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[blaa]

Using vanilla without any mods I get stable high fps but the loading times are very long.

I have win vista 64, 4GB ram, CoreDuo@3GHz and Geforce GTX 750 TI.

Booting the game takes 40 seconds. I´ve seen YT vids of ppl where the game boots pretty much instantly so I think there must be something amiss here.
Generating a new galaxy and saving the game both also take a long time.
 
I searched for this but I can only find suggestions related to vsync. Vsync is forced off for java.exe, ss.exe and disabled in the ini. Doesn´t do a thing.

When using mods it gets pretty much unbearable. I use ~20 mods, my mod folder is 361 MB.
With those mods activated it takes 2 minutes 30 seconds till I reach main menu. So almost 2 minutes to load 360 MB worth of assets.
Galaxy creation takes even longer and saving the game takes 1+ minute. After some hours of playtime it will shut down with out of memory error when saving the game- even with 2GB allocated with 64 bit java.

Something simply can´t be right here. Please no suggestions ala shut down background programs or virus scanners, that would just derail the thread honestly.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Using vanilla without any mods I get stable high fps but the loading times are very long.

I have win vista 64, 4GB ram, CoreDuo@3GHz and Geforce GTX 750 TI.

Booting the game takes 40 seconds. I´ve seen YT vids of ppl where the game boots pretty much instantly so I think there must be something amiss here.
Generating a new galaxy and saving the game both also take a long time.
 
I searched for this but I can only find suggestions related to vsync. Vsync is forced off for java.exe, ss.exe and disabled in the ini. Doesn´t do a thing.

When using mods it gets pretty much unbearable. I use ~20 mods, my mod folder is 361 MB.
With those mods activated it takes 2 minutes 30 seconds till I reach main menu. So almost 2 minutes to load 360 MB worth of assets.
Galaxy creation takes even longer and saving the game takes 1+ minute. After some hours of playtime it will shut down with out of memory error when saving the game- even with 2GB allocated with 64 bit java.

Something simply can´t be right here. Please no suggestions ala shut down background programs or virus scanners, that would just derail the thread honestly.

Those people that have fast loading times must have either a high speed HDD or a SSD. 2.5 mins is about right for me and I have a normal HDD.
As for the OoM error, how much RAM do you have installed? What are your CPU and GPU specs?
Does that list of 20 mods include stuff like LazyLib, GraphicsLib, and other libraries and utility mods? If not then there is your problem

[MesoTroniK]

Can you list off what mods you are using specifically?

Also, if you are using as many mods as it sounds like, for those system specs and no SSD then that load time sounds exactly right.

And if you are running all or most of the Modiverse, 2 gigs ram allocation frankly isn't sh*t, and so you need far more.

[Elaron]

In my observation, the time it takes to start the game depends more on CPU (and possibly memory speed) than on disk. With the mods I have (mostly the same as Nemonaemo's list, which is here), it takes around 80 seconds to launch, a time that doesn't vary much whether I launch the copy on my SSD or on my RAID 0.

Memory may well be a factor as well. I give StarSector a generous 8GB allocation in vmparams, and I've seen it use about 6GB of it after a while of play, so it may be struggling with 2GB.

[blaa]

Mods I use:

Big:
Nexerelin
SS+
DnyaSec

Factions:
Blackrock Drive Yards
Diable Avionics
Interstellar Imp.
Mayorate
Metelson Ind.
Scy Nation
Shadowyards
Templars
Tiandong Heavy Ind.

and some misc mods(like Combat Chatter) and libraries.


I think the loading times are absolutelty insane, we are talking about 800MB of data all together here.
I have over 300 games in my steam library and not one of them takes this long to load, even without mods!


Anyways, which mods would you recommend me to disable so the game stops crashing when I try to save it?  
I would honestly not enjoy disabling Nex or SS+ very much.

[Alex]

Can you see how the loading times are affected if you turn sound off? In my experience that's one of the major loading time bottlenecks (hmm, actually - maybe I can split that off to another thread; made a note) because it just takes a certain amount of time to decode all those oggs. How fast it loads without sounds might help narrow down what's going on, if anything.

Please no suggestions ala shut down background programs or virus scanners, that would just derail the thread honestly.

I hear you, but honestly, if something is abnormal here, then chances would be for it to be something system-related. The game does get pretty creaky with a bunch of mods piled on, though. Hopefully it'll be better in the next release; improved some stuff that should help, but that's more to do with memory use and game saving/loading and not the initial loading time.

[borgrel]

there is a program called razer cortex (razer: by gamers for gamers, i'm sure u've heard of them??)

the program helps speed games up (and supplies nice access to screenshots and recording and fps for games that dont include it)
u can customize what it does and does not temporarily turn off for ur gaming session (it auto restarts them when ur done)
but the default settings work fine

even if u dont allow it turn off all the useless windows services that waste clock cycles and do basically nothing most of the time
it frees up ram by pushing stuff to the page file. this alone can be a massive speed boost.

