Sector loading gets very slow as game progresses (as of 2.6 or 2.7.x)

[de la Serna]

Tried the save as well.
Took exactly 2 mins and 17 seconds to load the game, and about half the time to return to main screen...

What's weird is that x3tc.exe seems to become idle just after the savegame has been loaded from disk, for about 116.5483471 seconds (according to process monitor).

So your game is completely unmodified? never used scripts, cheats, or anything (except the tubeless mod you mentioned)?

As for that mod, I use it myself, and I don't recall it ever causing me problems... in fact, savegames created when it was installed work even after it's been removed, and vice versa.

By the way, I even tried stopping all the trade commands you had running and blowing all of your complexes up, (fun,) but no change.

p.s. what about framerate in those sectors where you have 200+ stations?

[PQTaggart]

Thanks to all of you for your support so far, folks! I really appreciate it.

@de la Serna: Interesting that x3tc.exe idles around. I could not notice such a behaviour with my installation when looking at it in the task manager.
Yes, except for the tubeless mod, it's absolutely purest vanilla 2.7.1 with the latest bonus pack. I had Windows installed a few weeks ago and then X3. No scripts or cheats were ever added nor removed.
The framerate should be around 3-10fps when I look at the complex. When looking in another direction, it's well above 20fps (only estimated).

I think there's only one thing for me to do now: "EGOSOFT PLEASE HEEEEELP!!!"

If we can't fix this, I'll take it as a sign of Xaar almighty to stop gaming and start reading books again like all the other unholy creatures! - despite of my signature...

[Shootist]

Go over to scripts and modding. If a save can be repaired, someone there will know how.

[PQTaggart]

hmm, but my goal is to keep my game unmodified - and the board rules suggest not to do such a thing:

"Posting topics that have nothing to do with Scripts and Modding : Don't do it! "

[PQTaggart]

My final hope was that finishing the Hub plot would remedy my savegame problems. Unfortunately to no avail. I'm giving up now and will restart from scratch - the last time.

Darn, thinking about dragging around all those roids for hours..

At least I'll get one advantage out of it: starting with patch v2.5 gives me an indestructible deca and makes boarding easier again... har har

[Nanook]

Sorry, but it's patch 2.5 that made boarding harder. So you'll have to start earlier than that. Har har.

[Shootist]

[aquatica]

After reading this thread, I'm getting scared. Not only am I about to finish the first part of the Hub plot, ever, and I am experiencing mild problems like that with loading. Loading the save take anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes (which I consider quite normal), but sector loading is anything between 15 seconds to a minute... Hopefully it wont blast away

[CBJ]

Is your game modified? If so then either a rogue script or script-logging that has accidentally been left switched on could explain the increasing time. This problem is usually accompanied by savegames that steadily increase in size, so that's a quick way to check whether this might indeed be the problem in your case.

[aquatica]

No mods and only bonus pack scripts, savegame is about 13MB's in size, so it doesn't look like to be anything odd. It is, after all, ingame day 7 or 8 I'm going through now.

[Alan Phipps]

@ aquatica: 13 Mb size saves are normal in earlyish game but the loading times you state for sectors and those saves are a bit excessive. Firstly is your drive nearly full and is it recently defragged (as bad fragmentation of files will slow things)? Are other application/game types of saves/loads as you or others might expect?

Otherwise consider trying your TC saves on another drive if you can and see if that changes things. Let's hope that your harddrive is not on the way to failing. I hope you do a regular safety backup of your important files if it is down to that drive.

You might consider posting a new Tech Sp thread with your DxDiag and game info.

[aquatica]

@Alan

Well I'm still looking into it, it hasn't gotten any worse now at least. But if it gets, I'll just do a new ticked as per instructions, I was just wondering if anyone happened to have some sort of idea as to this.
Oh, I did remove few codecs, just in case, and I think that if nothing changed performance wise, that I might have actually gotten few more (wonder why, or how?) sound channels as everything seems more... well, EAX'ish, mind you the codecs had absolutely nothing to do with audio.

[Alan Phipps]

@ aquatica: No, codecs etc might affect in-game play but not disk loading/access times. The quality/correctness of your disk drivers might though. See if your OS does the Windows Experience Index Base Score on your system as it will benchmark your harddrive amongst your other system components. Does your cpu max out while loading? By the way, I hope you aren't running other applications (such as on-line chat, virus scans, etc) in the background or during these long loading times.

Your issue, on the basis of most others' game experience and your descriptions, is that you are already having excessively long and variable loading times and that may indicate problems that rather than just getting worse may possibly next become terminal if they are hardware-based. Asking if anyone has any idea about such a problem is not going to be helpful to you if no-one knows your current system and its state, nor the state of your game. Hence why I was asking about how full your drive was and whether your OS can do certain things, etc.

[PQTaggart]

It's unlikely to be a hardware problem. As stated earlier in this post, I experienced the same problems with one save-game. When I started a new game, game- and sector-loading times were back to normal. I also tested my older save-games where I completed all missions - no problem occured. My PC was a brand new Lenovo T400 - no hw problems until now.
It must be a software related problem.

[Alan Phipps]

This is the bit of aquatica's post that indicates that there may be a system/hardware/driver issue: "Loading the save [a normal 13 Mb] take anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes (which I consider quite normal)"

I am sure that after reading the rest of your thread he will have already eliminated or reported the issue completely disappearing on a fresh start or earlier save. Anyway, I'm sure he has moved on since the last time he posted here in Sep last year.