I am so frustrated i am going to break something!!

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by fastfed

I must save 20 times during a patrol.. On the surface, going full speed, slow speed, at periscope depth. WHATEVER!

I SAVE A TON OF TIMES!

I'll refer to my contribution to a thread on a similar topic:

Making saves regularly during a patrol may sound like you are ensuring that if something goes wrong one of the saves will come to your rescue. This is not always the case, unless you exit the game and reload the save each time you make one to verify they work OK, they may all be corrupt. As I understand it if you make a save but do not exit and that save is bad for some reason, then all subsequent saves will also be corrupt, like a chain reaction. I always save and exit after a session playing SH3 and each time I do this I save under a different name. That way if my most recent save goes bad, I know that the previous save did work. I lose a bit of progress but not the whole patrol.

Hopefully the project team looking at the save game problem will find the cause and a solution.

Nemo

[Flaxpants]

A couple of things I have noticed but not seen mentioned elsewhere are the save file dates given in the load game screen. These seem to get messed up from time to time, the dates/times getting corrupted. For example, I recently had a save game go bad on me and whilst loading the game I noticed that the save times given for 'In base after patrol' and 'In base before patrol' had gone bad, the earlier save showing a later date & time than a subsequent save.
Also, a couple of times I have noticed the save file name appearing in the loading screen- at the end of the monthly reports paper- same font and everything....
I'm probably wrong and usually am, but I can't help thinking that this saving issue has something to do with the use of time compression. It would be interesting to know if those of you who play the game at '1' speed have save games corrupting.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by Flaxpants

Also, a couple of times I have noticed the save file name appearing in the loading screen- at the end of the monthly reports paper- same font and everything....

As Capt. Morgan said this is harmless. I believe it's an issue with how SH3 Commander works.

Nemo

[Capt. Morgan]

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo

...As I understand it if you make a save but do not exit and that save is bad for some reason, then all subsequent saves will also be corrupt, like a chain reaction. ...

Nemo

Thank you sir. This is new information to me. I guess I've been lucky with saves.


As I understand it, in SH3 you must not save:
1) while submerged (and note that in heavy seas you can often be momentarily submerged as a wave hits you)
2) If you are within 30km of any harbour.
3) If you are in contact with any other units - friendly or enemy - including aircraft.

Did I miss any other conditions? Following these 3, I've not experienced a bad save in about a year.

Much as I love SH3/GWX, I've just finished a couple of patrols with Operation Monsoon/OMEGU (SH4 v1.5), and for me, it's now almost as enjoyable to play as SH3 ( sorry for the blasphemy) Therr's a lot of good work that's gone into the SH4-ATO side of things.

Given the failings of SH5 (and SH3 too), I'm hoping that ATO modders will continue to focus on the more stable SH4. It was certainly nice not having to worry about these things for a while.

Originally Posted by Flaxpants

...
Also, a couple of times I have noticed the save file name appearing in the loading screen- at the end of the monthly reports paper- same font and everything....
.

I get that all the time. It's been harmless so far.

[Apache312]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

it's now almost as enjoyable to play as SH3 ( sorry for the blasphemy) .

I too have started SH4, and I just cant seem to get into it. The AA crews are worthless, and believe it or not, I really miss the crew management. I like the stability, but somethings still missing from SH4. Any idea how to get my game to the points of your comment?

[Capt. Morgan]

Originally Posted by Apache312

I too have started SH4, and I just cant seem to get into it. The AA crews are worthless, and believe it or not, I really miss the crew management. I like the stability, but somethings still missing from SH4. Any idea how to get my game to the points of your comment?

I hear you. I'm back with SH3 too (Really like piloting my boat through the locks on a pitch-black night).

As to why I'm lucky with saves, I'm just religious about how I save. Never when submerged ( and always very careful not to be momentarily submerged in bad weather), never if any harbors or surface or air units are within 30Km (now 50Km), and always at zero time compression (forgot about that one, never save at a high TC)

If I can't meet those conditions and i need to leave, then I pause the game and alt-tab out of it. I've left it like that for hours without any ill effects.

I've also cut down on the number of Mods I load (I did have more problems when I was experimenting with every mod there was), and I've installed the 4GB [edit] patch which allows SH3 to access a lot more virtual memory.

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

I go get a beer while the game loads to the first menu, then drink it while the saved game loads.

Ale, Lager or Pilsner?

[JokerOfFate]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

I go get a beer while the game loads to the first menu, then drink it while the saved game loads.

Same here

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

Ale, Lager or Pilsner?

Lager for me mate. Harp by the way

[K-61]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

I hear you. I'm back with SH3 too (Really like piloting my boat through the locks on a pitch-black night).

As to why I'm lucky with saves, I'm just religious about how I save. Never when submerged ( and always very careful not to be momentarily submerged in bad weather), never if any harbors or surface or air units are within 30Km (now 50Km), and always at zero time compression (forgot about that one, never save at a high TC)

If I can't meet those conditions and i need to leave, then I pause the game and alt-tab out of it. I've left it like that for hours without any ill effects.

