For GTA Online, a new patch is now live. It has reduced loading times, at least on PC. The change is now official, but originally came from a fan. Initial reports from players show that loading times are drastically shorter.
What is this patch? Today, on March 16, 2021, Rockstar released a new update for GTA Online. This includes among other things:
- an improvement in network connectivity for PS4, Xbox, and PC
- shorter loading times on PC
The fix for the loading times actually comes from a GTA player, who received a proud 10,000 USD for his solution. Rockstar has now officially implemented parts of the fix. Whether and when similar patches will come for PlayStation and Xbox is still open.
Loading times are now this short: The Twitter channel GTA Series Videos posted a short clip showing the new loading times of GTA Online. According to the tweet, starting the online mode from the intro screen now takes only one minute and 56 seconds.
If you are already in single-player mode, the start should even take only 36 seconds, which is significantly shorter. The embedded clip from Twitter provides the proof:
Long loading times have been bothering players for ages
Loading times between 30 seconds and 2 minutes are a significant improvement over the previous loading times. It often took between 10-15 minutes to get from the intro screen into the game.
The loading times led to players feverishly looking for better settings for shorter loading times. The long duration itself even became a meme in the community. A major problem with this was also that the loading process does not make progress if the game is minimized on PC.
At least on PC, that should now be a thing of the past. With the fix, loading times are about 70% shorter, even though initial reactions on Twitter mock that Rockstar took a whole 8 years to implement it.
Have you already downloaded the patch? How short are the loading times now for you?
