saved games

[hcs53]

I posted before about not loading saved games,but I still have problems.
I saved a game everythime with other words,no traffic around me,surfaced,but after several good loadings I get the same problem(silent hunter does not work anymore):/\\!!
The last time I started allover again(in the office) 9,10,11 times no problems and then............(silent hunter does not work anymore):/\\!!


Generic Mod Enabler - v2.6.0.157
[C:\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter 4\MODS]

1_TriggerMaru_Overhaul_2-5
TMO_Alt_engineSounds
TMO_Aft_deckguns
RSRDC_TMO_V502
RSRDC_V5xx_Patch1
1.5_Optical Targeting Correction 031312 for RSRDCv502
1.5_OTC_Realistic Scopes for 16 to 9 RSRDCv502
Improved Stock Environment_v3_TMO&RFB

does It have somethig to do with Improved Stock Environment_v3_TMO&RFB
?

[Webster]

the biggest problem with saves comes from some small change you make without realising it.

a mod update or tiny change you make means the saved game files arent the same as the games files anymore and thats where you get ctd issues.

is there anything at all, even the slightest thing, that you changed with the game?


also sometimes if you play a very long time there is a lot of stored memmory for it and its possible your system dumped some of the info to make room for more info it was continuing to create. lots of times its seen as just random corruptions but 90% of the time you just run out of temporary memmory storage and its like a recording loop so as you need more it dumps things saved at the beginning to create more space.


the best thing to do is get in the habbit of double saving so you can always return to your last starting point.

in addition to the games auto-saves you should do your own save as you leave port at the start of every patrol and anoother save when you arrive on station that way you have 2 extra restarting points in case one gets messed up

[hcs53]

The only thing I changes was,TMO_Aft_deckguns,but that was in the office.:hmmm:

I have another strange thing:when I get the message"ship spotted" I go to per.depth and raise the per.,on the map I see the ships icoon,I markt it ,start the stopwatch and after that I never see the second mark only the black sonar line

[hcs53]

I'm back in the office,deleted the last saved games and started again with only

Generic Mod Enabler - v2.6.0.157
[C:\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter 4\MODS]

1_TriggerMaru_Overhaul_2-5

just look wat's happening:up::hmmm:

[stanger]

Don't play with deck guns, a lot of people had problems with it, even if not changing it after starting campaign. As Ducimus wrote in manual, and from my own experience, and from other people experience (look in TMO thread): choose your deck gun position (bow or stern) and then start a campaign game, and don't touch it after that, (and dont start with s-class boat) - with a little luck you wont get into trouble.

[hcs53]

I change that, thanks stanger:up:

[Hylander_1314]

Yes, the deck gun issue is a royal pain in the keester, but it is a stock bug.

There was a thread in the SH4 Mods Forum, about changing from bow to stern, and I guess it could be done, but it requires you to manually alter the appropriate file(s).

And to stop the bug from causing issues with the late war boats that had both a bow and deck gun, Ducimus incorporated an extra AA gun in either the bow or stern position depending on what people choose.

As for your corrupted save game issue, I'm not sure if the deck gun would be a contributor to that or not. I don't recall anyone having corrupted save game issues due to the deck gun, but that's not to say, it isn't in your case.

Looks like you started with just TMO, and if it runs smooth with no issues, add the other mods one at a time, and run the game to see what happens, and if the save game issue crops up after adding one of them, then you will know what the culprit is, and be able to address it accordingly.

[torpedobait]

Ahoy!

I picked up this hint from one of the other threads: Do not save within 50 miles of a port (sometimes makes the ships in port go crazy if you reload that saved game), and always save from the Control Room (PF2). The only corrupt save I've had since was when I ignored the 2nd rule and saved while underwater. I now go to the Control Room without fail.

I agree with the hint to save a couple of times. I usually wait until I am well outside 50 miles from my home port and take a "Start" save, and then save again when I arrive at my patrol area, just in case.

Of course, if you are a purist and play till you die and then start a new career, saving becomes moot, eh? :D

Good Hunting! :salute:

[Rockin Robbins]

Forget that collection of old wives tales. You can save anywhere you want doing anything you choose: in sight of land, with contacts, under water, in port, in battle, with torpedoes on the way to the target, not facing Mecca even! All those SH3 bugs were fixed with the 1.0 release of SH4 and are banished forever since then. Forget all of it. Save where you want. There are no consequences.:up:

I don't understand ignorant superstition persisting for years on a site where everybody should know better.http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/argggggg.gif

[stanger]

Better safe than sorry. And SH4 is too fragile to not to be careful.

