How Long Should a PS2 Take to Boot Games?

[Red or Alive]

As the title says. I've got a new PS2, and it takes between 10 and 15 seconds between the Playstation 2 boot screen and the title screen of the game that's lying in the disc drive.

I've never owned a PS2 before, so I don't know if this is typical behaviour from the console.

[Papercut]

Sounds about right.

[Red or Alive]

Really? Wow. Maybe I should specify: I turn on the console, the Playstation 2 logo pops up, then I'm left with a black screen for 10-15 seconds. The game starts and everything's hunky-dory.

It's just that the initial wait seems awfully long.

[Papercut]

ok, well maybe 8 - 10 seconds before the swirl disappears, and the PlayStation 2 logo pops up with a bloop.

Some modchips can slow this down too, and the later ones let you disable the logo to speed it up...

[skyghene]

About 10-12 seconds max here, but it depends on which game. Have you tried to boot it up without a memory card inserted? Maybe it wants to load a big file without giving a notification. Oh and which game, or do all games take 10-15 seconds for you?

[psusion]

It probably depends on what game is being played. I know my copy of GT3 booted well slow, but a few other games booted as soon as the PS2 logo vanishes. Mind you I think the actual booting takes place after the swirl and before the PS2 logo.

[fallenangle]

All the Gran Turismo games take ages to load but I sure that generally it is down to individual titles most of the time. The old CD based PS2 games seem particularly slow. If you're on the Browser/System Config screen and load a game it certainly feels an awfully long wait for the 'swirl' to go and the Playstation 2 logo to appear. Then the game starts loading and I guess the time depends, as said, on the file size.

I'd say that on average the PS2 is definitely slower than the XBox, GC and even the Dreamcast but we're talking 5-10 secs difference which is hardly anything to get annoyed by. But this comparative slowness obviously does bother some people and is one reason why they play their games from the PS2's HDD.

I've got Soul Calibur II on both the GC and PS2 I'll check tonight to see what, if any, the differences in loading speeds are.

Edit:
Fat PAL PS2 loading from disc tray in to 60Hz select option screen = 40 seconds. Starting the game via the memory card screen that time is reduced to 29 seconds.

Original model PAL GC powering on with the disc in place to the 60Hz select option screen = 10 seconds. Launching it from the GC start menu reduced it to 4 seconds.

Quite some difference but once the game was running the only difference in loading times seemed to be the Records where there was a blank screen for a couple of seconds before those pages loaded.

[Red or Alive]

Well, it's really just the Persona games I've been playing on the system. Anyway, it seems to be a standard phenomenon.

Big thanks to everyone here who put in the effort to assuage my paranoia (that is, everybody else in this thread). Now I'm off to have a go at SMT III.