Rockstar Games released GTA V and its Online version eight years ago. And the game is still one of the most played games, even nowadays. That’s because the game has lots of things to offer, and the gameplay is also fun. But, that doesn’t mean the game doesn’t have bad sides. The loading times of GTA Online might be the most important example.
I think most of you know that but let us sum up real quick. GTA V is big-sized and has lots of information to process at the start-up, and it’s very normal. Because of that, the players wait for a while to get into the game. In the single-player mode, the loading time is not that much, something like 2 minutes. But the online version makes players wait for 5 or 6 minutes. Of course, there’s a kind of shortcut, like entering the online version from the single-player mode. But it just makes you wait 1 or 2 minutes less. So, no matter what you do, you have to wait for like 5 minutes to log into the game. And while you are watching the clouds of San Andreas, you probably take out your phone and surf the internet.
But, there’s a user named t0stercx, and they claimed that they found a solution for these loading times. t0st also published what they have done and how they solved that.
What’s The Matter of These Long GTA Online Loading Times?
t0st observed their computer while loading into GTA Online, and after some research, they found that there’s a tweak in the game’s files. They found a 10MB-sized JSON file, and this file is containing like 63 thousand data. And, the game controls some data from the file when the player is loading into the game. But after the game found what it’s looking for, the game is checking all of that file again for the next step. And that means the game controls the same data like 2 billion times.
t0st thinks that they can solve the problem by making some improvements in the JSON file, and it works. The loading time of GTA Online drops 70 per cent, which means it dropped to 1 minute and 50 seconds. When they published the solution on February 28th, t0st thinks that Rockstar can fix this problem in a short time.
Rockstar Thanks t0st
2 weeks have passed, and Rockstar made a statement about the t0st‘s works. They also thanked them for solving that problem.
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.
Rockstar Games
t0st also stated that they have been rewarded $10,000 by Rockstar’s Bug Bounty program. The program actually awards the programmers who have found security or privacy issues, but I think t0st also deserved that reward.
After that announcement, GTA Online players shared their expressions through different social media platforms. Especially, the Reddit users posted great contents about the situation.
But, Rockstar didn’t announce the date of the title update they stated. And while we are wondering about it, Rockstar just released the update 1,53. The update had a little explanation about which problems are fixed etc. But that was enough to understand the most anticipated update is just went live.
PS4 / XBOX / PC: General network connectivity improvements
PC: Improvements to PC loading times *Thanks to t0st for his contributions around this part of today’s title update
Rockstar Games
As a GTA Online player myself, I also want to thank t0st for the improvement. Thanks to him, we can take advantage of the weekly bonuses and discounts shortly.
