a different game).

[vladdu]

I see, thanks! I asked because if I start up to the menu, close Factorio and restart it right away, the second time is significantly faster. The RAM used by the application should have been released. Anyway, I guess the real question was if it's only on my machine or that's how it is.

[Panzerknacker]

It is much slower with Space-age enabled yes, the game is much bigger now, that's why it needs more time to load.

[MisterDoctor]

upgrade to SSDs? just a guess but one of the more important upgrades you can get these days

[MechBFP]

I see, thanks! I asked because if I start up to the menu, close Factorio and restart it right away, the second time is significantly faster. The RAM used by the application should have been released. Anyway, I guess the real question was if it's only on my machine or that's how it is.

RAM gets released, but it doesn't get wiped until something else takes it and uses it. It stays there until something purposefully overwrites it (or the RAM loses power and therefore loses the data).

[Ranec1]

Look up memory mapping and page cache if you are interested.

There is volatile application memory programs use while executing. This is wiped each time the program stops.

Separately the operating system or program can pull parts of files from disk into memory for readonly purposes. Think things like images/textures/sprites or executable code. These stick around unless the memory is needed for other purposes (oversimplification on that last part ).

[r3nt5ch3r]

I recommend enabling "cache-sprite-atlas". I'm using it for years and it reduces the startup time a lot. I don't know why this is not standard yet. This cache is also persistent.

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