Ok I think there might be differences between a loading screen and a cinematic. For example, if I am in Velen and take a Fast Travel back to White Orchard, there is a White Orchard specific story like cinematic that plays. Fast Traveling back to Velen incurs the Velen specific story cinematic. Enter and space don't have any effect. I've noticed that if I die and choose to load the last saved game file that it produced what appears to be a loading screen with a tip on it. However, that screen is displayed for a split second and disappears. The Velen specific story cinematic is still incurred. I don't have any mods installed for the game and I have relative fresh installation of the OS.
Unlike slow, low memory consoles I'm running with 16GB of low latency RAM and fast SATA drives so the loading and parsing of game data is quick. If I wanted I could snag another 16GB RAM from my kid's PC to have a full 32GB. Even with 16GB of RAM some games can be run from a RAM disk for better than SSD performance. I have a SSD drive but I don't have Witch 3 installed on it and a SSD is not needed for PC games. SSDs are like having a car that can go as high as 200mph and installing a turbo system just to gain another 35-45mph.
Edit:
Again SSDs are not needed for PC games if one is running on fast SATA drives and optimizes the Windows installation. Even simple installation choices such as having the OS installed on a separate partition or drive from the games and their data will have a large positive impact on performance. If you have enough space in your PC and the pockets to cover it you can further separate game data from game code into separate fast SATA drives.
If you think I'm wrong the biggest saved game file I have thus far is 1,002 KB. Game cache data is anywhere from a few kilobytes to double digit megabytes. Do not think for 1 second that it takes 8-12 seconds to load 40 megabytes of binary data in sequential reads from a fast serial ATA device. Before anyone disagrees please consider both software and hardware caching. Maybe on a slow console in which the manufacturer uses low grade (read: slow as hell hard drives) it would take that long or if the PC in question is running potato-ware.
I'll stop here and not entertain replies on the subject of hardware performance as it will most likely spiral into a holy war in the forum, and I'm not interested in such activity.
I just want to play and enjoy the game without annoying and unnecessary delays and time wasters.
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On a separate newbie subject... I've encountered several objects (corpses from battle fields, and random pots/containers on shelves) that glow but don't provide a means of using/accessing. Is this a bug?