Savegame load/save time

Nerby · PoC Veteran Gold Licensee Joined: 20 Oct 2004 Posts: 75

Hi All,

I think this is not the first time when someone complains about the time it takes to load (or save) a savegame in PoC.

Not only I think this is very slow, but it also has very strange behaviour: I had a game with 150+ ships, then I decided to sell nearly all them, remaining with about 15. Well, when I load the game I still see a small ship counter counting all the ships no more in the game, and it still takes ages.

I also understand that this is not a big issue for those who play PoC for the 2D/3D simulation, and have small fleets. But as soon as your fleet goes above 20-30 ships, loading/saving time grows unacceptably, IMHO.

Also, I am not using the stock market: what happens if someone invest in a lot of companies?

In any case, this is probably a problem of file format, which should be changed. I understand that changing from one file format to the other would introduce compatibility problems, but a simple solution would be that, given a faster file format, new versions of PoC can read both new and old savegames, while they write a savegame only in the new format. Soon all games would be in the new, faster format.

Please fix this! I think this problem is really annoying: this bug is the only reason why I don't upgrade from Gold to Platinum.

Since my opionion is quite strong on this, I would also like to check other's opnions, so I'm also starting a poll.

Nerby

rdklein · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 10:50 am Post subject:

currently we use the xml file format for load and save and for debug and test we also save the histrory (eg ships no longer in the game),
we did need this a lot of time to find user bugs,
of course we know that loading and saving costs time, and we look for other possibilities which are easy to handle.

ricardo · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:45 am Post subject: Bug Reports

I am amazed to read all the problems that users are complaining about.
I purchased a Platinum license not to operate ilegally.But obviously I have made the wrong decision. Every section of P O C have problems needles to say with the new 3d that has been added. It is now 9 months i am waiting for the column in the goods table that does not sort it in value order. I think there was an update in Sept last year but then i had to re-install and then change the date, time on my PC to keep it running.
My suggestion is that when a member of the public is keen to register pls make sure as to what exactly is his interest. I am only keen in playing P O C XXl without any sims or stock exchanges involved. Other people might only be interested in playing POC classic or poc with 2d-sim.
Allthough I own a Platinum lic I have not even looked at the update on the 3d-sim. Unfortanetly I am from South Africa and can only access the net from the work. So I have to download and then install at home. I can live with this and new it from the beginning.
But thank you for a great game and all the comms that takes place on this forum.

rdklein · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:33 pm Post subject:

Dont forget the the platinum is a life time license, thats the only game I know of this feature. We are limited in our developer team, and need more funding then we can increase the developer speed.

Olle P · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:50 pm Post subject: What loading time?

I've never noticed any appreciable delay in POC.
Perhaps because I don't run that many ships, like never more than 30 at a time and usually ten or less.
With more ships I'm more irritated by the inability to pause and save the game while doing some of the "port business" (picking freights and maneouvering in/out of port) that take up almost all the playing time.

The only games where I've had serious loading times are BF2 (demo) and the spanking new Steel Beasts Pro PE.

/Olle

rdklein · Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 6:54 am Post subject:

we might have found a way to speed up, this is due to a "bug" in the string system of VB, we try to program a patch, at least for the save times.

Nerby · PoC Veteran Gold Licensee Joined: 20 Oct 2004 Posts: 75

StickyMonk · Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:28 pm Post subject:

I have a LONG wait on one of my games, there are 7 of my friends which have a mutiplayer game on my computer and we all have about 30 or so ships (one has 70 cheep ones) and the load time is really really long.
_________________
Cheers
Matthew

for my ships,cargo and harbors don't visit my web site as they are not there anymore