It's not like the problem has gone away completely. It's not that painful like in SH3, but it still happen, like in torpedobaits case, or mine, when I saved just right "outside" Brisbane harbor (too see if i'll get a refit), and couldn't load that save anymore.

[Rockin Robbins]

Coincidence does not equal cause and effect. I have hundreds of saves in all kinds of situation up to and including in combat, in sight of land, just outside a harbor with torpedoes on the way to a target (I mean all of those at once in a single save) and no problems. Any reload problems I have ever had since 2007 have either been my fault entirely or just random events. I have repeatedly tried to break the save game system and had no luck except for very infrequent random events.
Keeping backup saves entirely eliminates the random event. There is no remedy for screwing up your own game. Keep VERY careful records of your exact mod combination. That's the majority of the problems in reloading. Save, make changes, no load, try to restore your setup when you saved, remember wrong, new career!

SH4 is pointedly NOT FRAGILE! It is more reliable than Unreal Tournament 3, Roller Coaster Tycoon 1, 2 or 3, any of the Command and Conquer Series, Halo, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, Portal, or any other game I've played in the past ten years. SH4 is rock solid. It is on a par with Microsoft Office for file retrievability.

[fireftr18]

Rockin Robbins, you're right, I haven't had any problems with saves under those circumstances either. I did have problems when I over wrote saves in the same file. I'm with stanger, better safe than sorry, so I try to follow all those guidelines.:lost:

[torpedobait]

Forget that collection of old wives tales. You can save anywhere you want doing anything you choose: in sight of land, with contacts, under water, in port, in battle, with torpedoes on the way to the target, not facing Mecca even! All those SH3 bugs were fixed with the 1.0 release of SH4 and are banished forever since then. Forget all of it. Save where you want. There are no consequences.:up:

I don't understand ignorant superstition persisting for years on a site where everybody should know better.http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/argggggg.gif

Humph. Consider yourself among the fortunate then. They may be old wives tales in your experience but mine is different. With zero changes to configuration I tried to reload a last saved game -saved when I was submerged in Truk lagoon - as a test. No joy. SH4 stopped. I had to restart and load a previous game saved from the ControlRoom while surfaced about 100 NM from Truk. I'm just saying, please don't blow someone off because you had a different experience. :salute:

[Rockin Robbins]

Often superstition replaces knowledge because it is just so much easier. It absolves the holder of the superstition from any responsibility of finding the solution to the problem. They can just blow it off as a game defect.

I stand by my statements. SH4 is not broken in the saved games department. To guard against random events resulting in a corrupted game save, just save a backup and you'll be fine. These random events happen to all programs that save data, regardless of application type. Word processors, spreadsheets, presentation software, music recording software, you name it, they all do it once in awhile. Welcome to computers.

Perfect example of a superstition, look at the "Serious problem - fog" thread. Not knowing that a large percentage of duds is purposely part of the game, the poster, lacking data from dozens of cruises, made the reasonable connection between the fog and the large amount of duds he was having. Unfortunately, the connection is entirely imaginary and fog has no bearing on dud percentage at all. Reasonable conclusions are often VERY wrong.

True story: Aristotle taught that gravity pulls on heavier objects harder than it pulls on lighter objects (just hold them and see! It's true) so therefore the heavier object would fall faster than the lighter object. I don't believe he actually quantified the effect, stating that the velocities were proportional to the weight or any other mathematical relationship, just that the heavier an object the faster it falls.

This was believed for a thousand years without question. After all, it is a reasonable conclusion drawn from hands-on experience, just like the saved games and not near land, no contacts visible, not submerged, not facing Mecca thing. The only problem was that Aristotle was dead wrong. Before his trick with dropping the cannon ball and the light ball off the Tower of Pisa, Galileo had already proven in the privacy of his home by rolling different weight balls down an inclined plane that everything falls at the same rate!

Even ten years ago (that's 500 years AFTER Galileo, 1500 years after Aristotle) I was working on a science fair project with my son, replicating Galileo's inclined plane experiments with a steel ball bearing and a ping pong ball. My son, of course, believed that the ball bearing would slaughter the ping pong ball down the ramp. But astonishingly, his TEACHERS and the judges of the science fair also thought it was so obvious that the ball bearing would roll down the ramp faster that they dismissed the project as not science at all. That is, until we actually rolled those two balls down the ramp and proved that they both rolled at the same speed. THEN they took notice. They accused my son of rigging the device.

