Quick Resume between Multiple Titles [2020] [XBSX]

[turkey]

Timed it.

Forca 6 sec gameplay starts
Ori 5 sec gameplay starts
The Cave 4.5 sec freeze but 5.5 sec gameplay starts
Hellblade 5.5 sec freeze 6.5 sec gameplay starts
State of decay 6.5 sec freeze 8 sec gameplay starts

I wonder if simply saving a screenshot as they save state would help. When it loads it Flashes the game logo screen as now when loading then slowly screen wipe to the screenshot, completing as the game resumes and takes over from the screenshot.

Not faster but less static time to make it seem faster. (and cooler)

 

[BRiT]

What is needed to be meaningful is Old Game, New Game, Time Elapsed, and then floors on memory written to SSD and memory read in from SSD.

The following games are at least One X enhanced: Forza, HellBlade, State of Decay. This means at least 9 GB of memory for the game.
The following games are normal Xbox One games: Ori and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition. This means at least 5 GB of memory for the game.
The following games are normal X360 games: The Cave. This means at least 512 Meg of memory for the game.

Sequence shown and my own timings, but are identical to Uknown's except for last load of State of Decay

Spoiler: raw table data

Current Game, New Game, Time Elapsed, Memory Write, Memory Read
State of Decay 2, Forza Motorsport 7, 6 seconds, 9 GB, 9 GB
Forza Motorsport 7, Ori Blind Forest DE, 5 seconds, 9 GB, 5 GB
Ori Blind Forest DE, The Cave, 4.5 seconds, 5 GB, 0.5 GB
Ori Blind Forest DE, The Cave, 5.5 seconds game movement, 5GB, 0.5GB
The Cave, Hellblade, 5.5 seconds, 0.5GB, 9 GB
The Cave, Hellblade, 6.5 seconds game movement, 0.5GB, 9 GB
Hellblade, State of Decay 2, 6 seconds, 9 GB, 9 GB
Hellblade, State of Decay 2, 8 seconds game movement, 9 GB, 9 GB

 

[BRiT]

I wonder if simply saving a screenshot as they save state would help. When it loads it Flashes the game logo screen as now when loading then slowly screen wipe to the screenshot, completing as the game resumes and takes over from the screenshot.

Not faster but less static time to make it seem faster. (and cooler)

Along with that, what if they captured the last 10 seconds of gameplay and simply started playing that video instead of the game logo and fading to the screenshot? Not faster but it might feel more impressive (and cooler)? Like a Game Tivo instant-replay.

 

[see colon]

That's both pretty impressive, but also I feel pointless. Who keeps jumping in and out of games slap bang in the middle like that?! Also, why's this in the UE5 thread? Does it need clean-up again?

My kids. And it's just as annoying as you think it would be.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

A system-level save strategy? Wouldn't that require games to have particular structures to have the restore work the system-approved way?

No, the OS just needs to know that certain memory ends to be saved - it is the engine that has to deal with reloading it once the engine has been restarted.

And would that be any faster than existing save/restore methods? Take an offensive long-loader like Witcher 3. What is it doing that's taking so long? Part will be loading assets perhaps with dreadful seek times, which'll be solved with the next-gen storage. The rest will be world reconstruction. I don't see how a system-level save could be suitable for this for all games and faster than whatever the games are doing already. You'd have to somehow tag memory as whether it's a persistent file or volatile construct, and dump the constructs, and restore the two including pointers to all their memory addresses.

It really depends on the game and how save data is handled, not to mention how the engine actually constructs, reconstructs and manages changes to the world. Not to emission how data is saved. Bethesda's RPGs (Fallout, Elder Scrolls) have a very dense and detailed picture of how the user has influence changed through their world which can result in save game files with tens of megabytes in size - but they load really quick. Mass Effect has small files but re-loads are slow.

I don't think mandating how games store there data is sensible, this will limit developers. But a different load/re-load strategy for resume whereby the core engine is launched, followed by the same state, will save disk space for every swap. The OS just needs to now that some data has to be saved which can be done when memory is allocated. Much other data is empemeral and reconstructed from the save data does not need to stored.

I'm sure a system could be devised, but it strikes me as a lot of work, perhaps hideously constraining on game design, and not really worth it. SD cards are moving towards 4 GB/s and beyond. In a few years, we can probably pick these up cheap and swap games back and forth on internal SSD without too much bother. I think this is one of those cases where it's actually okay to let the hardware do all the work.

It's actually not a huge amount of work and some virtualisation software already does this when you close a running VM. On a console when you allocate memory you flag memory regions as save-state and when you swap out it saves that memory, CPU, GPU and cache. When you swap back in, it loads the engine and proceeds to reconstruct the game state as it was when it closed.

Not all games let you save anywhere at any point so you can't just rely on a game's usual save mechanics, this is why you need two systems.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The only reason it feels jumping in and out is because they didn't want the video to take hours or days to show normal use of their system to switch between games.

But who stops a game right in the middle? Who would stop Forza in the middle of a track, go play three other games, and then want to pick up Forza where they left off? Surely if you had to stop mid game, you'd pick it up and finish where you were? Quick resume for one title, sure. For two, maybe. For five? Well, I guess after a while studying use patterns they can always reduce this.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My kids. And it's just as annoying as you think it would be.

Well yeah, the YouTube generation was vaguely on my mind as I typed that.

 

[turkey]

My kids. And it's just as annoying as you think it would be.

What they have not spoken about is how they are doing signed in user tracking.

I find the kids turn the console off between handing the joypad to their sibling (spite possibly) and I have to sign back in to the same account. Many games seem to "helpfully" detect a change in user so instead of instant resume the game reloads.

Will this state be per game or also per user.

When they get older they might both have their own progress in Forz Horizon 6 or whatever and both want to instant resume their last play session.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

But who stops a game right in the middle? Who would stop Forza in the middle of a track, go play three other games, and then want to pick up Forza where they left off?

I don't know if it's the same but Gran Turismo has endurance races that go on for hours. Maybe you're playing this then you want to switch to another game for an online session with friends, then return later to your race later.

Surely if you had to stop mid game, you'd pick it up and finish where you were? Quick resume for one title, sure. For two, maybe. For five? Well, I guess after a while studying use patterns they can always reduce this.

What if you're a group of online friends and you routinely do your daily quests in a bunch of games? Being able to get back to the lobby after a login reconnect will save a ton of time.

Likewise there are games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing that a lot of people dip into every day. I get you're not seeing value in this, but other people do.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

True. I hadn't factored in the modern workload that gamers want to adopt, following their required todo lists as games pressure them into playing. Hopping in and out of games to satisfy their checklists as quickly as possible and not get penalised for going a day without playing would have value.

 

[Jay]

But who stops a game right in the middle? Who would stop Forza in the middle of a track, go play three other games, and then want to pick up Forza where they left off? Surely if you had to stop mid game, you'd pick it up and finish where you were? Quick resume for one title, sure. For two, maybe. For five? Well, I guess after a while studying use patterns they can always reduce this.

I thought it was up to 5 games?
So might only be 3 xsx games due to size compared to XO and x360 games.

Anyway they probably already have the telemetry that says this is the best number based on games people play and switch between etc.

Even a game like forza horizon I'd like to just jump right back into where i stopped. No going through menu, loading check point etc.
Yea first world problems

 

[AlNom]

Maybe they should just get rid of all the logo videos (that don't hide loading). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[BRiT]

I thought it was up to 5 games?
So might only be 3 xsx games due to size compared to XO and x360 games.

They showed 5, but the their comment and write up says at least 3 Series X games. I'm thinking they allocated under 50 GB for this functionality. Not sure if this might be a separate partition setup. Or if this might require a SLC portion of the SSD or if it'll work as well with QLC/TLC schemes. Or if it might be user selectable preference like with the video recording location and resolution.

 

[Jay]

They showed 5, but the their comment and write up says at least 3 Series X games.

Yea this sounds like what i was expecting/remembered.
I think 3 xsx games is a reasonable amount give or take the BC games

 

[orangpelupa]

IIRC some games on PC already supports skipping intro logos by simple launch option (usually -skipintro or -nointro or -novid). Lots of games (usually unreal games) also can skip intro logos by simply putting 0 bytes dummy files with the same name as the intro files (maybe Microsoft can do this for making old games on BC boots faster?)

But who stops a game right in the middle? Who would stop Forza in the middle of a track, go play three other games, and then want to pick up Forza where they left off? Surely if you had to stop mid game, you'd pick it up and finish where you were? Quick resume for one title, sure. For two, maybe. For five? Well, I guess after a while studying use patterns they can always reduce this.

Anecdotes:

Maybe not for racing games, but for other games I often left it hanging (usually Spiderman and use PS4 hibernate) and do something else (on pc) then play something else (usually destiny 2, and a bunch of vr games on pc) then when I'm back to the first game (Spiderman), I forgot what I was doing in the middle of action.

Way worse on psvita. I used it as a portable emulator machine. So I use save state all the time and I juggle many games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Maybe not for racing games, but for other games I often left it hanging (usually Spiderman and use PS4 hibernate) and do something else (on pc) then play something else (usually destiny 2, and a bunch of vr games on pc) then when I'm back to the first game (Spiderman), I forgot what I was doing in the middle of action.

Yeah, that's the thing. I can understand people watching TV shows mixed up an episode at a time, but do people watched 10 minutes of one thing, then 10 of another, and keep stopping at starting mid-episode? Wouldn't that be discombobulating?

 

[orangpelupa]

Yeah, that's the thing. I can understand people watching TV shows mixed up an episode at a time, but do people watched 10 minutes of one thing, then 10 of another, and keep stopping at starting mid-episode? Wouldn't that be discombobulating?

I can imagine people doing that when there's tons of sale. Buy a b c d e f g. Then try them all. Then refund c d e g because turns out they didn't like those or they are having issues. (except on Epic store. There's no shopping cart haha)

That's what I did with steam sales and play store sales. Although I never refund due to disliking the game I've bought. Only refund for technical issues that can't be resolved. The refund always took ages to arrive on my bank account tho....

I miss demos... Or time limited demos like on 3ds.

 

[Inuhanyou]

this kind of only works in single player games too for obvious reasons....i feel like the idea is neat but the "tab" style system may go underused by people for the most part.

I dont think Sony will actually do a similar thing like some people have been saying they will. They keep acting like they are very confident in their OS speeds are in jumping in and out of games(including wanting to remove splash screens) that such a resume system seems analogous to their goals.

 

[BRiT]

I dont think Sony will actually do a similar thing like some people have been saying they will. They keep acting like they are very confident in their OS speeds are in jumping in and out of games(including wanting to remove splash screens) that such a resume system seems analogous to their goals.

Well they need to remove the other splash screens to make room for their new logo sequence.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Well they need to remove the other splash screens to make room for their new logo sequence.

Sony pictures messing with SIE again?? I remember the days that SCE was desperate to shoehorn in 3D features for games cause Sony pictures wanted to sell 3D TV's(according to Yosp), very forced 'synergy' there.