I'm going to do this anyway but....

[in_vino_vomitus]

So - when I load some saved games in OM they crash the game - it just freezes up on the loading screen. I've noticed it's more prevalent if there's a convoy in the vicinity and I'm wondering if my two gigs of RAM are up to the job. Anyway I'm off to slot in some more - One thing it oughtn't to do is make anything worse, but can I expect this to fix the problem?

I'm assuming this isn't a general issue with OM because if it was it would be all over these forums

[Bubblehead1980]

So - when I load some saved games in OM they crash the game - it just freezes up on the loading screen. I've noticed it's more prevalent if there's a convoy in the vicinity and I'm wondering if my two gigs of RAM are up to the job. Anyway I'm off to slot in some more - One thing it oughtn't to do is make anything worse, but can I expect this to fix the problem?

I'm assuming this isn't a general issue with OM because if it was it would be all over these forums

Four gigs should help, also get the 4 gig patch for SH 4 from the downloads area. I had the same problem with OM also, even with plenty of RAM, just never saved with a convoy near.Convoys are much larger on Allied side. Saving near IJN convoys, much smaller compared to those in OM creates problems as well.

[BrucePartington]

This really is a mystery.
I have been lucky so far (knock on wood).

HP Pavillion (found tossed in trash due to burnt graphics card), with:
1.8 Ghz Core 2 Duo;
2 Gb RAM
Nvidia GeForce GT 440 w/1Gb memory (bought as replacement)
500 Gb HDD
Win 7 Ultimate x86 (32 bit)

Never (so far) a corrupted save, not even with enemy convoys in radar.
However I never saved under water due to advice from experienced skippers on this forum.

SH3 and SH4 in high settings for the most part.
SH4 w/1.5 version (UBM).
Only a few minor mods. I'll consider popular mega mods after I finish my first career.

I regularly run a couple of system clean-up and tune-up programs, and I'm also careful about the start-up list.

[in_vino_vomitus]

It only happens with OM - I had OMEGU loaded, and I removed that and went to OMPLOT, which seemed to help. It hasn't crashed mid-game yet, but just had the first bite out of a big convoy, surfaced about 10 klicks away and saved, ready for the next installment - went to load and it hung up on the loading screen - I currently have 2 gigs installed so this should take me up to 6 - I just grabbed the Large address aware patch - I'm assuming that's what I need - Let's see what happens......

[Simmy]

Bubblehead1980,
I don't mean to side track this thread, but could you or anyone tell me exactly what "the 4 gig patch for SH 4" does?

Thanks...

[Webster]

Bubblehead1980,
I don't mean to side track this thread, but could you or anyone tell me exactly what "the 4 gig patch for SH 4" does?

Thanks...

it allows for more then the 3gb set limit of ram to be used

[Bubblehead1980]

it allows for more then the 3gb set limit of ram to be used


What Webster said. Does help with CTD issues, I rarely get CTD's since installed it.

[Admiral Halsey]

I must be lucky as I never had a crash in OM unless OMEGU is installed too.(Which sucks as I really like the stuff it adds.)

[in_vino_vomitus]

Well, if this does the trick, I'll probably reload it

[Simmy]

it allows for more then the 3gb set limit of ram to be used

Does that include XP?

[in_vino_vomitus]

Yeah - As I understand it, when the game was written it wasn't thought likely that the machines it would be played on would have more than 2, or 3 gigs of RAM, so the game only looks for that amount - What the Large address aware utility does, is it tells the game that there's more memory for the taking. It's certainly improved the frame rate - Now to see if I can load my saved position....

[Simmy]

Yeah - As I understand it, when the game was written it wasn't thought likely that the machines it would be played on would have more than 2, or 3 gigs of RAM, so the game only looks for that amount - What the Large address aware utility does, is it tells the game that there's more memory for the taking. It's certainly improved the frame rate - Now to see if I can load my saved position....

Thank you again Mr. in_vino_vomitus.
You have been very helpful once again.
I have 4 mgs in my XP, maybe I should give this a try.

[in_vino_vomitus]

I would say so - I don't know if the game uses 2 or 3 gigs as standard, but if you have 4 then some of that is definitely going unused

[merc4ulfate]

While running the allied side of the game I never had this issue. About a month after I started playing the axis side only I began to run into this bug. Now it will almost never load a saved game unless that happens to be on where the game saved it in port after a patrol.

I'm going to test the theory about convoys but I have saved it before on the allied side with huge convoys and task force's and never had an issue.

I run the game with 8 gigs of ram

Intel Pentium Dual E2220 2.4GHZ
8 Gigs DDR3 Ram
Nvidea GEFORCE 9500 GT
Vista SP2
Hitachi 2 Terabyte SATA Hard Drive
Iomega 1 Terabyte External Hard Drive

Generic Mod Enabler - v2.6.0.157
OpsMonsun_V705
OMv705_to_V720
OMv720_Patch5
OMEGU_v300
OMEGU_v300_Patch7
OM_Med_Env
OM_Harder_Escort_L2
UBM Missions
Popular German Music From The 30´s

[in_vino_vomitus]

Well - adding an extra 4 gigs hasn't cured the save problem, but it does seem to be running smoother. I tried to reload a couple of saved positions - all with a convoy in the vicinity - the game just crashed, it didn't hang up - The save that finally loaded was one after the first pass at the convoy - I'd got a bit too much separation, I think, and I suspect it despawned - either way, I couldn't regain contact.

[fireftr18]

I wonder if you came across the "save game" bug. If you overwrite saves too many times, the save files become corrupted. There are certain rules to assure a good save.
1. Save while in port with a name of your choosing. For instance, "fireftr."
2. While on patrol, save under a new file each time. For instance, "fireftr1." Some people use a date and time.
3.Try to save during the day, in clear weather, on the surface, with nothing in sensor range. Some people came up with this rule because they had problems. Not everyone had problems. The idea is simple, the more added to the environment, the more complicated the save files become.

[in_vino_vomitus]

yeah - I came across that advice and that's pretty much how I do it now - I think it's having lots of stuff in sensor range that has corrupted my saves so far.

About halfway through my last patrol, I lost all the crew pictures from the crew management screen - the empty places will still drag and drop, but my crew seem to have done a Marie Celeste on me.....

[Simmy]

I hate to beat this horse again, but one more question if you don't mind.
I have started to load "the 4 gig patch for SH 4" but became very weak and shakey. If I load this thing and don't like it is there a way to delete it, or do I have to delete the whole game and start over?

Thanks...

[in_vino_vomitus]

Since it's a patch rather than a mod, I'd imagine if you want rid you'll have to reinstall the game.

I'm curious as to the difference between the Large Address Aware utility and the 4 gig patch - Is one preferable to the other, does anyone know?

[TorpX]

I think your problem is more likely in what mods you have, than in how many gigs of memory you have. I have Windows Vista 32 and 3 GB of RAM, and have played the game with few problems. I'll admit, I've never used OM or gotten in the habit of stalking huge convoys, but have played and saved very successfully. Too often, people are prone to assume that the 4GB patch and more RAM will fix whatever is messing up their game. SH4 is an fairly old game, you shouldn't need the latest and greatest hardware to run it.

[in_vino_vomitus]

I think you're right.

[merc4ulfate]

Last night I gave the save game issue a spin.

I saved the game near a convoy. I then decided to go on and play doing what I could in the convoy. I finished my objective and returned to base knowing I had that one saved game and after I got back to base and allowed the game to save itself I would run the save I added manually.

I even went so far as to enter a mission after the last auto save and then try to load the manually saved game and it wasn't there. Since it was the last saved game the auto save over wrote it so I am going to have to go and try again making sure I do not go to port after the manually saved game and instead simply load it at sea.

[jldjs]

Since it's a patch rather than a mod, I'd imagine if you want rid you'll have to reinstall the game.

I'm curious as to the difference between the Large Address Aware utility and the 4 gig patch - Is one preferable to the other, does anyone know?

I've used this game memory increase method for past two years and rarely get a bad save, where without it I dreaded using saved game points. IIRC, LLA is utility you run and then select the executable, eg, SH4.exe, that you want to use up to 3gb of RAM instead of the default 2gb. The 4gig patch does the same thing but you manually change the .exe file and I think the boot.ini for non-64bit OS systems, like XP32. I've found this to very useful for XP, Win7, especially when using the 3000 yard compass MOD. Both methods are reversible, and just require re-starting the game rather than re-installing. This is what recollect!