http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30148
--- Comment #10 from dlzerocool dl.zerocool@gmail.com 2012-03-13 08:39:24 CDT --- (In reply to comment #9)
I made some research. Some windows users are reporting long loading times too, but not this long (max 4-5 minutes), normal speed is up to 1 minute. Also the game load data from /assets/*.tor files into /swtor/DiskArenaCache file. It perform it so often, that putting DiskArenaCache to ramdisk on Windows leads to better loading times. But this is not the case on Linux/OSX (at least nothing noticable). IMHO it seems that wine has some problem with efficient reading of this *.tor files (some kind of archive) or problem with writing to DiskArenaCache.
Also, as this game is online mmorpg, it does not contain any kind of DRM protection, and it seems it does not have cheating protection either.
The problem that I could see is that it writes a lot to disk, and when I tell you a lot it is a LOT. I have a SSD and had just the time to do an analyse on write and reads when the game starts, the game totally saturate read and write on my SSD and that for 3 to 5 minutes.
I don't have Windows so I can't argue if it would be the same on Windows, but I highly doubt it. Or the game has a huge resources problem.
I can't do much more tests, I am very busy at the moment. I'll keep an eye on both bugs concerning this game tough, and post results when I can.