I fully agree.
Who is we?
Everyone on this thread says that you and your PC is a problem dude 
Everyone literally tells you that removing the cinematic will not speed up loading times, what is it that you are not able to comprehend?
Many people requested⊠Many people voted for Kamala
Cope 
Now go and get a modern PC, your sluggish laptop is not meant for gaming in 2025 dude. Itâs you and your PC at the source of your problem.
I agree, black screen is better than reading posts from Karens, Gregs and Terrys. They ignored your small but audible bunch for 7 years and itâs not going to change now.
Why does it sometimes take forever to load and sometimes it starts instantly?
When I was still playing first load of the day after a server restart was always the longest to load. After that it was quick enough.
Funcom did mention that the loading times have been reduced. Have you noticed any change yourself? Iâm usually playing without mods and I didnât notice that change.
Itâs faster for me now then it was before the update, but that just makes it load as fast as it did 6-8 months ago. So âfasterâ is back to normal 
Thatâs mostly true, but not entirely.
The setting for âbWaitForMoviesToComplete=â does nothing as far as startup times go. Whether you set it to True or False the load times are the same.
The only settings that matter for startup time are:
bMoviesAreSkippable=True
+StartupMovies=StartupUE4
+StartupMovies=StartupNvidia
+StartupMovies=CinematicIntroV2
The âskippableâ setting should be obvious, I hope, and each of the three videos adds a bit of time to the overall startup time, even if you press a key to cut off the cinematic.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it⊠Deacon announces that water is still wet!!!
Youâre misinterpreting what said, I wasnât comparing different computers with different specs, I was addressing the fact that the start times can be different on the same computer depending on whether or not you configure the game to skip the videos. Enabling or disabling the videos can change the load time for an individual computer.
Yes, in fact it does. If you own a newer, faster computer then you wonât notice the difference, you might not even be able to measure it. But on an older/slower computer and many laptops, the difference can be observed (sometimes) and absolutely can be measured.
Well since you asked so nicely, and clearly you donât understand computers as well as you think you doâŠ
âŠitâs a basic, fundamental truth of standard computers that the more tasks you have them do the slower each of those tasks will run. This is especially true for single-threaded applications like the FunCom launcher. The launcher has to interrupt the work itâs doing while loading the game to load the video, play the video, and unload the video. The startup & teardown are most of that time, but even the time it needs to read the disk for video content can have an affect (to be fair, this portion of the slowdown is tiny, so what really matters are actions the computer has to take to prepare to play a video and to unload the video when itâs done or interrupted.
Therefore, by skipping the videos you are skipping the time that the computer spends building up and tearing down the processes for each of the three into videos.
Again, on newer/faster computers that time might not be noticeable or measureable (even with a stopwatch), but on older/slower computers the time can easily be measured. Skipping the video prevents the computer from wasting compute resources that are consumed by loading, playing and unloading the video.
Wrong again. No matter how many times you repeat yourself youâre still going to be wrong.
Goodness what a brilliant riposte, Iâm sure all of your fan is drooling on themself with admiration.
And many times they didnât.
Regardless of whether each individual thought it makes a different in the load times, itâs an annoyance that many people dislike, that FC could have easily fixed years ago, and that plenty of other games do better. Itâs completely absurd that such an easy thing to fix is still coming upon the forums after all these years. One single checkbox in the settings could have made this complaint go away years ago.
Too bad your nail is in the wrong place. So many times being wrong.
Nonsense, those threads already exist, and plenty of them. They exist because the load times are bad and are still bad even if you remove the annoyance of the video.
In point of fact, not opinion, at least some of them are complaining about the video regardless of load times.
Some people who have complained about this have made it very clear that itâs not about load times, itâs about lack of respect for individual preferences.
I never said I was, youâre making up a fake argument to argue against.
Bzzz! Wrong answer.
The person who posted just before you agreed with me. You really should take a moment to read before you say things that are so obviously wrong.
And everyone who says that is mistaken, they are wrong, they are factually incorrect.
Read the previous post for an explanation. You, like Deacon, donât understand computers as well as you think you do.
You clearly havenât figured out that load times is not the most important problem in this discussion.
The most important problem is FunComâs lack of respect for individual preferences. And the fact that you donât respect other peopleâs right to have different preferences from you shows that you are also part of the problem.
Good software design respects individual preferences. Whether youâre running Windows, Mac, Linux or something else, you have the ability to choose your own screensaver, your own wallpaper, your own theme and color scheme, and the O/S remembers and respects your right to your individual preferences.
