1.02 makes game unplayable for me

[Saffron]

Ever since installing 1.02, the game's performance has declined significantly. The turns calculate fine, but the interface is very very slow. It can take 5-10 seconds for me to change selections on the chalk board or for the ship builder to recognize I've changed ship types (from BB to merchant, for example).

Now the game has hung on the "Please wait while files are saved. The replay screen will then appear" screen. In the task manager, the game is listed as still running, but it's sitting there doing nothing. My hard drive working light is not lit, either.

The game's actual execution (turn calculation) seems unaffected, but the interface and the time it takes to save files between turn seemed to get longer and longer until this happened.

I'm still playing the intro, month 13, so the fleets are not that large.

Computer stats:

AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual
Core processor 4200+
2.20 Ghz, 2 GB of RAM
Win XP Home Edition, SP 2
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT

[PDF]

Just saw the 1.02 is now online, but is there a changelog (didn't find one for 1.01 neither) ?

[William Miller]

Hello,

From what I understand the patches so far only address crash issues and make no changes to actual game play/game logic, but Tony can answer that better than I when he responds.

Thanks!

[tony_glazebrook]

Hello,

From what I understand the patches so far only address crash issues and make no changes to actual game play/game logic, but Tony can answer that better than I when he responds.

Thanks!

Hi Saffron - there is no logical reason I can think of that would have caused what you are experiencing. I will do some more urgent testing of the release.

[tony_glazebrook]

Hi Saffron - there is no logical reason I can think of that would have caused what you are experiencing. I will do some more urgent testing of the release.

Saffron - could you exit out of SAS and restart and tell me what you get?

[Saffron]

When I quit and restarted the game, it took a rather long time for the game to load after clicking "continue game"

Still having interface issues. For instance, in the build ship screen, it took awhile to change from BBs to carriers, and then scrolling in the boxes was really choppy to the point where it was hard to get the selection I wanted. At one point, I was mousing over the carrier classes, but the selection highlight was still in the ship type box, so I couldn't select a class.


Also, all of the loading/saving screens take a really long time ... like the enemy turn's progress screen, preparing data for the turn calculator, etc. Add them all up and we're talking 6-10 minutes, and this intro game just isn't that big.

Actually it looks like it's hung up on "Preparing data for turn calculator" this time. Been waiting awhile.

[tony_glazebrook]

Saffron: I have just tested R1.02 thoroughly using the Intro campaign. I played 14 monthly turns in succession. I experienced no choppy UI, or any diminution of performance except that file load and save times increased. Everything else - calculation times, memory used etc remained the same. The load and save times are directly related to file size, which had grown quite a bit to accomodate new data. The US Navy for instance, had grown by a factor close to three. But I found the load and save times roughly comparable with what I have experienced with my current 2 fave games (Medieval Total War; and the new Commander: Europe at War I have just bought).

The system I tested on is less capable than yours; and I had not tweaked the memory settings to use more memory. (But then neither had you I think - this is something you may want to try - see the help on troubleshooting; and the thread here on memory issues).

I do not believe that R1.02 itself has a bug. The code I changed logically could have had no impact on the behaviour you reported. The file loading and saving is related to file size as games get longer.

I hope this helps.

[Saffron]

Hmmm.... I had to exit out of the game during the "preparing data for the turn calculator" as it just hung there... not sure what's wrong then. I just know that it started doing that after installing 1.02. I'll try the memory tweaks.

[Warship NWS]

Just saw the 1.02 is now online, but is there a changelog (didn't find one for 1.01 neither) ?

It is primarly as noted on the main website - CTD fixes. Right now the primary directive is to try and ensure that SAS-WW2 works on as many PC configurations as possible. SAS-WW2 was heavily tested for months but obviously the number of customers you have greatly outnumber the available PCs an independent publisher will have to test their games on. Due to the sheer complexity of the SAS-WW2 internal engine (lots of stuff going on under the hood) we made sure that our first priority was to stay on top of any verifiable problem reports from players.

Thanks.

[Christian Schwietzke]

As long as this problem isn´t identified and eliminated, could you perhaps leave the 1.01 update available as well, for those who wish to "downdate" to a version that doesn´t experience said problem?

[Saffron]

Well ... I used the memory tweaks, stopped all background tasks that wasn't labeled "System", even defragged my drive and used disk clean-up.

When it got to "Preparing data for the turn calculator" it hung. I watched an entire episode of Law and Order waiting for it, and it never changed to the turn calculator. Just stayed on the preparing screen. I had to manually close the game from the task bar.

I'm going to reinstall and not add 1.02 and see what happens.

[Matto]

How do correct install now ? Game, 1.01 patch and then 1.02 or just game and 1.02 ???

[PDF]

As 1.01 worked like a charm for me I'll maybe keep it some time more ... :rolleyes:

[oldspec4]

As 1.01 worked like a charm for me I'll maybe keep it some time more ... :rolleyes:

I'm thinking the same thing..

[Saffron]

I tried a fresh re-install without any of the patches and it still hung while it prepared data for the calculator.

I think it has something to do with Java not responding, so I have no idea how to fix that.

[Saffron]

I just loaded up the Atlantic campaign (new game) and it worked, so I'm guessing it has something to do with the saved game file. The Atlantic campaign definitely has far more ships and fleets at the beginning than the Intro has even in month 11, so I don't think the game size is too big.

Can saved files become corrupted?

[tony_glazebrook]

I tried a fresh re-install without any of the patches and it still hung while it prepared data for the calculator.

I think it has something to do with Java not responding, so I have no idea how to fix that.

Saffron, can you go into the \GameData\LatestPlayerFiles folder under where you installed the game to, and tell me the size of each of the two files that start with 'Intro_'?

[tony_glazebrook]

I just loaded up the Atlantic campaign (new game) and it worked, so I'm guessing it has something to do with the saved game file. The Atlantic campaign definitely has far more ships and fleets at the beginning than the Intro has even in month 11, so I don't think the game size is too big.

Can saved files become corrupted?

Possibly, - pls see my last post.

[tony_glazebrook]

All - R1.02 is OK, I firmly believe. The problem Saffron was having was to do with her particular game files in the Intro campaign after playing for about 12 turns.

There is an issue (not calling it a bug yet) about the files increasing in size as you play more turns, which I am looking at.

But please download and install R1.02. This fixes a known bug. You should be right then. But as I said, I am looking at the file size issue and will report back on this as necessary

[madgamer]

Ever since installing 1.02, the game's performance has declined significantly. The turns calculate fine, but the interface is very very slow. It can take 5-10 seconds for me to change selections on the chalk board or for the ship builder to recognize I've changed ship types (from BB to merchant, for example).

Now the game has hung on the "Please wait while files are saved. The replay screen will then appear" screen. In the task manager, the game is listed as still running, but it's sitting there doing nothing. My hard drive working light is not lit, either.

The game's actual execution (turn calculation) seems unaffected, but the interface and the time it takes to save files between turn seemed to get longer and longer until this happened.

I'm still playing the intro, month 13, so the fleets are not that large.

Computer stats:

AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual
Core processor 4200+
2.20 Ghz, 2 GB of RAM
Win XP Home Edition, SP 2
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT

this may seem a stupid thing to ask but you did change the memory to use you full 2GB, right?

Madgamer

[Saffron]

Tony,

The campaign file "Intro" is only 452 kbs.

The file Intro_Heihachiro Togo.sas is 24,182 kbs

The file Intro_Alfred Mahan II.sas is 8,452 kbs

I'm running a custom campaign in the Pacific ... right now one file is 2,317 kbs and the other is 1,970 kbs on turn 8. So far this campaign has worked fine, but so did the Intro campaign on turn 7.

Incidentally, despite having an Essex and 3 CVEs, I've yet to see a carrier strike from any of my ships. And I haven't seen any from the Japanese side, either. In fact, I mowed down 3 of their carriers in surface engagements.

[tony_glazebrook]

Tony,

The campaign file "Intro" is only 452 kbs.

The file Intro_Heihachiro Togo.sas is 24,182 kbs

The file Intro_Alfred Mahan II.sas is 8,452 kbs

I'm running a custom campaign in the Pacific ... right now one file is 2,317 kbs and the other is 1,970 kbs on turn 8. So far this campaign has worked fine, but so did the Intro campaign on turn 7.

Saffron - the Intro file sizes should not have gotten that big - I am progressing very well on a fix for that - will give an update very soon.