I've also cut down on the number of Mods I load (I did have more problems when I was experimenting with every mod there was), and I've installed the 3GB patch which allows SH3 to access a lot more virtual memory.



Ale, Lager or Pilsner?

Whoa there!!! What's this thing about a patch for memory? I've never heard of that. My gaming rig has 8 GB of real RAM. Are you saying there is a patch that allows the game to access more physical RAM? If so, would it work for systems that have 4 or more GB of physical RAM?

I seem to suffer from more than my fair share of corrupted saves or games in play that just go poof! and crash to desktop. My last patrol, I lost the whole thing, in spite of reloading from four saves made at four different times in that patrol. A shame, that, as I lost over 47K of tonnage I had sunk. On my XP gaming rig I never had that nonsense, but it happens all the time on my Windows 7 machine, in spite of following to a T the installation instructions.

thats because windows 7 is, in a word, crap. I hate it honestly

Originally Posted by K-61

Whoa there!!! What's this thing about a patch for memory? I've never heard of that. My gaming rig has 8 GB of real RAM. Are you saying there is a patch that allows the game to access more physical RAM? If so, would it work for systems that have 4 or more GB of physical RAM?

I seem to suffer from more than my fair share of corrupted saves or games in play that just go poof! and crash to desktop. My last patrol, I lost the whole thing, in spite of reloading from four saves made at four different times in that patrol. A shame, that, as I lost over 47K of tonnage I had sunk. On my XP gaming rig I never had that nonsense, but it happens all the time on my Windows 7 machine, in spite of following to a T the installation instructions.

[Capt. Morgan]

Originally Posted by K-61

Whoa there!!! What's this thing about a patch for memory? I've never heard of that. My gaming rig has 8 GB of real RAM. Are you saying there is a patch that allows the game to access more physical RAM? If so, would it work for systems that have 4 or more GB of physical RAM?...

It allows older programs to access more virtual memory (or swap). Ordinarily they can only access 2gb - This gives them more. Here it is...
http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

It's called the 4GB patch (I've edited my post above, which incorrectly called it as the "3GB" patch). There are discussions about it throughout subsim, here's one from the Merchant Fleet Mod - which is especially heavy on SH3 resources.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...170741&page=24

Also this post
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=174592

IIRC, if you have a 32bit OS, you also need to add the /3gb parameter to your boot.ini file. That's discussed later in the first link.

[K-61]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

It allows older programs to access more virtual memory (or swap). Ordinarily they can only access 2gb - This gives them more. Here it is...
http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

It's called the 4GB patch (I've edited my post above, which incorrectly called it as the "3GB" patch). There are discussions about it throughout subsim, here's one from the Merchant Fleet Mod - which is especially heavy on SH3 resources.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...170741&page=24

Also this post
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=174592

IIRC, if you have a 32bit OS, you also need to add the /3gb parameter to your boot.ini file. That's discussed later in the first link.

Thanks for the info! I have a 64 bit OS on my gaming laptop, but my gaming desktop is 32 bit XP with 2 GB but I am going to be adding another 1 GB of physical RAM.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

Thank you sir. This is new information to me. I guess I've been lucky with saves.

Your welcome.

Nemo

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

...
2) If you are within 30km of any harbour.
...

Did I miss any other conditions? Following these 3, I've not experienced a bad save in about a year.

Better make that 50km or so. To begin with hydrophone range is 34km. Any unit that comes within is 'materialized'. But since you'll allways have some units that patrol's outside of the harbor you have to keep a margin of safety avoiding them being included in the savegame.

[dannygjk]

I have no idea why people are having problems with SHIII. I use the stock patched to 1.4b and never have any problems!

[fastfed]

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo

I'll refer to my contribution to a thread on a similar topic:

Making saves regularly during a patrol may sound like you are ensuring that if something goes wrong one of the saves will come to your rescue. This is not always the case, unless you exit the game and reload the save each time you make one to verify they work OK, they may all be corrupt. As I understand it if you make a save but do not exit and that save is bad for some reason, then all subsequent saves will also be corrupt, like a chain reaction. I always save and exit after a session playing SH3 and each time I do this I save under a different name. That way if my most recent save goes bad, I know that the previous save did work. I lose a bit of progress but not the whole patrol.

Hopefully the project team looking at the save game problem will find the cause and a solution.

Nemo

I save all the time.. and each save is, "111" "222" and so on.. Of course for "666" I use "676" just because the devil is bad

I get up to "2020" which is 20 saved games.. Last night, from 20 down, number 8 or so worked.. It took over and hour..

Which brings me to another question with out posting again..

HOw long does it take you guys to load the game? Mine is about 4-5 minutes to load a saved game.

2 gigs of ram,