GTA Online’s biggest problem is about to be fixed – but not for everyone GTA 5
Whether you’re a griefer or a legitimate GTA Online gangster, there’s one thing all players of Rockstar’s crime epic can agree upon – the Grand Theft Auto Online loading times are atrocious.
But for some players of the massively-popular, seven-year-old game, it could be a problem that will soon be fixed with a forthcoming update – and it’s all thanks to an intrepid fan.
A programmer that goes by the name ‘t0st’ discovered at the end of February that a piece of code in the PC version of the game was leading to a “single thread CPU bottleneck while starting up GTA Online,” which lead to the game performing an unnecessary check on almost 2 billion items before firing up.
The programmer ‘t0st’ played around with the code and created a fix that reduced loading times by as much as 70 percent, and stated it “shouldn’t take more than a day for a single dev to solve.” For some players, it could bring the initial load length down from upwards of six minutes to closer to under two minutes.
After posting the fix publicly on GitHub, Rockstar has since confirmed t0st’s efforts were helpful, and that it will be putting out an update based on the discovery.
“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,” the company said in a statement. “As a result of these investigations, we have made some changes that will be implemented in a forthcoming title update.”
As yet, the update has not been given a roll-out date.
A deserved reward – but what about consoles?
It’s all worked out quite nicely for t0st – not only do they get a pat on the back and a faster-loading game, but they’ve also been rewarded with a $10,000 reward from Rockstar’s bug bounty program. It’s usually reserved for security fixes, but has been awarded here under exceptional circumstances.
It’s great news for PC players, who will be able to jump into the action much more quickly… but what of console players? The loading times may not be quite as dramatically bad on Xbox and PlayStation, but they too drag on interminably long for a game that would benefit from quick-fire play.
Here’s hoping they too get an update before long, but with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game in the works (not to mention the rumored development of GTA 6), we wouldn’t hold our breath on any huge improvements to the existing console versions of the game coming any time soon.
Whether you’re a griefer or a legitimate GTA Online gangster, there’s one thing all players of Rockstar’s crime epic can agree upon – the Grand Theft Auto Online loading times are atrocious. But for some players of the massively-popular, seven-year-old game, it could be a problem that will soon be…
Recent Posts
- New Nintendo Switch 2 rumors suggest that the console’s battery life will be ‘clocked crazy low’ in handheld mode
- LastPass officially splits from former parent GoTo
- TikTok and Universal Music Group end feud with new agreement
- Amazfit’s new low-cost wearable packs in a big display and 26 days of battery life
- As Questions Swirl Around Tesla’s Superchargers, the Race Is On to Fill the Power Gap
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011