Yes and no. No optimizations only explain the terrible initial load times. Once an app is in RAM, switching to said app again should be a mere task switch. But that isn't what's happening here. Apps completely reload and re-initialize every time you access them.
Yeah it's like the OS or lower level filesystem is not caching loaded modules. Even then though, look at what the main menu does. It does almost nothing yet it still takes 20 seconds to get to after closing an app. It make no sense in a sensible system. I am wondering one of a few things
1) They have debug builds there which will be much larger and slower.
2) They are compressing these things and therefore have to uncompress them when loading.
3) The Flash RAM is so shit it's down to crappy USB keyring speeds
4) All of the above.
I can't see how a home screen that essentially looks like a 3DS home screen takes that long to load. How fast is booting the machine, the same speed as returning to the home menu?
Relating to this can someone please send me a link or share information on how modern engines manage their resources? I'm talking about texture loading, normal maps, use of EDRAM, main RAM, shadows and how they load, cache, throwaway etc. I would love to contribute to this thread or at least understand what others are talking about but I'm not a 3D engine programmer. My understanding is that whilst EDRAM can help offset the bottleneck of the slow main RAM, it's tiny compared to that main RAM. It can hold a framebuffer (or 4 for FSAA??) and maybe a few textures but I can't see how that can help offset the texture requirements for a game with wide open space, varied textures, shadows and fancy shit.
Any help in understanding this is appreciated.