95/96 Roster Patch - SLOW LOADING TIMES

I’ve done everything right according to the installation instructions. Enable Custom Art, Downloaded the official EA NBA LIVE 2004 Patch…but the game sort of hangs on the NBA logo start up screen for like 5 minutes…no kidding. Then, it finally moves on into the main menu. So I load the 95/96 roster from slot 3, loads fine. Try to start up a seaon, works fine until I try to actually play a game. I hit the “Play Game” button, and it goes to that load screen with the basket ball status icon for like 10 minutes before loading! Before this patch, that screen would stay up there for 5 seconds at most. My system is not that old. Has anyone else had these problems? Once I get into the game, it seems to work fine. Correct courts, jerseys, players faces and heads. Everything else seems fine. But I can’t wait 20 minutes for this game to load up..that’s just ridiculous. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Never heard of that problem happening before, though I believe CustomArt does work slowly for some users and the 95/96 patch does use a lot of CustomArt files.

I got the same problem with the long loading times. When I disable custom art it works perfectly but when its enabled it takes 10 minutes. Everything seems to be working like the jerseys, faces, retro courts. The only thing wrong is that the names in the back are aaaaaaaaaaaaaa. I haven't updated my video card drivers yet. My laptop is new.

I have downloaded the ea patch.

can anyone help?

Generally the official patch fixes it, otherwise try updating your video card drivers.

Everything seems up to date. Is signficantly slower loading times normal when you switch custom art on? When I flip it back it off it loads extremely faster. Does this happen to a anyone else on here? When custom art is on it loads at 15 minutes when its off it takes less than 45 seconds.

i didnt compare, the only thing for me with customart, is that occasionally, even though i dwnloaded the official patch, an occasional game will crash in the middle of the loading

Everything seems up to date. Is signficantly slower loading times normal when you switch custom art on? When I flip it back it off it loads extremely faster. Does this happen to a anyone else on here? When custom art is on it loads at 15 minutes when its off it takes less than 45 seconds.

It's a known issue with NBA Live 2004, yes. The official patch is supposed to correct it though.

Hey maybe your computer is too slow for the game, I play without customart but it doesn't take me 45 sec to load the game, it takes around 10 sec

I think I messed up on enabling customart can someone give me the correct format. heres mine

r_customart 1
r_playerblendshapes 1
r_coachblends 1
r_reflections 1

or does it go

read customart 1
r_playerblendshapes 1
r_coachblends 1
r_reflections 1

Also does anyone know if usb to ps2 adapter controllers work for this game?

This is all you need to do to enable customart:

1. Locate xstartup.cfg in the main\cscripts folder within the main NBA Live 2004 folder. By default, the path will be C:\Program Files\EA Sports\NBA Live 2004\main\cscripts
2. Open xstartup.cfg using Notepad.
3. Locate the line customart 0
4. Change this to read customart 1
5. Save the changes, close the file