The Official Left 4 Dead Thread
- Thread starter saelz8
- Start date
Minor annoyance: In the 360 version, it loads up the Valve intro, the Powered by Source Engine screen, the intro and then it loads... and you're into the menu screen. Is the loading there for that little 3D scene in the main menu? Because if so I'd rather do without that whole loading the main menu background business and have it just be a flat 2D graphic. It's kinda annoying to sit through 2 loading screens before getting into an actual game. Or maybe all games do this but it's just this particular game where it bugs me for some reason 
Visualante
Member
I saw infected spawn in the sewers of Dead Toll. Also starting to like the game now, had a few nice experiences but they're always met with a bitter aftertaste.
Valve do it for all their games unfortunately. They've been criticized for it previously so I don't think they'll changediss said:
I have to say the loading is greatly reduced thanks to NCF files. I'd rather be able to press Space twice for the Valve movie and L4D movie then wait 2 seconds instead of having 4 unskippable intro for whatever company worked on some goddamned game taking away atleast 30 seconds <_<Visualante said:
Phife Dawg
Member
Adding -novid to the shortcut or in the steam game profile helps. Doesn't work on 360 though, so the other guy is out of luck. That's what you get for playing a Valve game on a console I guess ;p.MNC said:
GotchaForce
Member
The other night I was playing and it seemed like only 2 maps were available for versus (this is the 360). Anyone encounter that?
Visualante
Member
MNC said:
I believe diss was talking about the realtime 3D scene that runs behind the L4D menu system, and many source games. This takes time to load and it's a pain for some people with slower PCs. An option to just have a 2D art background as in TF2 would be much better.Phife Dawg said:
Like Visualante said, I was talking about the 3D scene that's in the background of the main menu. I do miss the -novid trick thoughPhife Dawg said:
BUT! If you really gotta have the 3D scene in the background and really need to make me sit through the logos without being able to skip them, then they should make them stealth load the 3D scene in the background while showing me the logos. Or just kill the first "Loading" bar and have that little red thing around the L4D spin around and around so it might take the same amount of time but it won't feel so much like it's loading. Cleverness or trickery, whatever gets it done.
Like I said it's a minor annoyance.
Phife Dawg
Member
Ah OK, thought they were talking about the 3D CGI at the beginning. Menu loads fast for me, now loading a map during an online game? Not that fast.Visualante said:
Well... 1) It's not real time. It's a very short looping video. And 2) there's a way to load a static screen in HL2. I thought novid did it, but I don't know. Either way, it wouldn't make much of a difference for L4D if it was possible since, like I said, it's not a realtime scene, it's just a simple looping video.Visualante said:
SpeedingUptoStop
will totally Facebook friend you! *giggle* *LOL*
I once tried to pounce a person hanging from a ledge.Ferrio said:
Unfortunately, it did not work. :[
Shinz Kicker
Banned
yeah you can force load a still background in hl2 to make it load much faster.
you might have to create a still image to place back there and replace that file of the looping animation. (i dunno if its possible but it probably is). This way should load much faster. you can also force the game to use a preset amount of ram, to make loading faster since it usually only uses around 512.
you might have to create a still image to place back there and replace that file of the looping animation. (i dunno if its possible but it probably is). This way should load much faster. you can also force the game to use a preset amount of ram, to make loading faster since it usually only uses around 512.
diss said:Minor annoyance: In the 360 version, it loads up the Valve intro, the Powered by Source Engine screen, the intro and then it loads... and you're into the menu screen. Is the loading there for that little 3D scene in the main menu? Because if so I'd rather do without that whole loading the main menu background business and have it just be a flat 2D graphic. It's kinda annoying to sit through 2 loading screens before getting into an actual game. Or maybe all games do this but it's just this particular game where it bugs me for some reason
Visualante said:
Visualante said:
Valve has commented on this before, it's there for a reason. Apparently the 3D menu scene is there to load up parts of the engine. If it wasn't there, I guess the loading times would be longer later.
I'm not sure why TF2 has a static background, but doesn't TF2 still have a loading pause before the menu screen comes up?
EDIT: Actually, this was the case for HL2, but it appears it may not be for Left 4 Dead. It looks like the background is in fact a video file, so it's not the background that is doing the loading. Both TF2 and L4D are loading up parts of the engine behind the scenes. Having a 2D background would not change this.
MaizeRage25
Member
robut said:
Yes. Only 2 are available.
If you want the logo vids to not play you can add -novid to the launch options. Then in the common\left 4 dead\left4dead folder go into the media folder and bring up the startupvids text file. Delete the two entries in there and you should only have the one loading screen before you get to the menu.
Also I believe the background in the menu is a video and you can probably change that too.
edit: Looks like you can disable the background movie also, just remove the l4d_background.bik from the media folder. Loading becomes quite fast with all that junk gone.
Also I believe the background in the menu is a video and you can probably change that too.
edit: Looks like you can disable the background movie also, just remove the l4d_background.bik from the media folder. Loading becomes quite fast with all that junk gone.
So, I learned something annoying yesterday.
First, I was almost SURE some people on GAF had talked about running back to the safe room to fight a tank. So Volcynika, I, and others were halfway through some Dead Air level on expert, and a tank shows up. I'm like "DUN WORRY GUYZ RUN BACK TO THE SAFE ROOM!" We all got back to the safe room and everyone naturally says "He'll break down the door! We be doomed!" And I'm all "DUN WORRY GUYZ HE CANT I READ IT ON GAF"
And the tank promptly knocked the red saferoom door off its hinges and killed me. Fortunately, the pseudo-exploit that apparently tanks can't climb ladders or something if a human's on the ladder (or at the top? I'm not sure) allowed my teammates to kill the tank, so only I suffered for my lack of knowledge.
