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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Saving Time  (Read 3264 times)

Bash

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Saving Time
« on: July 31, 2017, 09:30:20 AM »

Is it only me or does saving takes an hilarious amount of Time if you Play for a while (I'm at cycle 208 in my newest Campaign) and everytime i save it takes even longer... is it an known "Problem" or does i'm something wrong?
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Alex

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Re: Saving Time
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2017, 10:19:13 AM »

Hi - that's a bit tough to answer without more info. Are you running vanilla or with mods? How long is it taking? How big is the savefile? Do you have an SSD or a regular hard drive?

In general, save/load times in Starsector are a bit on the long side, and it does take a bit longer as time goes on. That said, I'd expect it to level out rather than to keep taking longer.
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Bash

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Re: Saving Time
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2017, 11:08:11 AM »

Hi Alex.. sry for that sparse info.. I'm Running with Mods.. Including:.. Lightshow,Dynasector,Arsenal Expansion, Autosafe, Combatchatter, Common Radar, Lazy/Graphic Lib, Ship/Weapon Pack,
and a Bunch of the Updated Factions like Diable, Scy, Blackrock, Imperium, Templars i Keep them updated with Version Checker and allocated 8gb RAM to handle it...

Safefolder is now 82,7MB big and it's installed on an regular Harddrive.

i know that Saving can take some Time but if i can go for a smoke and after remaining it's still not finished seems to be wrong..


After Playing longer and bloodier.. xD  i got a "Red Java Message" that something is getting full of Space and i have to allocate even more.. sry couldn't read more cause of Bounty spamming :x
« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 11:11:09 AM by Bash »
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Alex

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Re: Saving Time
« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2017, 11:15:40 AM »

Hmm. 80mb - meaning ~40 each for save and backup file - seems in the right range for what you've got (though some stuff in dev already should cut that down).

Could you try setting compressSaveGameData to true in data/config/settings.json? Since you've got a regular hard drive, that might help. Basically what that'll do is it'll take more CPU to compress the savefile but the file will be smaller so the time to write it out to disk will be less. It's not always a good tradeoff but in this case it might be.

How does the progress bar move while saving, btw? Is it more or less consistent progress, or does it go smoothly (not *quickly*, just smoothly) for some time and then hitch/slow down at some point?

(Edit: oh - make sure to make a backup of the save before trying the compression thing, just in case.)
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Alex

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Re: Saving Time
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2017, 11:51:56 AM »

Also: defragging your hard drive may be worth a shot here.
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BlackAlpha

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Re: Saving Time
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2017, 12:05:30 PM »

I've had this happen when:

1. I didn't allocate enough memory to Java.

2. I almost ran out of video card memory.

So, first make sure you allocate enough memory to Java. Go to the game folder, use a text editor to open the file "vmparams", then look for the parameters "-Xms" and "-Xmx", and change them to a higher number (4-6 GB is probably enough). Just make sure you don't max out your memory in Windows.

If that doesn't fix the problem, then maybe you are running out of video card memory. Install MSI Afterburner and use it to monitor your video card memory usage (turn on the overlay for memory). Make sure you don't max out your video card memory when running this game, as the game will then become unstable. You can reduce how much video card memory is used by turning off GraphicsLib shaders (it's a setting in the ini file, in the GraphicsLib mod folder) or by turning off a couple of mods.

By the way, if the issue is caused by the problems I mentioned above and you don't fix it, then at some point during saving it might corrupt your save game. So, best to try to fix it ASAP.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 12:48:28 PM by BlackAlpha »
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Bash

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Re: Saving Time
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2017, 12:59:13 PM »

@ Alex: the save Progress bar stops for a while in the first 10% for seconds (growing up with each new safe Action) after that it makes his way slowly but surely and takes more time from safe to safe.

Will try to Defrag my Harddrive before i mess up myself with other stuff.. :x

@BlackAlpha: I Allocated 8gb from my 32 i have so if it's right it should never reach the cap and that can't be the Problem itself (does everything right up from Nemo's how to do Video :D).

I use an Geforce 960gt so it should have enough (that's only what i think) :D teach me if i'm wrong with it :x but.. i will give that Thing with the Afterburner a shot.

turn off mods is a hard decision... even for the "core ones" :-/


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BlackAlpha

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Re: Saving Time
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2017, 04:05:10 PM »

@ Alex: the save Progress bar stops for a while in the first 10% for seconds (growing up with each new safe Action) after that it makes his way slowly but surely and takes more time from safe to safe.

Will try to Defrag my Harddrive before i mess up myself with other stuff.. :x

@BlackAlpha: I Allocated 8gb from my 32 i have so if it's right it should never reach the cap and that can't be the Problem itself (does everything right up from Nemo's how to do Video :D).

I use an Geforce 960gt so it should have enough (that's only what i think) :D teach me if i'm wrong with it :x but.. i will give that Thing with the Afterburner a shot.

turn off mods is a hard decision... even for the "core ones" :-/

There are many different versions of video cards. You can check how much memory your video card has by following the instructions on the following website (Dedicated Video Memory is what you are looking for):
https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001307.htm

The only way to be certain you aren't going over the limit is by checking with Afterburner. I'm guessing it's mostly an issue if you have less than 3 GB.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 04:07:16 PM by BlackAlpha »
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Bash

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Re: Saving Time
« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2017, 04:52:52 AM »

yeah that defragging and the Afterburner tool seems to help for now

(just don't wanna Change any Folders cause something can go wrong an i'm not "smart" enough to handle this specific stuff)

so thx for that fast and precisive help!!

(sry for my English...^^).
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