Bad software design ignores individual preferences, and itâs especially bad when itâs something that could be fixed so easily. The fact that you also fail to respect individual preferences shows that youâre just as much a part of the problem as FunCom is.
Yes, it seems to me people ought to know that, but time after time Iâm proven wrong.
âoh noooo, the intro has started and I canât go to another application, I must set here and watch the entire videoâ.
Bullshit, unless there is some glitch, the video running has jack to do with the game loading.
Please PROVE IT, other wise itâs speculation.
I will concede a personâs PC can be so crap it just can not run the video AND load the game with out lag. But then if the was true the PC wouldnât be even close to minimum requirements.
See previous paragraph.
You mean PCs not fathoms below minimum requirements.
Wrong again. No matter how many times you repeat yourself youâre still going to be wrong.
Nice response for not knowing what typical means.
Typically I read 10X more threads then I respond to. So me actually posting in a thread is atypical.
If you knew what typical meant you would know it didnât apply.
You donât know any better then I so donât play like you do.
None the less since I read a lot in 2 Conan forums my experience is people think the loading video is WHY the game takes so long to load.
Sounds like an unsubstantiated assumption to me.
yes, and they wouldnât have the loading video to blame then. That is the only difference I see. Be worth it to stop the âhow to I turn off the loading video threadsâ. I donât see any other way to convince people itâs not the video causing the long load times.
And most do not know the difference.
You know Iâm right, a good number of people are going to blame what is in front of them for their issue.
But you seem to think you speak for âlots of peopleâ, when you are just speculating.
Cat piss in your corn flakes this morning?
Just got time on your phone?
Youâre responding to days old posts.
Unless you can actual prove other wise you can not prove them âfactually incorrectâ.
Oh do we need to start this 
Oh I donât think youâre that much of a problem
Fascinating bit of logic there, please explain.
I havenât read anyone say the option to skip the loading video was a bad thing. Iâm all for it if it will end this crap.
I also donât recall anyone saying if you want to folder dive or change the ini, not to. Iâve just vehemently pointed out, it really wont change load times.
Changing the public server setting should be easy, but they funcom it with frequent regularity. Do you really want funcom to put in a check box to play/not play the loading video?
Yaaa, what could go wrong 
Okay, Letâs take a step back and take a deep breath. Iâm going to ignore most of your post because itâs just a bunch of sport-arguing that has no intention of reaching a reasonable conclusion. And to be fair to you, Iâve often enjoy sport-arguing with you. So letâs take a break from sport-arguing for a moment and just talk about facts.
For now, letâs just focus in on the computer related details. Everything Iâve told you is true, thatâs how computers work. If you donât understand these facts about how computers work I get it, Iâm not casting aspersions on you, Iâm not making fun of you, no one understands everything (for example, I have no idea how to rebuild a hydraulic lift) and therefore itâs perfectly reasonable if these computing concepts are not familiar to you.
The things Iâve said about how computers work are not an argument, theyâre an explanation. So Iâm respectfully asking you to put aside your desire to argue and just think about these things, just for a few minutes.
It really, truly is a basic fundamental reality of computers that the more tasks you have them do the slower each of those tasks will run. Thatâs a fact. But, of course, the amount of time matters, so thatâs what Iâll be talking about.
If additional tasks only slow down a computer by a millisecond then no oneâs ever going to notice. If the additional tasks only slow down a computer by 10 milliseconds then itâs still pretty much impossible to measure the difference. And even if the additional tasks slow down a computer by multiple seconds, enough to be observable/measureable, that still wonât be universal. Putting a specific load on a computer will affect an older/slower computer more than a newer/faster computer, so the additional load might not be measureable (in human terms, like with a stopwatch) on a newer/faster computer.
Itâs the same basic logic as doing physical work. A one-ton truck with an 8-cylinder engine is going to be capable of pulling heavier loads than a quarter-ton truck with a 4-cylinder engine. Every piece of machinery (including computers) has limitations on the amount of work it can perform.
So enough about physical stuff, hopefully the point is made - different equipment will have different capabilities.
Now on to Multi-threadingâŠ
Even today, when game devs are getting better at taking advantage of multi-threading CPUs than they used to be, some games are better at it then others. I havenât done testing as thorough as this guy:
âŠbut you can see from his testing that some games are better at multi-threading than others. For example, in his testing World of Warcraft and League of Legends are bad at multi-threading compare to other games. For those two games, a single thread can be a performance bottleneck.
I havenât found anyone whoâs done that level of testing on CE, but the smart money would bet that CE is comparable to WoW and LoL, that it puts too much of the game into a single thread and that it doesnât do as good a job of multi-core support as those other games.
The reasoning is:
a) CE is pretty old, so the multi-threading abilities of the game were coded when it was first created, which means it probably has pretty limited multi-threading.
b) It hasnât been recoded for better multi-threading because doing so costs a big chunk of time & money. You basically have to rewrite the game engine and then put it through the full testing cycle. If FC had rewritten the game engine like that then they would have bragged about it a bunch and probably even branded it as âConan 2.0â or somesuch.
c) CE runs under Unreal Engine 4, so itâs ability to support multi-threading is limited by the abilities of UE4. I donât know what those exact abilities are are but you can be certain that UE5 games are better at multi-threading than UE4 games are.
d) And finally⊠the server for CE runs on only 2 threads, with the majority of the work being done on a single, primary thread.
Notice the explanation on that page: âHow this affects Conan Exiles and other UE4 gamesâ
âUnreal Engine 4 does utilize some multithreading, but it runs the vast majority of its gameplay logic on a single thread called the GameThread. This means that it has to run on a single core. And it is the costliest thread to run for the game, which affects the player experience the most.â
If the server is not multi-threaded beyond 2 threads then thereâs a darned good chance that the client is also running on two threads, with most of the work being done on the primary thread. Technically this doesnât have to be true, FC might have done a better job supporting multi-threading for the client than they did for the server, but thatâs a pretty unlikely scenario.
Why am I talking about multi-threading? Because it ties directly into one of your comments:
âI will concede a personâs PC can be so crap it just can not run the video AND load the game with out lag. But then if the was true the PC wouldnât be even close to minimum requirements.â
While your logic has some validity, that scenario could be true, in this case itâs not true. I have two computers, both are above the minimum specs to run CE but are a few years apart and the results are different between the two computers. On the older/slower computer I can measure the amount of time that is saved if you disable the videos. Itâs enough of a difference that I can track it using a stopwatch. Weâre not talking milliseconds, itâs whole seconds that are visible and measurable.
I did a bunch of testing, because I was curious if this issue was just confirmation bias or is real, and itâs real.
On my newer/faster computer the difference was small enough that it was hard to time it. Iâll let it suffice to say that the difference between allowing vs. disallowing the videos was not significant. As Iâve said before, if you have a newer/faster computer you might not notice the difference.
But on the older/slower computer (a computer that, again, is above the minimum specs to run the game) there are some differences. Here are the results. For each of these examples I did 5 tests and averaged the time.
A) Group one, running just the base game, no mods.
A1) Base game, no mods, all videos enabled, manual intervention to stop the video
Average total load time = 59.45 seconds
A2) Base game, no mods, only disabled Cinematic (no manual intervention needed because itâs the last video)
Average total load time = 58.16 seconds
A3) Base game, no mods, disabled all 3 videos, no manual intervention needed
Average total load time = 56.73 seconds
- Results
As we can see, each of the three videos slows down load time by about 1 second each. The exact amount of time is hard to tell because there is a small variable in the amount of my reaction time on the stopwatch for each test. The main takeaway from the above information is that each video, even the small ones, has an impact on load times.
B) Group two, running the base game + 8 mods, none of which are particulary âbigâ or impactful.
- Pippi - User & Server Management
- Actionbar & Healthbar resize by Xevyr
- Simple Minimap by Xevyr
- Music Barrel by Xevyr
- Extended Shortcut Bar
- Less Building Placement Restrictions
- ModControlPanel
- Unlock Plus
B1) Base game plus 8 mods, all videos enabled, manual intervention
Average total load time = 64.34 seconds
B2) Base game plus 8 mods, only disabled Cinematic, no manual intervention needed because itâs the last video
Average total load time = 63.59 seconds
B3) Base game plus 8 mods, disabled all 3 videos, no manual intervention needed
Average total load time = 61.152
- Results
For all three tests, we can see that adding the 8 mods slows down load time by about 5 seconds, but doesnât have any other impact. The videos still add about 1 second each to the load times, which means that the mods donât have any resource contention with loading the videos.
C) Group three, running the base game + 8 mods + 1 big mod which is impactful, Age of Calamitous.
Note: I chose Age of Calamitous because I knew it would have a big impact and because itâs pretty popular, lots of people will encounter scenarios that involve AoC.
