5x space is going to be hard to beat, but one should always be careful about hiding behind a tall tent pole like this. IO isn’t free, it’s cheap. So if they could generate terrain with no data loading it would likely be a little faster. But someone might find a way to speed up generation and then think it’s pointless/not get the credit they deserve because then loading is the tall tent pole.

I’ve worked with far too many people who have done the equivalent in non game software and it leads to unhappy customers and salespeople. I’ve come to think of it as a kind of learned helplessness.