Rockstar Games has implemented a fix that will decrease load times in GTA Online, thanks to the help of a fan modder who discovered the problem — two problems, in fact — and told Rockstar how to fix it. Rockstar has implemented the fix in question, thanked the player, and rewarded them for their help.
The fix was discovered by a player named t0st earlier this month. They published their findings and explained the fix in extensive detail, with the gist being that it’s caused by a CPU bottleneck and a “poorly built” JSON parser. Player t0st writes in their findings that the plan to fix the problem was: “Write a .dll, inject it in GTA, hook some functions, ???, profit.” T0st also said, “If this somehow reaches Rockstar: the problems shouldn’t take more than a day for a single dev to solve.”
And it turns out their fix was exactly what the game needed, as Rockstar Games later released a statement to PC Gamer that read: “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.”
For their trouble, t0st was awarded $10,000 by Rockstar through its Bug Bounty program. The fix is now live in GTA Online for PC, and many players are reportedly drastically decreased load times, sometimes down from several minutes. Digital Foundry reported that implementing the fix cut load times from six minutes to one minute and fifty seconds, “a 69.4 percent reduction in load times.” Rockstar also thanked the fix’s creator in the patch notes, saying, “Thanks to t0st for his contributions around this part of today’s title update.”
Source: PC Gamer
