Base Time 2018

[propbeanie]

I'm wondering about scene.dat, which has sun & moon phases (and the terns), but I haven't gone through the whole thing yet... surely it's not "backwards" with night is day and day is night?... - a quick comparison on one computer is that there is not difference between it and several other modded games, but I have not been on my computer with a "pristine" stock... If it does match "stock", why have it in the mod?...

[Front Runner]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

I'm wondering about scene.dat, which has sun & moon phases (and the terns), but I haven't gone through the whole thing yet... surely it's not "backwards" with night is day and day is night?... - a quick comparison on one computer is that there is not difference between it and several other modded games, but I have not been on my computer with a "pristine" stock... If it does match "stock", why have it in the mod?...

Propbeanie - I looked at scene.dat from the PRISTINE folder and from the FOTRSU.v80 RC2 folder. There are significant differences. I don't think the scene.dat is the issue though. If it were, I'd be unable to load ANY accurate save games.

For those of you interested and following this issue, The first save game load is OK. The second, third, fourth, etc. save game load, without first quitting the game and restarting is FUBAR. The data contained in the save game(s) are correct. The reading of the data is correct only on the first loading of that save game. The reading of the data is FUBAR if you re-load that "EXACTLY the same" save game. There is something very weird happening and we are trying to track it down.

You might not care whether or not the AI elements of this game are timed correctly to the day/night cycle, but I sure do! Especially with all of the detailed work that the FOTRSU team is doing! I'm not going to speak for Propbeanie, but I believe he cares as well.

If you are playing any versions or combinations of mods other than FOTRSU, then this issue is not affecting you (AFAIK).

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by Front Runner

Propbeanie - I looked at scene.dat from the PRISTINE folder and from the FOTRSU.v80 RC2 folder. There are significant differences. I don't think the scene.dat is the issue though. If it were, I'd be unable to load ANY accurate save games.

For those of you interested and following this issue, The first save game load is OK. The second, third, fourth, etc. save game load, without first quitting the game and restarting is FUBAR. The data contained in the save game(s) are correct. The reading of the data is correct only on the first loading of that save game. The reading of the data is FUBAR if you re-load that "EXACTLY the same" save game. There is something very weird happening and we are trying to track it down.

You might not care whether or not the AI elements of this game are timed correctly to the day/night cycle, but I sure do! Especially with all of the detailed work that the FOTRSU team is doing! I'm not going to speak for Propbeanie, but I believe he cares as well.

If you are playing any versions or combinations of mods other than FOTRSU, then this issue is not affecting you (AFAIK).

Perhaps I will try to save a game and then replicate it. I never used saved games. My only save points are entering and exiting port so they are my only load points. If I die on patrol then I start over. I use the old dead is dead scheme when I play.

[Front Runner]

Originally Posted by merc4ulfate

Perhaps I will try to save a game and then replicate it. I never used saved games. My only save points are entering and exiting port so they are my only load points. If I die on patrol then I start over. I use the old dead is dead scheme when I play.

Recent testing reveals that this issue is affecting the BALAO, but not the TAMBOR class. I'm about to test ALL boats to see if there are any other boats which exhibit this issue.
Thanks to Propbeanie for giving me the heads up on his observations!

The main reason that I save games is because I like to play, mostly, at 1x, and not use Time Compression. I like to leave the game running and listen to Fred's Radio stations while I attend to household chores, routines and duties. After running the game for 6 straight hours, I sure want to save the game when I go to bed just in case there is a power outage or my cat jumps on the keyboard while I'm sleeping.

My penchant for 1x play led to starting this thread in the first place when I discovered the high-frame rate Celestial Cycle issue. I'm using 1/2 refresh rate (30fps) to keep my Sunset, Sunrise, Moonset, and Moonrise cycles reasonably close to Almanac times. That's the way I roll. If you play using mostly Time Compression, then the frame rate issue is of no major concern.

[Front Runner]

Well, that went well, (NOT). It seems to have made things all the more complicated.
So, I created a new save folder and tested the TENCH, GATO, GAR and TAMBOR. The issue persisted in each case.
So, I went back to my original save folder and retested the results I noted in the above (Happy) post. The TAMBOR is OK in that save folder but NOT in the newly created save folder. The BALAO is not OK in the save folder that the TAMBOR is OK in, (the original save folder.)
Why does the TAMBOR save/load work in the one save folder but not the other?


Yeah, I'm dizzy.......there are too many moving parts.



I'm thinking.....

[propbeanie]

It is indeed, very strange... I ~know~ I've gotten this in other mods and / or Stock, yet I cannot replicate it. I'm attempting to transfer an SH4v1.4 folder to my big computer, since a person cannot install v1.4 after it has been updated to v1.5, though I do have v1.3, v1.4 & v1.5 all residing happily on my old duo-core dual core E-whatever computer with 2gig and a tired, old, ATI AIW 9600XT AGP video card. The frame rate is horrendous anymore, so I'm attempting to get v1.4 onto the newer quad-core, so it'd be comparable to the Stock and FotRSU installs. We'll see how far I get with this idea...

