ShorterLoading

ShorterLoading

ShorterLoading cuts the waiting in Valheim: starting the game, entering a world and respawning after death. It also shortens portal trips and sleep, and fixes slow devcommands map teleports.

Timings

Measured on one PC at a large base:

| | Game | ShorterLoading | Faster | |---|---|---|---| | Entering a world (Start to standing) | 32 s | 7 s | 5× | | Dying to standing at your bed | 28 s | 5 s | 6× | | Portal trip to an unloaded area | 22 s | 2.5 s | 9× | | Devcommands map teleport, unloaded area | 23 s | 2.5 s | 9× | | Devcommands map teleport, loaded area | 8 s | 0.5 s | 16× | | Dungeon entrance | 2 s | 0.5 s | 4× | | Sleep | 12.5 s | 5.5 s | 2× | | Sleep with a dream text | 12 s | 8.5 s | 1.5× |

Features

Spawning

• Applies when entering a world and when respawning at your bed.
• Skip fixed wait: the game always waits at least 8 s before placing you, even once everything has loaded. This

places you as soon as the ground, the nearby objects and your bed are there (in multiplayer, also once objects stop arriving from the server).

• Zone rush: behind the loading screen, the game builds one zone of ground every 0.1 s. This builds as many ready

zones each frame as fit in 50 ms.

• Object rush: behind the loading screen, creates as many objects (buildings, items, creatures) each frame as fit

in 50 ms, instead of the game's 100 at a time.

• Load less first: only the objects near you load before you appear; the rest of the base loads in around you

afterwards.

• Sap extractor catch-up: fixes a pre-existing game bug that can lose the sap made while you were away. Now

instantly checks for new sap. No extra sap; dry roots still stop extractors.

• Death delay: shortens the time you lie dead before the respawn starts.

Teleports

• Map teleport: devcommands teleports (Ctrl + middle-click on the large map, and goto) end as soon as the area has

loaded, in the same spot as without the mod.

• Portal waits\*: moves you as soon as the screen is black and ends the trip once the exit is ready, instead of

after fixed waits (on someone else's server, once the exit's objects are there too).

• Portal fade and portal cooldown\*: shorter than the game's.
• Portal loading rush\*: the spawn rushes also work while a portal trip loads the exit.
• Portal preload\*: builds the ground at the other end while you stand near a connected portal.
• Quick position update\*: in multiplayer, tells the server about a teleport at once instead of within 2 s, so the

server sends the new area sooner.

• Server send boost\*: on the host, for a few seconds after a player joins or teleports (portals too), sends them

the objects around them faster.

World loading

• Fast lake merge: the game plans the world's lakes and rivers on every world load, mostly by a slow search. This

searches only nearby points, with the same lakes and rivers as a result.

• Biome map on all cores: the game computes the world's biome map on one CPU core on every world load. This uses all

cores, and starts it early so the world load doesn't wait for it. Same map as the game's.

Menus

• Skip splash screens: hides the Coffee Stain and Iron Gate logos at game start.
• Main menu fade-in: shortens the main menu's fade-in when it first appears.
• Menu fade after pressing Start: shortens the menu's fade-out before the world loads.

Sleep

• Needs ShorterLoading on the host, or single player.
• Faster sleep: the game skips the night slowly and checks only every 2 s whether everyone is in bed and whether

the night is over. This skips it faster and checks more often. Plants, smelters and the like reach the same morning.

• Dream reading time: when a dream text shows, you keep sleeping until it has been readable for 3 s. Dream

cutscenes play to the end.

• Sleep fade: shortens the fade to black and back in.
• Always dream: optional, off by default: a dream text every night, to try the reading time.

Saving hold

• Only in single player, or when you're alone in a world you host. The settings are under "General".
• The game stays paused while it writes the world to disk. With the game paused, the save finishes sooner, and you

get a short pause instead of the frame drops the game's save causes. "ShorterLoading: paused for a faster save" shows meanwhile, and it never waits longer than 5 s by default.

• Pause during autosave: off by default, as the pause interrupts play. Pauses for the autosave (every 30 minutes),

and for the save after sleep too.

• Pause for the save after sleep: on by default. The screen is black then anyway; you wake up a moment later,

once the world is saved.

• Pause menu: open it during a save pause and the game stays paused under it, as usual; otherwise the pause ends

by itself.

Streaming

• Loading hang fix\*: stops the loading screen hanging forever when an object near the spawn point vanished.
• No terrain builder pause\*: skips the game's short pause after building each zone of ground while more are

waiting.

• Terrain cache\*: keeps the built ground of many more zones, so going back to an area doesn't build it again.
• Dungeon spread\*: places a dungeon's rooms over several frames instead of in one long frame.
• Grass rebuild budget\*: when the ground changes, rebuilds grass over several frames, nearest first, instead of in

one frame.