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Aloading screen is a screen shown by acomputer program, very often avideo game, while the program is loading (moving program data from thedisk toRAM) or initializing.
In early video games, the loading screen was also a chance for graphic artists to be creative without the technical limitations often required for the in-game graphics.[1] Drawing utilities were also limited during this period.Melbourne Draw, one of the few 8-bit screen utilities with a zoom function, was one program of choice for artists.[2]
While loading screens remain commonplace in video games, background loading is now used in many games, especiallyopen world titles, to eliminate loading screens while traversing normally through the game, making them appear only when "teleporting" further than the load distance (e.g. usingwarps orfast travel) or moving faster than the game can load.
Loading screens that disguise the length of time a program takes to load were common when computer games were loaded from acassette tape, a process which could take five minutes or more.[1] Nowadays, most games are downloaded digitally, and therefore loaded off the hard drive meaning faster load times. However, some games are also loaded off of anoptical disc, quicker than previous magnetic media, but still include loading screens to disguise the amount of time taken to initialize the game inRAM.
Since the loading screen data itself needs to be read from the media, it actually can increase the overall loading time. For example, with aZX Spectrum game, the screen data takes up 6kilobytes, representing an increase in loading time of about 13% over the same game without a loading screen.[1] Recently, however, more powerful hardware has significantly diminished this effect.
The loading screen does not need to be a static picture. Some loading screens display aprogress bar or a timercountdown to show how much data has actually loaded. Others, recently, are not even a picture at all, and are a small video or have parts animated in real time.
Variations such as the progress bar are sometimes programmed to inaccurately reflect the passage of time or extended during loading; opting instead for artificial pauses or stutters. This can be done in games for a multitude of reasons which includes encouraging players to engage with exposition during time away from gameplay and providing the player with an immersive transition between scenes. One notable example of this practice being used is for thereal-time strategy gameAge of Empires, where programmerGreg Street describes his method of timing visual loading queues with appropriate script queues when loading a randomly generated map.[3][4] Other developers describe the necessity of an artificial loading timer despite technical advancement making modern loading times near-instantaneous to allow the player a smooth transition between gameplay segments.[3] This technique has grounds in the perceived perception of performance denoted by loading times. This perception of loading times can be altered by factors such as the movement of a progress bar.[5]
Other loading screens double as briefing screens, providing the user with information to read. This information may only be there for storytelling and/or entertainment or it can give the user information that is usable when the loading is complete, such as mission goals or useful gameplay tips. Infighting games, the loading screen is often a versus screen, which shows the fighters who will take part in the match.
Some games have even includedminigames in their loading screen, notably the 1983Skyline Attack for theCommodore 64 andJoe Blade 2 on theZX Spectrum.One well-known loader game wasInvade-a-Load. Another example is"the shop keepers quiz" inDota 2 which was more of a game finding screen rather than loading screen.
Namco has used playable mini-games during loading screens. Examples include variations of their old arcade games likeGalaxian orRally-X as loading screens when first booting up many of their earlyPlayStation releases. Even many years later, theirPlayStation 2 games, likeTekken 5, still used the games to keep people busy while the game initially boots up. Despite the Invade-a-Loadprior art, Namco filed a patent in 1995[6] that prevented other companies from having playable mini-games on their loading screens, which expired in 2015.[7][8][9][10][11][12]EA Sports games have "warm up" sessions. For example,FIFA 11 has the player shooting free-kicks solo andNBA Live 10 has 2-player shootouts, while the game loads.NBA Live 08 features a 4-player general knowledge quiz. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of THQ'sMX vs. ATV: Untamed lets the player partake in a free-ride session on the test course.
Some games like a number ofCall of Duty titles havecutscenes that give an introduction to the level while the game loads in the background. Normally, when the level is completely loaded, the remaining portion of the cutscene may be skipped. The video may not necessarily apply to what is happening in the level, asRed Faction: Guerrilla sometimes shows news reportsforeshadowing events that willbecome important later on, or give tidbits about the game's universe.
On theCommodore 64, tape loading screens would often have music in the form of achiptune making use of the machine's advanced SID sound chip.