Does anyone watching this happen to know if a v1.4 environmental mod can run OK on v1.5, and vice versa? Or were there other files involved with v1.5? I'm speaking specifically of W_clear & kriller's environmental mods, which is what both TMO & FOTRS (and by virtue of inheritance, FotRSU) use... ?? I haven't a clue when it comes to environmental stuff (or 3D... )

Edit: A thought just occurred to me FrontRunner: what kind of hard drives do you have? Where are you writing your Saves, and with what interface? Any write-caching involved? ie: 7200rpm Sata drives, or an SSD drive?... ?? My one computer is mixed IDE and SATA (old beast). The other is all SATA. I have no SSD drives.

[Front Runner]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Edit: A thought just occurred to me FrontRunner: what kind of hard drives do you have? Where are you writing your Saves, and with what interface? Any write-caching involved? ie: 7200rpm Sata drives, or an SSD drive?... ?? My one computer is mixed IDE and SATA (old beast). The other is all SATA. I have no SSD drives.

I’m thinking the same thing about the hard drives. My C-Drive is RAID 0 SSD, the drive the SH4 and mods are D-Drive 3TB. The Documents Folder/SH4 is on the C-Drive. I believe I have enabled write caching on all of my drives. Should I disable write caching?

I had SH4 installed on the C-Drive when I first noticed this issue. Since it occurs on reload of already loaded games, something may be getting stuck in the cache or perhaps WINDOWS 10 doesn’t like the way I play the piano.

I’m thinking of moving my Documents Folder to the D-Drive.

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by Front Runner

Recent testing reveals that this issue is affecting the BALAO, but not the TAMBOR class. I'm about to test ALL boats to see if there are any other boats which exhibit this issue.
Thanks to Propbeanie for giving me the heads up on his observations!

The main reason that I save games is because I like to play, mostly, at 1x, and not use Time Compression. I like to leave the game running and listen to Fred's Radio stations while I attend to household chores, routines and duties. After running the game for 6 straight hours, I sure want to save the game when I go to bed just in case there is a power outage or my cat jumps on the keyboard while I'm sleeping.

My penchant for 1x play led to starting this thread in the first place when I discovered the high-frame rate Celestial Cycle issue. I'm using 1/2 refresh rate (30fps) to keep my Sunset, Sunrise, Moonset, and Moonrise cycles reasonably close to Almanac times. That's the way I roll. If you play using mostly Time Compression, then the frame rate issue is of no major concern.

Very Nice!!

[propbeanie]

If it was 1994, I could tell you all about cache configuration with an IDE interface and why you would never use write caching, especially if you also had an ATAPI drive... Windows 3.1 is no longer with us, and neither is DOS 4.5 or whatever it was... my 3 1/2 inch game boot disk is no longer working either, and I no longer have to worry about properly configuring my Soundblaster 16 whatever it was... Oh!, and let's not forget about PIO Modes etc...

But I never have trusted write caching. The computer OS decides when it's a good time to write to the drive, and an old game does not know that. However, if something goes wrong with a write like that, then ~all~ the loads would be corrupt. This is a re-load thang. What it reminds me of is similar to when a person runs the Museum, you cannot trust the game to run properly, and vice versa, if you run the game first, you will not be able to run the Museum. Something in SH4 is not "cleared" when swapping "modes", or whatever it is.

But then again, this is not that. We're not swapping "modes" (or whatever it is). All I can figure is that maybe FotRSU just has a lot of data to Save for the game, and when you do that 2nd load, it acts similar to changing modes??... I dunno. If that was the case though, it would happen every time, and it doesn't. I just got finished with FOTRS v2.0 (GE) for SH4 v1.4, and had no issues with the Balao on Jan 2, 1944 several times, so I went no further with it. Tomorrow, I'll do similar with Stock and GFO.

[Front Runner]

Moving my Documents Folder from C-Drive to D-Drive didn’t change anything. Starting Silent Hunter from C-Drive or D-Drive didn’t change anything even with Document Folder on same drive as SH4.exe .
Tambor save/quit/start/load/reload works with one set of save game files but not with another when creating them within each folder. I'm using MultiSH4 to create the different SH4 save folders.
Hmmmm......