Superstition dies hard.

[stanger]

I see you're with subsim since march 2007, you must remember how buggy the 1.0 version of the game was; now with 5 patches and a lot of modifications its almost indistinguishable, almost; imagine a person after some accident, with bandages all over his\her (rather 'her' :) ) body, thats our beloved game; she is fine, will live, but must be careful not to break anything ::03:
We don't have enough knowledge of this game save system to act accordingly to avoid problems; we can only base on our experience (from playing it and getting corrupted saves). And SH games arent like Call of Duty where its no big deal to loose progress, 5 minutes after reloading, you're back on track, here loosing a save game means loosing a lot of hours, days sometimes. To me, its not strange people playing SH prefer to be careful with it, even if it on the edge of superstition.

[Rockin Robbins]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that corrupted saves don't happen sometimes. They happen with equal frequency with all programs we run on these contraptions.

But a corrupted save has zero correlation with your in-game situation when you save. Wearing a copper bracelet would be as effective as all the mumbo-jumbo people talk about having to do in order to get a good save.That's all leftover garbage from SH3, having nothing to do with SH4.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/ORly.gif

[Webster]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that corrupted saves don't happen sometimes. They happen with equal frequency with all programs we run on these contraptions.

But a corrupted save has zero correlation with your in-game situation when you save. Wearing a copper bracelet would be as effective as all the mumbo-jumbo people talk about having to do in order to get a good save.That's all leftover garbage from SH3, having nothing to do with SH4.




i think you overlook things sometimes because you have a better system them most and i think thats why you never experienced a lot of the little quirks that can effect saves on limited systems.

i can tell you for a FACT that all the mentioned things to avoid would and did cause corruptions with my older systems, after upgrading my computer i could save in the middle of a hurricane while the battle of coral sea was in full motion and have no issues what so ever.

just because you never experienced these issues doesnt mean they should be dismissed, they arent always imagined or simply missunderstood issues caused by something else.

with a decent system you are correct, nothing matters as far as saving goes but for those with marginal systems with limited memmory they are very sensative to corrupted saves from the things that were listed to avoid.

that said i only know of having issues with sh3 and sh4 using large system memmory volume for compiling game save info so perhaps the sh5 game is immune to these problems but with ubi's track record on fixing old issues with the next release, i doubt it.

[stanger]

But a corrupted save has zero correlation with your in-game situation when you save. Wearing a copper bracelet would be as effective as all the mumbo-jumbo people talk about having to do in order to get a good save.That's all leftover garbage from SH3, having nothing to do with SH4.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/ORly.gif

perhaps the sh5 game is immune to these problems but with ubi's track record on fixing old issues with the next release, i doubt it.

It has some correlation with players in-game situation. Like in my example of corrupted save - saving couple of meters in front of Brisbane harbor, maybe doing it too quickly after using time compression, maybe not allowing the game to load all the things (ships, terrain ... there was a lot of ships, a lot of disk and memory activity) before saving and quitting to desktop. Im sure it wouldnt happen in open seas, in the middle of nowhere, but could happen if there was large convoy nearby (although it didnt when I was forced once to save in such situaltion).
But it's clear that SH4 doesnt suffer as much as SH3 did, but still, there is something to it, even in SH5, in save game files, you can find a line that says whether the sub is underwater or not, which shows that the dev team were aware of potential possibility of issues with saves and were trying to limit it (or further limit it, as they already made good progress with it in SH4).
In my opinion, its just good habit to avoid in SH4 (and 5th too) doing things that were causing save issues in SH3, as the games backbone is still the same.

(Edit)Then I started to stare at those cats and thought - they can do this forever :P

[Rockin Robbins]

i think you overlook things sometimes because you have a better system them most and i think thats why you never experienced a lot of the little quirks that can effect saves on limited systems.
I wish you were right, but actually that's the opposite of the truth.

I started out with a 32 bit motherboard, an Athlon single core 3700+ processor, a barely able to run SH4 nVidia 7600GT graphics card and 2 gig of memory. Never a problem with saves with just about all possible sensible mod combinations.

Then I upgraded the processor to an Opteron 175 dual core, the best that would fit in my socket 939 motherboard and upgraded to an nVidia 7900GS. That still equalled a third-rate system and again I had no problems with saves in any game configuration. I tested extensively at that time to determine the truth of the legends, especially the one about saving when not facing Mecca. I only had game corruption when saving in my underwear.

