Grand Theft Auto Online Player Gets $10,000 For Fixing Long Loading Time

 

Grand Theft Auto Online, like the previous games in the series, has proven a popular game since it's release in 2013. But there was a problem. The game has a long loading time. One 2020 Reddit poll of 271 players had almost half taking three to six minutes and some were needing over fifteen. Finally, one player calling himself T0ast decided to look into the problem. He found the cause was badly optimized code and bottlenecking from the came loading from just one CPU. After some fixes, he found he loading time was reduced by almost 70 percent. He uploaded the fixed code, though pointed out it was more of a "proof of concept" than a solution, and called on the game's producers at Rockstar to fix the code, "the problems shouldn’t take more than a day for a single dev to solve."

Word soon spread about T0ast's fix, and eventually Rockstar took a look, and concluded, "After a thorough investigation, we can confirm that player t0st did, in fact, reveal an aspect of the game code related to load times for the PC version of GTA Online that could be improved. As a result of these investigations, we have made some changes that will be implemented in a forthcoming title update."

T0ast would state he was awarded $10,000 USD from Rockstar, sayng amounts of this size were usually given out for helping with security and privacy issues, but were making an exception with him, "Thanks to R* for taking the time to look into this and the generous bounty!"

Source: PC Gamer 

Hat Tip: Spooked Dreamscape, Khyra Ares

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: Coronavirus Shut-ins Leading to Slower Internet, and Slower Second Life

When the news stories of people being told to stay at home started going around, social introverts whom felt happier online than engaging in plenty of public events could be forgiven for feeling a little smug. While extroverts would have to struggle to get used to the routine, people whom already spent a lot of time on the Internet and other places such as online gaming and virtual worlds, notably Second Life, seemingly wouldn't have to make any sacrifices.

But as it turns out, Internet introverts do have to give up something: the higher speeds they've been used to.

Articles, such as one in Fortune magazine, suggests that with more people using the Internet due to the people staying at home, the result is comparable to more traffic on a road leading to slowdowns. Several services such as Netflix and Youtube are reducing movie quality.

So what does this mean for Second Life? While periods of glitches and lag are nothing new to the virtual world, a number of my friends have told me it's been getting worse. While Sony made the decision to reduce downloading speed in response, Linden Lab is unlikely to mess with the quality of data transmission.

What can be done about all this lag? The best way is to go to one's Preferences and reduce quality, draw distance, or both. For those whom it's already low, they may have to avoid coming on peak times.

So it seems for now, we're having to deal with "Corona lag."

Sources: Fortune, PC Magazine

Bixyl Shuftan