Why do loading times and loading % on computers jump around rather than smoothly increasing the numbers?

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I’m playing a game and the loading screen shows that the loading is 0% for 10 seconds then jumps to 95% for another 8 seconds, and then the next digits change every second until it reaches 100%.

Computers have been like this forever. Isn’t there a better way to do loading times/completion % so it’s more accurate?

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9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The computer doesn’t know what % it’s at. It just knows it has a series of checkpoints where it will increment the % complete bar.

Think of it like this, you’re baking a cake and it has a progress bar.

* Get all the ingredients out – 10%

* Mix all wet ingredients – 20%

* Mix all dry ingredients – 30%

* Mix all together – 40%

* Pour into cake pan – 50%

* Put pan in oven – 60%

* Take pan out of oven – 70%

* Remove cake from pan – 80%

* Frost cake – 90%

* Serve cake – 100%

This progress bar could get up to 50% in just a few minutes. But then it would stick at 50% for the 30 minutes it needs to be in the oven. Then it would stick at 70% again because you then have to wait 20 minutes for the pan to cool. Then it would finish from there pretty quickly.

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