C1) Base game plus 8 mods, plus Age of Calamitous, all videos enabled, manual intervention
Average total load time = 84.31 seconds
C2) Base game plus 8 mods, plus Age of Calamitous, only disabled Cinematic, no manual intervention needed because itâs the last video
Average total load time = 80.48 seconds
C3) Base game plus 8 mods, plus Age of Calamitous, disabled all 3 videos, no manual intervention needed
Average total load time = 73.80 seconds
- Results
Item 1: No one will be surprised to see that AoC adds a significant amount of time to loading.
Item 2: What might not be intuitive is that the amount of time it adds changes depending on how many videos are allowed to run, we are seeing a great example of resource contention making a difference in load times.
- First comparison - running all three videos
A1) base game, no mods, running all three videos
Time = 59.45 seconds
C1) base game plus 8 mods, plus Age of Calamitous, running all three videos
Time = 84.31 seconds
Difference = 24.86 seconds
- Second comparison - disabled Cinematic
A2) Base game, no mods, only disabled Cinematic
Time = 58.16 seconds
C2) Base game plus 8 mods, plus Age of Calamitous, only disabled Cinematic
Time = 80.48 seconds
Difference = 22.32 seconds
- Third comparison - disabled all 3 videos
A3) Base game, no mods, disabled all 3 videos
Time = 56.73 seconds
C3) Base game plus 8 mods, plus Age of Calamitous, disabled all 3 videos
Time = 73.80 seconds
Difference = 17.07 seconds
What does all of the above tell us?
-
It tells us that âEnabling or disabling the videos can change the load time for an individual computer.â even when itâs a computer that meets the minimum requirements published by FC.
-
It tells us that âitâs a basic, fundamental truth of standard computers that the more tasks you have them do the slower each of those tasks will runâ
-
Resource contention causes the issue to become more significant and more noticeable.
When running the 8 mods, all three scenarios took about 5 seconds longer, but they did not change the amount of time added by each video. There was no conflict/contention between the compute resources needed to run the videos and the compute resources needed to load the mods.
That answer changes after adding Age of Calamitous.
When all three videos are disabled, running 8 mods + Age of Calamitous adds 17.07 seconds to the average load times.
But when all three videos are allowed to run, adding the 8 mods + Age of Calitous adds 24.86 seconds to the load time.
Why? Because there is resource contention between the compute resources needed to run the videos and the compute resources needed to load Age of Calamitous. Loading AoC makes the video times worse than they were to begin with, it has enough of an impact on the computer that even the action of playing the videos takes longer, because there are resource conflicts between AoC and the videos.
Even though this is all a tangent to the real issue ( which is FCâs failure to acknowledge and respect playersâ preferences) hopefully this departure from the usual forum banter has been informative and/or useful to you.
Paragraph of condensation.
Oh you made a point alright, but I doubt the one you intended.
Big surprise, you have no interest in discussing in good faith.
Yup, typical.
Do I need to explain how that word works again?
Iâll consed the few nano seconds if you are that desperate for a win, but over all most people will not see the difference.
Still my opinion if your PC is struggling that hard to load the game AND run the loading video, your PC is a potato and will have far more issues running Conan then slow loading caused by the loading video running.
Nice testing showing different scenarios for load times!
Ya, Iâll give them that, honestly didnât think they had the ambition.
You got it wrong before, so by all means feel free to get it wrong again.
Which Iâve already agreed with and stipulated multiple times. Just one exampleâŠ
You donât get to pretend thatâs a new insight.
And yet again, whether people see the difference or not really doesnât matter, the entire discussion of load times is a tangent to the real issue, which is FCâs failure to respect that their players have a right to their preferences. It doesnât matter one tiny bit whether the videos affect load times, the real issue isnât about load times.
The facts just called, they prove your opinion wrong.
Youâve argued repeatedly that any machine which meets the miniumum specs wouldnât have a measureable difference. Youâve been proven wrong with facts, but that doesnât stop you from trying to weasel out of it with more of your âmy opinionâ garbage posting.
Despite all of the threads in which you like to blather on about facts, you deliberately ignore then when they prove you wrong. Rather than taking he opportunity too discuss in good faith you plug your ears like a flat earther and just yell âlalalalaâ.
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Iâm not pretending itâs new insight, Iâm handing you the win you so desperately seem to need.
Didnât I hand you that about a dozen posts ago?
Just canât take a win graciously can you?
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