No Good Deed Will Ever Go Unpunished

[Seminole]

I've been bragging about how well the saved game function works in SHIV compared to SHIII.

Well this AM trying to reload Patrol 4...bamo...black screen. :shifty: Had to go back to end of patrol 3 and RELOAD. A whole patrol wasted...and a good one at that. :nope:

OK then...so be it...is there a generally accepted "best way" to save your SHIV games to avoid this?

[Digital_Trucker]

The rules of thumb that I have always heard are:

1) Always save on the surface
2) Never save while in contact with other units
3) Save often
4) Don't overwrite saves (I do all the time, but I've heard folks have problems after overwriting)
5) Don't save replays

As far as #3 goes, I save after I have charted my course to my first patrol area, after every completed objective and after any combat activity. I usually rotate a few saves, (keep the first save and then write over after 3 saves).

And, whatever you do, don't make any major mod changes while you are at sea. When in doubt, wait 'till you get back to base to make mod updates.

[kylesplanet]

I have only had one bad save since the game came out and that was a long time ago, I think 1.2. I have saved in all the bad situations and have been very fortunate never to have bad ones but I did get in the habit of saving often back when the CTD's came often. (partly due to vista as much as SH4)

It certainly makes one wonder, what is causing the bad saves for some and nearly none with others.:hmm: Maybe we'll figure it out one of these days but is sure is odd.

[-Pv-]

Sounds like you may have a hardware problem starting to warn you. I have broken all the "rules" above hundreds of times with no corrupted restores playing stock 1.4. I would bet if the majority of players were getting corrupted saves if they didn't follow all the "rules" above, this forum would be swamped with nasty messages on that topic.

The save games are very large. 300K to 6 megs or more. Not every failure people report are the fault of the game code.

Typical culprits:
Playing on a low-end system which doesn't meet game spec.
Failing hard drive
Drivers and chipset not up to date
Over-heated chassis
Mods
Malware
Running programs incompatible with SH
Patch not up to date
-Pv-

[Seminole]

Digital_Trucker: 4. Don't overwrite saves (I do all the time, but I've heard folks have problems after overwriting)


I think this maybe the culprit. I saved this particular patrol many ,many times..and foolishly overwrote the same file as opposed to creating new saves each instance.. :shifty: Looks like I just got caught this time 'round ....'cause before I have saved in all sorts of conditions with narry a hitch.....like I said I was even braggin' about the saves in a thread or two.

So... now it will be Patrol4a save, patrol 4b save, patrol 4c save and so on.:yep:


Thanks!