OK, so I moved the TAMBOR save game files from the Documents/"V80" folder to the Documents/"000" folder. They work in BOTH folder sets! However, the TAMBOR Career test savegames I newly made in the Documents/"000" folder, do NOT work, that is save/quit/start/load/reload. I could even go back and forth using different save games without quitting the game and I was able to continue to get the TAMBOR saves that work in both folders to re-load correctly, a number of times, even after I was unsuccessful in getting the TAMBOR saves that don't work loaded in between. I am either on the verge of a break through or a break-down. Observation, if the "savegame/load/reload" works within one Documents/(Silent Hunter Save Folder) i.e."V80", it also works in another Documents/(Silent Hunter Save Folder) i.e."000".

In other words, even though I was unsuccessful in getting one set of saves to work, the other set worked every time. I did not have to quit to get them to load properly. I could even reproduce the unsuccessful attempts and I was still able to load the set that works without quitting.

Now, I will have to test loading one of the TAMBOR saves that work, making a new "save" and seeing if THAT one, newly minted within the 000 folder works or not......stand by.....
OK, the serial save that I made from the set of TAMBOR saves that work, continue to work. Going from a good TAMBOR save to a bad TAMBOR save results in the bad TAMBOR save coming up correct, the one time, and after that reverting to what to me appears to me to be a "1300 Daylight scene". I can then go back to the good TAMBOR saves and they ALL work correctly no matter which order I re-load them. If I then return to the bad TAMBOR save that came up good, the one time, it now comes up bad. This test was done without quitting the game and re-starting.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Front Runner

Propbeanie - I looked at scene.dat from the PRISTINE folder and from the FOTRSU.v80 RC2 folder. There are significant differences. I don't think the scene.dat is the issue though. If it were, I'd be unable to load ANY accurate save games...

I found an interesting post:

leovampire's post in "A Question about the moon". Note the date. As for not thinking it's Scene.dat, I don't know what else it could be. FotRSU does not replace the Stock sim & dsd. There are some changes in the Shaders folder "TerrainMapPS.fx", but the files in the "Sky" folder below that are Stock files, like maybe someone was going to edit them at one point in time, but never did. I don't comprehend those script files, but they look like color / texture stuff... ?? I do remember though, getting a similar "time warp" effect in other mods, but I do not recall the circumstances. I have not had a chance to do the old FOTRS yet, but I did used to play that quite a bit...

[propbeanie]

Now, here's some more interesting notes... I was able to replicate losing time-track of my "celestial bodies" the other day, in v0.80. However, that was while testing a Balao, but for other things. I have come back into the game before, after days on patrol, several sinkings, etc., and have had this. I did a wipe of the Save folder though, to clear the data, and I have not been able to replicate it since, using your methodology FrontRunner. I've now tried several submarines besides the Balao. Here is a shot from a Tambor, done on June 3 / 4 1943:



I have a dual-monitor set-up, so the right screen is the screen grab from the 3rd, the left screen is the restored Save of same, after many re-loads of it and other Saves. Part of the problem of course, is the "rock" of the boat. I have not lost my waypoints, though I do remember getting that before, but I do not recall the mod(s) used then. I do not know if I would have lost waypoints the other day when my celestial bodies went "off-the-clock", since I don't often use waypoints, and I don't recall having any set then anyway. I have lost track of how many times I've tried FotRSUv0.80. I have done FOTRSv1.3 at least a half-dozen times, and have not found any issues. I'm still wanting to do Stock and FOTRSv2.0 in SH4 v1.4, and see what happens there. I do not recall which version of FOTRS we took the scene.dat and other files from... I'll ask around about that.

[Front Runner]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Now, here's some more interesting notes... I was able to replicate losing time-track of my "celestial bodies" the other day, in v0.80. However, that was while testing a Balao, but for other things. I have come back into the game before, after days on patrol, several sinkings, etc., and have had this. I did a wipe of the Save folder though, to clear the data, and I have not been able to replicate it since, using your methodology FrontRunner. I've now tried several submarines besides the Balao.

I have not lost my waypoints, though I do remember getting that before, but I do not recall the mod(s) used then. I do not know if I would have lost waypoints the other day when my celestial bodies went "off-the-clock", since I don't often use waypoints, and I don't recall having any set then anyway. I have lost track of how many times I've tried FotRSUv0.80. I have done FOTRSv1.3 at least a half-dozen times, and have not found any issues. I'm still wanting to do Stock and FOTRSv2.0 in SH4 v1.4, and see what happens there. I do not recall which version of FOTRS we took the scene.dat and other files from... I'll ask around about that.

Propbeanie! - You may be on to something sir! I've just tested a TAMBOR in FORTRSU.v* and I'll be danged, I'm not getting the "BALAO" problem. How could this problem affect only the BALAO? I'm intrigued. I'll have to do some more testing. Of course, I'll be thorough and test ALL boats. Sometimes I think I'm smart by keeping my testing parameters the same. In other words, not trying to change too many variables at once. Sometimes that ends up biting me in the ass! It did not occur to me that this issue could be related to a particular type of submarine, the BALAO.