Finally the electrolytic capacitors in my motherboard popped and I went all-out, with a sub $100 Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 motherboard, a lower than middle of the road Athlon II X3 455 processor and 4 gig of memory, of which my Windows XP only can see 3.2, and a lower middle class nVidia 250 video card. So I'm still a long ways from a top rate system.

But the point is that I've had three separate and different sytems, plus many, many different configurations of Silent Hunter 4. Then I have done extensive testing specifically for the purpose of testing the truth of the theories on game saves, something nobody else has ever done. As I've said, I have dozens of saves from the combination from hell:just outside of port, submerged, in combat, with torpedoes on the way to but not having struck targets yet, all at the same time and not one failure of a game save file in all those test saves. This is like breaking a mirror on Friday the 13th under a ladder while petting my black cat and spilling salt, not tossing it over my shoulder! I have had, throughout my five years of playing SH4, only two types of corrupted game saves: the ones that were my fault for doing something stupid and completely random, unpredicatable failures which are very infrequent. I recommend using backup saves and not worrying about it.

My conclusion is based on a variety of different computer and game configurations and hundreds of test saves plus my actual playing game saves from 2007 to 2012. If I'm not on solid ground, nobody CAN be.

Edit: Yup, gotta love those cats!

[fireftr18]

And while we're talking about this, I just had my first corrupted save on a fresh save file. It happened to be at night during a storm. RR, it might just be random and I think it is, but it is a strange coincidence.:hmm2:

[WernherVonTrapp]

But the point is that I've had three separate and different sytems, plus many, many different configurations of Silent Hunter 4. Then I have done extensive testing specifically for the purpose of testing the truth of the theories on game saves, something nobody else has ever done. As I've said, I have dozens of saves from the combination from hell:just outside of port, submerged, in combat, with torpedoes on the way to but not having struck targets yet, all at the same time and not one failure of a game save file in all those test saves. This is like breaking a mirror on Friday the 13th under a ladder while petting my black cat and spilling salt, not tossing it over my shoulder! I have had, throughout my five years of playing SH4, only two types of corrupted game saves: the ones that were my fault for doing something stupid and completely random, unpredicatable failures which are very infrequent. I recommend using backup saves and not worrying about it.

My conclusion is based on a variety of different computer and game configurations and hundreds of test saves plus my actual playing game saves from 2007 to 2012. If I'm not on solid ground, nobody CAN be.I have to agree here. I haven't had a corrupted save for so long, that I cannot recall the last time it happened. Even when I did experience them (as infrequently as they occurred), I attributed it more to my Virus Scanner auto-updating and installing new signatures while my saves were taking place. Still, I don't know if that was the exact cause but, I've always been able to save near ports, during major battles, etc..

Edit: Yup, gotta love those cats!
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/b456/archangel501/Gifs/286f7a0f.gif

[Webster]

I only had game corruption when saving in my underwear.




:har:

well i saw these corruptions first hand and they were real then they no longer existed after i upgraded so i attributed it to that but who knows.

i can only say that this strange phenominom exists and it happened to me many times as well as strange things like saving in shallow water would give me damage when reloading, something about bouncing off the bottom when in the process of first spawning into the game, so its not project blue book stuff lol.

cant say anything about sh5 as i only tried it a few times before uninstalling it.

never say never, because "some" people do have these strange corruption issues and avoiding "things going on" in the game tends to stop them from happening so i suppose its best to say while you dont believe it happens
there is no harm in being over cautious.

[Hylander_1314]

Darn gremlins! They curse our computers as badly as they cursed the equiptment back then!

[Rockin Robbins]

Maybe it's worse, Hylander! We have so many processes working at once that it's pathetic. Multi-processing can mean multi-conflicts and there is absolutely no way we're ever going to figure them all out. On the Internet, when things are going slow it's very difficult to tell whether the slow-down is your computer, your ISP, some computer in the linkage of dozens of computers between you and the site, the site itself, Java, Javascript, Flash......it just gets crazy.

I had a guy over at RC Groups who took apart his airplane and on a wild whim tried to turn it into something else, a zombie aircraft, as it were. He wasn't paying too much attention and it crashed horribly. He asked whether it was the center of gravity, bad radio or the tinnies.

That started me into an hour of research on tinnies. He wasn't Australian so the predominate definition was out.