[Schwartz]

Bad advice. Off-topic response:

Spoiler

1) Don't use any 'Speeder Uppers' that try to free memory. These are rubbishware and you don't need them. Get a handle on your running processes instead and terminate hungry ones that you don't need. Some of these are present as a Service and can have their startup modified.

Windows 7 and newer already minifies memory for processes that are not actively needed when another one such as a game comes along and wants it.

2) DON'T do the same with native Windows Services. This will only cause you grief and the memory gain is unnoticeable. The exception being Defender and Indexing Services (Windows Search) if you don't need them.

Having a page file helps. If you have a spare USB drive, using it for ReadyBoost helps even more. Sorry to do this, blaa.

[close]

[borgrel]

Bad advice.

Not bad advice. There is definitely better advice that could be given but that better advice gets very involved and complicated and confusing.

1) Get a handle on your running processes instead and terminate hungry ones that you don't need. Some of these are present as a Service and can have their startup modified.

Agreed, but this requires technical skills and a working knowledge of OS's ....... are you going to teach him??
Not to mention that a windows reinstall every 6months will give at least a 50% performance boost. Are you going to do it for him?
Also a registry cleaner helps, also swapping to Linux would give a 10x improvement in performance. Since installing Linux is the best possible advice you could give, from a performance perspective, why aren't you giving him that advice?

A program that auto terminates the processes you are talking about and then restores them after the gaming is done is a MUCH more viable solution for an ordinary Joe.

2) DON'T do the same with native Windows Services. This will only cause you grief and the memory gain is unnoticeable.

Are you kidding?? The memory gain might be unnoticeable (depends on the amount of mem u have) but the clock cycles u free up can be very noticeable.

The exception being Defender and Indexing Services if you don't need them.

You should never be using Defender in the first place (or the Windows firewall) its a sorry excuse for AV and a massive drain on resources. There are free AV's that work MUCH better.

Having a page file helps. If you have a spare USB drive, using it for ReadyBoost helps even more.

Agreed.

[Schwartz]

Off-topic. I'll cut it short so the thread can get back on track.

Spoiler

If a Windows reinstall gives you +50% performance, you messed something up.
You never recommend Linux to a gamer.
Reg cleaners don't improve the running performance of anything. They can also wreck your system if you don't know what you're doing.
Clock cycles for Windows Services are negligible. They trickle in over a period of time and you should never see your services take anything more than a fraction of a percent of your CPU unless they're doing something important like searching for updates.
Defender and Windows Firewall are perfectly capable. Commercial Antivirus is usually more invasive; the cure is worse than the disease.

[close]

[blaa]

Can you see how the loading times are affected if you turn sound off? In my experience that's one of the major loading time bottlenecks (hmm, actually - maybe I can split that off to another thread; made a note) because it just takes a certain amount of time to decode all those oggs. How fast it loads without sounds might help narrow down what's going on, if anything.

Please no suggestions ala shut down background programs or virus scanners, that would just derail the thread honestly.

I hear you, but honestly, if something is abnormal here, then chances would be for it to be something system-related. The game does get pretty creaky with a bunch of mods piled on, though. Hopefully it'll be better in the next release; improved some stuff that should help, but that's more to do with memory use and game saving/loading and not the initial loading time.

It takes just as long to load the game with sound deactivated  
And I used a stopwatch, I´m not guessing it

Btw I have exactly 6 programs in autostart, like my mouse driver, and 4 services that aren´t microsoft. This is exaclty the kind of derailing I want to avoid, I know how to configure autostart.
And programs like that razor cortex thingy have been around for ages, snake oil sellers, that´s all I have to say in that regard.

[Alex]

It takes just as long to load the game with sound deactivated 
And I used a stopwatch, I´m not gussing it

That's definitely unusual, then - hard to say what's going on, though. I would've suggested vsync being forced on as a possibility, but it seems like you've already ruled that out.

[blaa]

Well after reading Elaron´s comment I assigned 3GB of ram and at least, so far, I did not experience save corruption again.
The loading&saving times are an annoycane but not gamebreaking.

[Schwartz]

Btw, these loading times are not unusual. For me, using ~300MB of mod content, Starsector takes 4 Minutes 1:40 to reach the main menu. It takes about 2:30 for the bar to fill and then another 1:30 of 'Cleaning buffer' messages in the log. Decently fast HDD, DDR2-800 running at 400MHz and a C2Q running at 3,40GHz. It's just the game.

Saving on the other hand has always been fairly snappy for me, about 9 seconds to save and 6 seconds to load a game.

[Alex]

That's so strange. I've run the game with maybe 10 or so mods while loading up modded saves to reproduce a bug, and it's never taken *that* long - maybe a minute at the most. I wonder if an SSD makes this much of a difference. Will have to look at it at some point, I suppose.