EU4 Startup Boost

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Status

In development

Game builds

eu4-1.37.5-steam-win64

Changes gameplay

No

Source

happy-dwarf-team/eu4-startup-boost

EU4 Startup Boost shortens the time from launching the game to the main menu. Game state, logs and loaded content stay identical to vanilla; only the time changes.

What it does

The plugin loads early, before the game’s own code runs, and speeds up the work the game repeats on every start:

• reads the files the game is about to need into memory on background threads,
• answers repeated “does this file exist?” checks from directory listings,
• replaces the game’s memory allocator with a faster one,
• removes redundant work at the end of loading,
• after a reboot, opens the files the game will need in parallel, so the slow first access does not block the start.

Every module can be switched off on its own, and a module that fails turns itself off while the game continues.

Measurements

Measured on the development machine (EU4 1.37.5, Steam, 10 UI/graphics mods) with the same techniques in a research build:

Case	Vanilla	With the techniques
Warm start (to the main menu)	~31 s	~10 s
First start after a reboot	~61 s	~15 s

These numbers come from the research build. The plugin itself will be measured again before its first release.

Supported game build

EU4 1.37.5 (Steam, Windows 64-bit). On any other build Anvil skips the plugin and the game starts normally.