I replied that when it hits the fan ALWAYS blame the tinnies. It turned out that in a certain part of Britain, tinnies are beers and WHEW! my advice hit the spot.

So: corrupted game saves happen! The safest thing we can say is that we have no idea what is causing them, just to expect one once in awhile. Make backup saves and test them.

If it all goes to worms, BLAME THE TINNIES!:D

[Hylander_1314]

Yeah, I got used to turning off all non-essential processes before playing games. Back in the old Win95 and Win98SE days. Man, the stuff you could shut down on those OSes! To run some sims in those days, I used to go in to 98 and turn off so much, that the Properties for My Computer would read 94 to 98% free! Just the basics running.

The older DOS games were cool as they ran in the most basic of system setups and rarely had issues.

I took Vista and set it up to run as basic as possible, and used the tweaks for it from the the Blackviper site.

Also, I use GameBooster3 as it turns off even more junk, and other stuff I don't need, including the internet connection so nothing will update while playing a game.

Now the only time I get a CTD is if I tweak something in an SH4 file that shouldn't be tweaked. But since I do only one change at a time, I can go back and correct my flub and set things right again.

[Zurdo]

After a long Campaing and many files saved, I am having CTDs when I tried to reload again the previous saved patrol. I think I have to reinstall SH4 again but I would like to save the previous campaing saved.

could you please, some of you tell me in which file those files are saved inside SH4 folder?

Thanks a lot for your help

[Webster]

After a long Campaing and many files saved, I am having CTDs when I tried to reload again the previous saved patrol. I think I have to reinstall SH4 again but I would like to save the previous campaing saved.

could you please, some of you tell me in which file those files are saved inside SH4 folder?

Thanks a lot for your help

its almost always the save thats been corrupted and not the game, try a previous save and if it runs ok then its not the game files.

[Zurdo]

its almost always the save thats been corrupted and not the game, try a previous save and if it runs ok then its not the game files.


That,s true, previous saved, two or three files before runs ok, but aniway could you please tell me in which SH4 folder those files are saved? in DATA may be?

Thanks for your help

[Webster]

That,s true, previous saved, two or three files before runs ok, but aniway could you please tell me in which SH4 folder those files are saved? in DATA may be?

Thanks for your help

open your computers "documents" folder and inside it there is a "sh4" folder thats where your game saves and data is stored. there will be one folder for german saves and one for american. you can also change your reknown numbers and other settings there. its best to do your deleting of saved games from the game itself and it reduces the chances of mistakes and maybe deleting the wrong save

[Zurdo]

open your computers "documents" folder and inside it there is a "sh4" folder thats where your game saves and data is stored. there will be one folder for german saves and one for american. you can also change your reknown numbers and other settings there. its best to do your deleting of saved games from the game itself and it reduces the chances of mistakes and maybe deleting the wrong save
Thank you so much Webster for yur kind help. I tryed to delete saved files from SH4, but unsuscesfully, from the menu of "load". From where I can delete files inside SH4 game?

Thanks again for your support

[Webster]

if you have trouble then run the game and open the save menu then delete them, its easier to do that way instead of the load menu

[SNAKE1937]

I posted a solution to the "saved games" reloading issue in SH3 a long time ago, and it still works.

SH4 came with a bucket of bugs, most of which have been solved except for the saved games issue.

My solution now is to play other games that WORK!!!!!!

Reading the input has been interesting, but not uniform in solving the issue.

The "deck gun" is one I have not heard about so far ---- but could not find just what to do about it to slove the saved games situation.

I would love to get back on "patrol", but only if I had some reassurance
that some where in my career my save would not load.

So "TO THE POINT". What is needed is a complete list of what to do, and NOT do, so the saved games can be restarted with out issue.

Of course the DEV could solve this if the got off there @$#% and gave a *&$# about those who spent $$$$ for there game.

[torpedobait]

I can tell you what worked for me. Memory, or lack thereof, seems to be my culprit. Although I have a very nice PC, certain complications caused me save-game issues.

First, I learned (from these forums) to be on the surface, not engaged with any enemy shipping, be at least 50 miles from any port, and in the control room (F2). That took care of 90% of it for me.

Then I saw a reference to a free download called "GameBooster-3". That little jewel turns off the things you don't need, freeing up memory otherwise lost to you. It is configurable and automatically reverts back to near-full ops when you exit the game. I say "near" because I do have to restart WebShots manually. That is the only issue I've seen now in two-plus months.

Others may suggest it is all in your head, but each has our own experience to go by, and the above works for me. I can now save surfaced or not, in the presence of task groups or single ships, and from whatever station I happen to be manning.

Good luck, Captain! :salute:

[Webster]

Of course the DEV could solve this if the got off there @$#% and gave a *&$# about those who spent $$$$ for there game.

its not the devs fault and its unfair to blame them.

ubisoft stopped them and put out the game in an unfinished state and they are under contract not to say anything on forums that could help fix the game or they could give away proprietary secrets and lose their job as well as be sued monetarily so they really are prevented by ubisoft from doing anything to help fix the game.

would you risk your home and money as well as your job over a game? you know you wouldnt so dont say you would.

its all on ubisoft as to how the game was left unfinished and full of problems but most save game issues are because you need a nice computer with a decent video card and a lot of ram memmory to run the game (just about double what ubisoft says is required for the game) and if you dont have that you get corrupted saves.

[fireftr18]

torpedobait, do you have a link to "GameBooster-3?"

[SNAKE1937]

OK, I should have said UBSOFT are the ones to fix this issue of saved games.

Saved games have been an issue in SH3 and SH4, not just a small issue, but a major one. lots of talk about it on both sites.

I did not buy SH5, and will not buy ANY GAME PUT OUT BY UBSOFT ever again until the saved game issue in SH4 is resolved completly!:damn:

[Webster]

OK, I should have said UBSOFT are the ones to fix this issue of saved games.

Saved games have been an issue in SH3 and SH4, not just a small issue, but a major one. lots of talk about it on both sites.

I did not buy SH5, and will not buy ANY GAME PUT OUT BY UBSOFT ever again until the saved game issue in SH4 is resolved completly!:damn:

the main issue with saved games tends to be one common factor, lesser computers with limited memmory. those with more expensive computers and lots of memmory rarely if ever have any corrupted saves no matter what conditions they save under so its not a game issue but a hardware issue.

i suspect they underestimated the game requirements so it would appeal to a wider market but you need a whole lot more computer then the game shows is required


also if you added any mods or updated or changed the game in any way it usually wont work with any saves you already have.

[jldjs]

Look at this thread;
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=195438&highlight=Large+Address+Aware (compliments of torpedobait)

I've been using this "fix" and rarely get a CTD and do saves when ever I want under almost any situation. Both of my PCs have 4mb or better of real memory. One is XP Pro Service pack 3, the other is MacPro. Prior to using this I experienced frequent CTDs and "bad saves'. I wouldn't wait for a repair to SH4 you'll get dissappointed real fast.

I've also tried Gamebooster 3 but didn't get as favorable results as I have with the LAA fix.

Hope this helps you get relief from your issue.

[BigWalleye]

I had trouble with corrupted saves (not always CTDs or BSDs, but career-losing in-game occurrences) until I found two pieces of advice on the SubSim forums. I began following them, and as long as I do, I have seen absolutely NO bad saves. These are:

1. Don't touch the modlist unless your career is at an in-port save. Don't "put it back llike it was." Don't make "unrelated" changes. Don't TOUCH IT between saving and restarting the game.

2. Don't overwrite a saved game. It is apparent from looking into the SH4 folder in Users\<yourname> that the save-game process is more complex than just writing a single file. So always save with a different saved-game name than any currently in use. If you want to reuse the same name for a save, first delete the existing save in Options/Save, then save using that name.

I am not saying that you WILL get a bad save if you ignore either of these rules. Nor will I speculate as to the underlying reasons why the rules work. But they do work for me. Using exactly the same hardware, I have eliminated ALL bad-save issues as long as I follow the rules. And have had saved-game issues recur whenever I chose to ignore them. YMMV, but, if you're haviing issues, it might be worth a try.

[SNAKE1937]

:/\\!! I think this must be the umteenth time that I have gone through whole process of uninstalling and reinstalling this game THAT STILL DOES NOT WORK RIGHT!!!

Thanks to the half ass bastards at UBSOFT. I can hardly wait to NOT BUY their next game.

Yes I have a VERY high end gaming computer and followed all of the do's and don't's-- but on the 5th patrol a save in the mid sea with no one arround it would not load. Nor the one before, Nor the one before that,Nor the one before that, Nor the one before that!!!

UBSOFT can kiss my $$$$ good buy FOR EVER!!!!!!!!

Do not even bother to answer! Infact expunge my name from this forum!!!!