Horrible DCS load times for first time in the day

[imacken]

Not sure if this has been mentioned by anyone else, but for a long time now, the first loading of DCS in ANY day takes about 3 minutes to get to the menu.

Any subsequent load in that same day is fine, i.e. about 20 seconds.

Is this a common issue or any suggestions to help with this?

[JupiterJoe]

+1

[freehand]

Never taken more than a minute in all the time I have owned DCS my current time from cold is 45s, I have most of the content.

[Textbook]

+1 to the original post. First load up of the day seems to take forever. then when the game inevitably crashes after coming out of the flight session, the subsequent re-boot is speedy, around 45secs to a minute as mentioned in the post above

[PLUTON]

Same at home
very very long first loading
the others are acceptable
and this has been going on for several updates

[imacken]

I wonder what is different about the first loading of the day. 

[Squiggs]

I thought it was just me. By "loading" you mean on the splash screen right because that's where mine has the problem. Only started a couple of weeks ago for me. At first I thought the program was hanging and I kept killing the process but it just takes a really long time.

 

My wild stab in the dark is that the launcher is trying to phone home to some sort of resource and can't find it (perhaps ED changed the location or something). It keeps trying the same location a few times before falling back on an alternate location to get it from and succeeds.

Edited July 3, 2024 by Squiggs

[audiman]

Same issue for me, though I'm on the Steam version. the past month or two it has been SUPER slow to get past the splash screen when first launching. It currently takes 2-4 minutes to launch to the menu which is outrageous.

A year or so ago I found a thread mentioning that you could omit DCS from Windows Firewall and it would load faster, which I found to be true. DCS would load in under a minute normally.

But now it's back to being SUPER slow to launch and I double checked the Windows Firewall settings too.

DCS, for me, is on a 1TB NVME M.2 drive, a Samsung 980 Pro.

[Smashy]

Same thing here.  Taking a look at the log as the first load of the day is happening, my system seems to get hung up trying to do the following:

2024-07-03 12:32:00.615 INFO    SOUND (Main): Added sound path: ./CoreMods/aircraft/F-4E/Sounds
2024-07-03 12:32:00.700 INFO    SOUND (Main): Added sound path: ./CoreMods/aircraft/F14/Sounds

2024-07-03 12:32:01.596 INFO    SOUND (Main): Added sound path: ./Mods/aircraft/F-4E/Sounds
2024-07-03 12:32:02.765 INFO    SOUND (Main): Added sound path: ./Mods/aircraft/F14/Sounds

The timestamps of these logfile entries don't reflect the wallclock time that passes between each log file entry write time.  It takes over 30 seconds to write the F14 entry after the F-4E entry has been recorded.

The directories are larger than other modules but nothing crazy, esp in the CoreMods dirs.  I'm not sure if this is the cause or it's just me.

[freehand]

Try Process Explorer by Microsoft see if something is hanging your system. 

[imacken]

2 hours ago, audiman said:

A year or so ago I found a thread mentioning that you could omit DCS from Windows Firewall and it would load faster, which I found to be true. DCS would load in under a minute normally.

Well, I thought I would give that a go, and today's first launch took 35 seconds!  Now, that may be a fluke, so I'll try again tomorrow.

[freehand]

My dcs drive has always been omitted from the windows firewall thought it was a given.

[imacken]

Why would it be a ‘given’? This is a recent development for me. No problem before that. I’ve never omitted anything in a firewall in my life before. Never had a need. 

[Smashy]

9 minutes ago, imacken said:

Why would it be a ‘given’? This is a recent development for me. No problem before that. I’ve never omitted anything in a firewall in my life before. Never had a need. 

Same here.  Also, @freehand why exclude the entire drive?  Seems like overkill.

[Art-J]

In my case obnoxiously long loading times that came with the first 2.9'ish releases were reduced considerably when I finally decided to exclude the whole DCS folder from defender. Granted, I know it's a controversial solution, but it worked.

[Keith Briscoe]

2 hours ago, Smashy said:

Same thing here.  Taking a look at the log as the first load of the day is happening, my system seems to get hung up trying to do the following:

2024-07-03 12:32:00.615 INFO    SOUND (Main): Added sound path: ./CoreMods/aircraft/F-4E/Sounds
2024-07-03 12:32:00.700 INFO    SOUND (Main): Added sound path: ./CoreMods/aircraft/F14/Sounds

2024-07-03 12:32:01.596 INFO    SOUND (Main): Added sound path: ./Mods/aircraft/F-4E/Sounds
2024-07-03 12:32:02.765 INFO    SOUND (Main): Added sound path: ./Mods/aircraft/F14/Sounds

The timestamps of these logfile entries don't reflect the wallclock time that passes between each log file entry write time.  It takes over 30 seconds to write the F14 entry after the F-4E entry has been recorded.

The directories are larger than other modules but nothing crazy, esp in the CoreMods dirs.  I'm not sure if this is the cause or it's just me.

mine is definitely slower since I got the F4 phantom...

[freehand]

1 hour ago, Smashy said:

Same here.  Also, @freehand why exclude the entire drive?  Seems like overkill.

I have a drive just for DCS I want it untouched by defender etc.

[MAXsenna]

Same issue for me, though I'm on the Steam version. the past month or two it has been SUPER slow to get past the splash screen when first launching. It currently takes 2-4 minutes to launch to the menu which is outrageous.
A year or so ago I found a thread mentioning that you could omit DCS from Windows Firewall and it would load faster, which I found to be true. DCS would load in under a minute normally.
But now it's back to being SUPER slow to launch and I double checked the Windows Firewall settings too.
DCS, for me, is on a 1TB NVME M.2 drive, a Samsung 980 Pro.

You mean you read about a tip regarding excluding it from your Anti-Virus solution, and not the firewall I guess? Some users have reported that their exclusions in Defender somehow vanished so you might want to check again.
Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Talisman_VR]

7 hours ago, imacken said:

Not sure if this has been mentioned by anyone else, but for a long time now, the first loading of DCS in ANY day takes about 3 minutes to get to the menu.

Any subsequent load in that same day is fine, i.e. about 20 seconds.

Is this a common issue or any suggestions to help with this?

Me too.  Getting really fed up with it.  Feels like DCS is on its last legs. 

Tried various solutions, including as per various posts above, but still no joy.

Happy landings,

Talisman

[LOW_Hitman]

Am 3.7.2024 um 11:38 schrieb imacken:

Not sure if this has been mentioned by anyone else, but for a long time now, the first loading of DCS in ANY day takes about 3 minutes to get to the menu.

Any subsequent load in that same day is fine, i.e. about 20 seconds.

Is this a common issue or any suggestions to help with this?

After every patch you have to exclude the DCS main folder and the dcs folder within c:users/saved games/.. from windows defender. After that for me it changed loading times from minutes to seconds.

[imacken]

Today, like yesterday, my load times were OK after adding DCS folder to Windows Firewall omit.

So, could be good news!

[Smashy]

1 hour ago, imacken said:

Today, like yesterday, my load times were OK after adding DCS folder to Windows Firewall omit.

So, could be good news!

Firewall or antivirus?

[silverdevil]

1 hour ago, imacken said:

Today, like yesterday, my load times were OK after adding DCS folder to Windows Firewall omit.

you talking about this?

[imacken]

Yes!

[MAXsenna]

Yes!

That's the Anti-Virus, not the firewall.
Cheers!
Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk