Why do we have to walk out of an area and sit there and look at a loading screen, so we can go to another area via a loading screen, before we can go where we want to go via yet another loading screen, tis time consuming and very boring to watch.

Why cant we simply go from one spot straight into something like Cambridge police station for example, instead of watch three loading screens to get there.

It's how the game is designed. Someone with a better technical background could explain it better than me.

Basically, a Bethesda game is broken down into cells. So those interior areas in a building when you go through a loading screen is loading up a cell, and when you exit it's loading up the exterior cell. Technically, when you're travelling outside it's sort of pre-loading the adjacent cells.

You can only fit so much stuff in a cell before it starts to bog down. You know how a Bethesda game has all those individual items that can be placed and manipulated (and in this game broken down into components.) That's a big strain on memory. Dividing the world into cells helps keep things running smoother, by letting the program only have to process one area at a time. Games without loading screens tend to have more static locations.

When you go into a building it loads just that cell so that you can have more detail in that level. And even then there's an upper limit before you start running into memory issues. Those elevators you run into sometimes? Just a disguised loading screen so they can break the level into more manageable chunks.

It's a trade-off. No loading generally means less items to keep track of (which is why interior levels have more details and items than exterior locations, generally.) If you want more stuff in each location, then you're going to have to find some way to load that into memory.

This is correct, but I'd also like to add that NPCs factor into it as well. Bethesda NPCs are complicated - they've got their own stats, perks, inventories, and AI that governs their schedule, behavior, and how they interact with other NPCs. That's why starting with Oblivion all of their major cities have been separated by a loading screen.

And then, part of it is that it's just easier for them to design this way. Each individual cell can get its own imagespace/ambient lighting data, they have completely free reign to design interiors in whatever shape they need (instead of having to share space with nearby exteriors - notice that a lot of their interiors don't 100% match up with what they look like on the outside), and defining ownership of a cell is easier too.

I guess with a little cleverness and engine tweaks, they could build a world that's 100% contiguous... but I'd imagine having it all load in seamlessly is still their biggest hurdle.

The loading screens never bugged me that much until the latest patch when they went from a few seconds to a minute long.

Open world games that have done away with this have:

1. Less stuff in them


2. Newer engines

Oh i thought it was just me. But yeah mine are now like 20 seconds long and they used to be a lot less

Loading screens are the only thing I hate about Bethesda games

The patent on loading screen minigames has finally run out, right? The story I heard was, some jerkwad came up with that idea 20 years ago and copyrighted it, so no other company could do it.

Looking it up... the patent did expire, pretty much right after Fallout 4 came out. Hey Bethesda, you know what you should add in the next patch? Pipboy minigames! In the loading screens!

(my gods, I wonder if it's possible for a mod author to implement this)

I'm currently playing on a machine with no SSD disk in it, but plenty of RAM. Loading screen for bigger areas is very time consuming (we are talking 30 seconds+) on a non-SSD. Would be neat, if there was an option for those with lots of RAM to preload adjacent cells into RAM on the fly.

I'm in the process of getting a SSD disc (currently upgrading my PC) but my priorities went for GPU and new PSU first and foremost, so I could play newer games well enough. Until then, I'll have to stare at long loading screens *ugh*

I have a pcie x4 ssd and loads screens used to take 2-3 seconds, after current patch now up to 20-30.

They've improved some things, like caves you can just enter without hitting enter, but it still loads.


The worst though is Prydwen. If you want to go to the main section you have to go from outside, enter the small junction area, then enter the main area and vice-versa to exit. Did we really need a whole new load for that tiny junction area?

I get this, but what about RR HQ and the Institution? You can fast travel directly out of there, yet you cannot fast travel directly out of the Cambridge Police Station, nor Prydwen.

To the OP, he describes a scenario where you exit a building -> load screen -> fast travel -> load screen. One step in that process is eliminated via their implementation of RR HQ/Institution as per above.

I'm not sure why they couldn't have applied that to more locations - especially quest-reporting areas - and eliminate at least some load screens. (?)

The worst place is the National Guard Training Center/Barracks. Load in - load out - load in -load out. Why did they have to put that short outside hallway there?

Yeah, I'm on an SSD with plenty of RAM and vRAM and it still takes a while. But it's not actually loading, it's some sort of bug. If you alt-tab out of the game and back in, you'll be loaded most of the time. I'm also getting CTD more often after the last update.

I've been a bit disappointed with the speed of some of their updates for actual fixes. I don't mind them taking a bit longer to get DLC or other types of improvements out. But stuff that makes the game less playable should be getting hotfixed faster. This issue, the level 4 vendors never working, amount of settlers at settlements artificially doubling and dropping your happiness a lot, etc.

Loading screens are just opportunities to pause for the cause.

What memory are you talking about ? The graphics card memory ? The RAM ?

Yes, they use loading screens more than they have to, take prydwen, why have the command deck as its own cell?

Same with all the houses in Goodneighboorhood.

So laziness is part of it, it make it easier to design areas.

Back on PS3 / 360 ram was an major concern as they only had 512 mb ram total.

On PS4 / One its not an problem, more that its cpu costly to keep track of all items and physic.

it also save them for reprocessing all indoor locations every time you get near. loading time for fast travel to diamond city would be many times higher if all houses was open.

Oh yeah I forgot that one. Occasionally you have to kil a couple of ghouls there but that's it for that tiny area. wtf?

I don't mind loading screens, especially when it comes to games like this. However, I won't deny that, after playing World of Warcraft for years, Guild Wars 2's individual zones took some getting used to, as I had been used to free-roaming the world, going from one zone to the next, without seeing a loading screen.

I find going throught multiple zones like inside and outside a house or backdoor...whatever it wont be as long as a load. Depending on how long you've been away from that area. But not sure, maybe im crazy

Yeah, I understand what you are saying for consoles. They have limitations.

But what about PCs ? They can get way more powerful than a console. Let's take the cheapest i7 with a Radeon R9 390 8GB and 16GB of RAM. What would be the bottleneck here if interior cells would be loaded around the player as he moves ?

you do realize the specs for the game are lower than that don't you? Or are you suggesting those should have been the specs?

On the plus side, at least we can alt-tab out and do something else while we wait for it to load now.