What else did I learn, hmm. It seems that the scaffolding area in dead air always spawns a smoker right as you trigger the gas can event. Someone warned me about it and I'm like "DUN WORRY GUYZ ILL LIMP BACK ILL BE FINE". A smoker instantly spawned and pulled me off before I could take a few steps.
I also am really loving the sniper rifle now. It really complements a team if everyone else has auto-shotguns and assault rifles.
First, I was almost SURE some people on GAF had talked about running back to the safe room to fight a tank. So Volcynika, I, and others were halfway through some Dead Air level on expert, and a tank shows up. I'm like "DUN WORRY GUYZ RUN BACK TO THE SAFE ROOM!" We all got back to the safe room and everyone naturally says "He'll break down the door! We be doomed!" And I'm all "DUN WORRY GUYZ HE CANT I READ IT ON GAF"
And the tank promptly knocked the red saferoom door off its hinges and killed me. Fortunately, the pseudo-exploit that apparently tanks can't climb ladders or something if a human's on the ladder (or at the top? I'm not sure) allowed my teammates to kill the tank, so only I suffered for my lack of knowledge.
What else did I learn, hmm. It seems that the scaffolding area in dead air always spawns a smoker right as you trigger the gas can event. Someone warned me about it and I'm like "DUN WORRY GUYZ ILL LIMP BACK ILL BE FINE". A smoker instantly spawned and pulled me off before I could take a few steps.
I also am really loving the sniper rifle now. It really complements a team if everyone else has auto-shotguns and assault rifles.
Volcynika said:
It better not have been a saferoom door, or I call shenanigans.
I still have three expert campaigns to go.
Oh, the other thing that happened yesterday! Has anyone ever had your viewpoint look SLANTED? When we restarted a finale once my entire screen was turned like 30-40 degrees to one side, and nothing fixed it until I like died or we restarted. Really weird, really annoying, and apparently it looked normal if you spectated me.
Blizzard said:It better not have been a saferoom door, or I call shenanigans.
I still have three expert campaigns to go.
Oh, the other thing that happened yesterday! Has anyone ever had your viewpoint look SLANTED? When we restarted a finale once my entire screen was turned like 30-40 degrees to one side, and nothing fixed it until I like died or we restarted. Really weird, really annoying, and apparently it looked normal if you spectated me.
-No, it was a door leading into the first set of stairs in the hospital. We were all confused how he didn't break the thing down in one shot. He tried like 6 times. We couldn't even destroy it afterwards.
-Fallengorn had the slanted thing happen during that No Mercy run :lol
crowphoenix
Banned
Now, I serve no purpose.Blizzard said:
And I've been in the same situation with the tank. It was one of the first times I played in the demo. A tank spawned right near the stairs in the second area of no mercy, so we hightailed it back to the safe house. He slaughtered us all.
Iced_Eagle
Member
Visualante said:
Actually the scene in the main menu is a BIK file, and is just a pre-rendered video.
Also, TF2 does not have it in their games. It's only in Half-Life and Portal so far. All of their multiplayer games do not use it. It's just a fact that Source is a little bit slow in loading.
maniac-kun
Member
just ordered the game! soon i will put an end to this zombie apocalypse (new pc is on its way too!)
(new pc is on its way too!)
fallengorn
Bitches love smiley faces
It was slanted and jittery, like Francis was having a stroke. But it fixed itself after I shot something.Volcynika said:
That No Mercy run went by pretty fast. Less than 2 hours!
:lol:lol:lol
Oh man. So awesome.
Me and Twig joined a server Bunny was on, and it was just him on a team by himself, which I thought was odd. There was a clan on the other team, VeloX or whatever. Anyways, they had the server controls and turned on cheats. Spawned tons and tons of heavy enemies on the people and probably made them leave when it was frustrating. Funny story though, even them sending a tank after us when we were waiting on the elevator, we made ALL FOUR people to the end, while they only got two when we didn't have a tank or any witches.
Since cheats were on, in the finale, we just turned on no clip and flew around pissing them off, giving em a taste of their own medicine. Even when they turned it off, we still had no clip (since we would have to die to lose it), so we just kept doing that. Eventually, they quit and the server shutdown.
Ragequit for the win! :lol
Oh man. So awesome.
Me and Twig joined a server Bunny was on, and it was just him on a team by himself, which I thought was odd. There was a clan on the other team, VeloX or whatever. Anyways, they had the server controls and turned on cheats. Spawned tons and tons of heavy enemies on the people and probably made them leave when it was frustrating. Funny story though, even them sending a tank after us when we were waiting on the elevator, we made ALL FOUR people to the end, while they only got two when we didn't have a tank or any witches.
Since cheats were on, in the finale, we just turned on no clip and flew around pissing them off, giving em a taste of their own medicine. Even when they turned it off, we still had no clip (since we would have to die to lose it), so we just kept doing that. Eventually, they quit and the server shutdown.
Ragequit for the win! :lol
Red Scarlet
Member
Anybody want to try some expert in a bit? I'll do my best to protect you and get your ass on the escape vehicle.
guise said:
It's still No Mercy and Blood Harvest for Versus on PC. The reason is Valve play-tested the other 2, and determined that they weren't suitable for Versus due to balance issues.
Everyone believes that the new campaign in the works will support Versus as well though.
sonicspear64
Member
I guess I'll be the 4th....Red Scarlet said: