Eclipses happen on time too...

Yes. If everything stays in time, the "stage" is set...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b0Q_xCopZY


The file I sent Front Runner seems to "magnify" this issue he has discovered. I made a change in a slightly related file, and I can now get a similar trouble very consistently. The only difference I can see in what my game does is that sometimes it remembers the periscope was up in a Save, and other times it does not. The game may also forget what my Game Play Settings were... But I can "lose" the waypoints everytime I reload a Save the 2nd time.

It is definitely NOT recommended that a person does that. Similar to using The Museum and then exiting before you play the game, if you happen to have loaded an incorrect Save, do NOT reload another. Exit the game and try again - unless, of course, you're trying to participate in tracing this down. Be warned though, it may trash your install...

OK, Front Runner, here's a post from Fifi in the SHIII threads I find rather interesting:
What can be this graphical problem?

The move from his SSD to his regular HD...

Interesting. I have moved my install from SSD to Hard Drive. Right now, all my testing is done on my D-Drive HDD with the Documents/SH4 "game" folder all on D-Drive. I've also disabled write-caching.

I have moved one copy of FOTRSUv80 to the SSD and I'm actually playing my career from that install. Except for the Q/S/L/R issue, I'm having a really good career happening.

As you know, sometimes when we make changes, such as he did, we just go ahead and un-install, then, re-install without making careful notes of the settings before and after. SH4 has its own set of bugs that can never be solved without reverse engineering the SH4.exe (Oh! what a can of worms that would very likely be!!) The one we are pursuing may just be one of those type bugs and we have stumbled on the combinations necessary in order to trigger that bug.

Another point I keep forgetting to clarify is your nVidia Inspector settings. Are you running that 1/2 frame limit, for 30 fps, and / or the "Vertical Sync" check-boxed? I had forgotten to check those settings on my install, so now I've got one with the nVidia Inspector set with 1/2 frame, and the other with Vertical Sync set - but I think that computer (the Win10 laptop) just died... They aren't playing taps just yet, but it is DOA on the surgery table right now... :wah: - of course, it has done this before... shtinking Windows updates:salute:

I'm running with nVidia Inspector settings at 1/2 refresh rate (30 fps) AND I have the Vertical Sync Box checkmarked ON within the in-game settings.

nVidia Inspector settings

Frame Rate Limiter = OFF
(I do not have or use GSYNC settings.)
Maximum pre-rendered frames = 2
Preferred refresh rate = Use the 3D application settings
Triple Buffering = OFF
Vertical Sync = 1/2 refresh rate
Vertical Sync Smooth AR Behavior = ON
Vertical Sync Tear Control = Adaptive

Swap the stock scene.dat into FotRSU and test it again.
That would eliminate the scene.dat or prove it's the problem.

I did a quick test using Set B save games that had previously failed the Q/S/L/R test with a stock scene.dat. The issue remains.

I'll do another test using the stock scene.dat starting a new career Jan. 1944 out of Pearl which will be more definitive.

Yeah, new career, since the Save data has the old stuff. My laptop's hard drive is gone... nothing, except the heads hitting the stop (or the platter). It's not even recognized in the BIOS - er UEFI, or whatever... :wah:

OK. I have replaced the scene.dat in FOTRSUv80 with the "Pristine" copy of scene.dat and started a New Career out of Pearl Harbor, Jan 1, 1944. It failed the Q/S/L/R test. I don't think that scene.dat is the source of this issue.

After finishing my series of tests for Propbeanie, starting many, many, careers out of Pearl Harbor, I decided to test careers out of Fremantle, Midway and Brisbane starting Jan. 1, 1944. All of those Career Starts worked just fine!

So, here is where we are right now in FOTRSUv80.
Any boat, out of Pearl Harbor, Campaign Career starting Mid 1943 ALL work fine.
Any boat, out of Pearl Harbor, Campaign Career starting Jan 1, 1944 Do NOT work.
Propbeanie's testing strategy (modified start files) revealed that Campaign Careers starting;
August 31, 1943= NO, does not work.
Oct 1, 1943 = YES, it works.
Nov 5, 1943 = YES, it works.
Dec. 1, 1943 = NO, does not work.
Dec. 15, 1943 = YES, it works.
Dec. 24, 1943 = NO, does not work.

Further, My continued testing reveals that Campaign Careers Starting Jan. 1, 1944 out of Fremantle, Midway or Brisbane ALL work just fine.

The issue seems to affect only Campaign Careers out of Pearl Harbor, starting Jan. 1, 1944, and later, in "stock" FOTRSUv80.

I have started a new thread about the "Q/S/L/R" issue as it really has little to do with "Base time", although because of it, your "Base time" is FUBAR.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=239689


A "Fix" has been discovered!

Back to Base time.....
 

Throughout my testing, I have discovered that Pearl Harbor career starts use Midway Base time. That is 11 hours West of GMT (even in STOCK SH4.)

I had previously believed that Pearl Harbor career starts were 10 hours West of GMT and I could never quite reconcile the differences I was observing in Sunset, Moonset, Moonrise, Sunrise times while in different "time zones". It was because I used the 10 hours West of GMT (when based out of PH) in the Almanac instead of 11 hours West of GMT to determine my "local" SS, MS, MR, SR Base times adjusted to current Lat/Long. So, PH and Midway career starts both use the same 11 hours West of GMT.

It appears that Career starts in some mods that use Mare Island and San Diego are using Mare Island and San Diego Base time and not Midway.

My question is if anyone knows how the game assigns the Base time of the location of the career start, PH, Midway, Brisbane, Fremantle etc and whether or not it can be changed. How can I change the Pearl Harbor career start time to 10 hours West of GMT instead of 11 hours West of GMT.

I wonder if your suffering from Day Light savings time.

[EDIT] In effect, yes. Because the time zones that Midway and Pearl are assigned to in real life are 1 hour ahead of their actual longitudinal "nautical" time zones.

The SH4 developers built into the game an incredibly accurate day to day sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset simulation. For some reason they assigned Hawaii 11 hours west instead of 10.
[EDIT] They made a CORRECT decision. Hawaii, longitudinally, is 11 hours west of GMT.

I'm asking again, does anyone know where this variable is set in the Campaign? Is it derived from the Campaign Mission files or from the Patrol Objectives? Can it be changed?

There are no settings in the missions nor in the CareerStart, Flotillas or PatrolObjectives. I also cannot find anything in the cfg folder. You would think there is something somewhere, but I haven't found anything. I'm going to do some Fremantle versus Brisbane starts later this evening, and see what happens with time West of the IDL... :salute: