[0.95] Game is a load save then end turn CTD-fest from around turn 180 onwards

from Stardock Forums

I've noticed this with the last 2 betas but the issue has been probably there since the beginning. Playing large balanced map, all 8 sovs with expert AIs, moderate monsters and epic speed. I can go on and play for 300 or 400 turns and pretty sure even more but after around turn 200 when the map is more than 50% revealed and I have lots of cities and other buildings on the map all the saves made seem to be corrupted in some way or even worse, trying to save the game will cause a CTD. I either have to play without 0 reloads or save attempts or from around turn 180 onwards be very careful and save every 3 turns, go back to main menu and load that save and press end turn. If it works go forward, if not and CTD then go back to the last good save 3 turns ago. This happens in absolutely every game I play.

It's also pretty easy to see whether a save is good or not as while loading a good save the load bar will fill up quickly even if it stays for around 5 seconds at the end before actually loading the map while with a bad save the load bar is usually stuck midway through loading for quite long (sometimes 10+ seconds). When a bad save is loaded sometimes information is missing from the UI (discovered factions disappear from the power rating list) or the ledger (relations report is empty). 

My PC is pretty good (W7 Ultimate, I7, 6GB DDR3, 5800 1GB, 1TB WD Caviar Black 7200 rpm with over 100GB of free space, latest drivers on pretty much everything that counts for a video game). So it looks to me like it is not my PC but the game that has some memory leak or other issue that corrupts the saves from a point forward when there are a lot of revealed items, armies etc. . I have encountered other numerous strange bugs but this has actually been the only game breaking one for me. Hoping it gets fixed in beta 5 (a little worried we're so close to 1.00 and this issue is still present) as from my part I've helped with 2 posts signaling the issue with proper information attached from both 0.95 and 0.915. 

One question for the beta community as a confirmation, do a lot of you guys have the same or similar issues?

11,374 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top
Yes, I've experienced something almost exactly like this! It makes me feel a little better to know other people are also having this issue. The more of us report it, the higher up the devs' priority list it will go, hopefully. For me the CTD fun started happening when I tried to save my game on turn 173. This was on a medium map, just after I forced Gilden to surrender. More than 50% of the map was revealed and I think I controlled around 11 cities. Like you, I have a pretty decent machine with lots of memory so seems like that shouldn't be a concern. I already posted a bug report on this, including a crash dump and save game file for the devs to examine: https://forums.elementalgame.com/429743
Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I had a similar issue. The issue was the game would crash because the factions still left alive in the game did not load. The only work around is to find a previous save that loads properly.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/429477

 

When a bad save is loaded sometimes information is missing from the UI (discovered factions disappear from the power rating list) or the ledger (relations report is empty).


One question for the beta community as a confirmation, do a lot of you guys have the same or similar issues?

End of quote

 

That is the same issue I reported. I got it a couple times with one of many many games so far. Because it only happened that oen game so far I think the cause was a quest was bugging and removing the faction.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't get crashes, or I should say I haven't yet, but after long play periods I do notice a general FPS slow down.  Maybe a memory leak?

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

on almost turn 300, no crashes yet. Game does slow down a little, especially in the tactical battles but usually saving then exiting the game and and going back into the game and my save fixes that.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I have had this problem in previous versions as well. It really breaks the game for me since the only way to prevent the crashes is to only have 1 opponent. 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I would like to know if this slow gameplay after a few hours of play is because of the debug processes for the beta or if we can expect this kind of thing long after release. I get the feeling performance will be better when there is less of that going on.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm at turn 460 on a large map with 3 opponents. I control about half the map and can see another 20% or so because of trade routes. 12 cities - half of them idle at the moment. I could easily end the game with an alliance/diplomatic victory or a spell of making but want to complete the epic quests. No instability and saves load fine but the game has been slowing down since about turn 200 and I'm now spending at least half my time watching the hour glass. If it gets much slower, I'll likely give up on it. Win 7 x64, 6 core AMD processor, 8Gb RAM, GTX480 and my C drive, which includes the game, is a 256Gb SSD.