[ian-reeds-games] Re: Dev 40: Huge save game improvements and some new bugs

  • From: Craig Brett <craigbrett17@xxxxxxx>
  • To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 22:05:09 +0000

Hi Ian,
When you say that you've removed the null point objects. What do you mean? I'm trying to work out why the update would break transportation, as they essentially use their own array of objects in my bit of the global object. Or at least they used to.
I might need to patch this problem before I finish up making my new version of the scripts. Maybe I should've source controlled my scripts or something so I could flick back to the old version. 

Craig

On 02/11/2013 21:39, Ian Reed wrote:

Hi Austen,
Thanks for reporting that. I did mention that it would likely break Craig's scripts. 
Feel free to continue using dev 39 so that your work doesn't get halted.

Ian Reed

On 11/2/2013 3:13 PM, Austen Perry wrote:

hi ian,
i guess from the update, loading units in to others no longer works.
i updated tb and started a map, and the first thing i tried was
loading a unit in a vehicle, and it said he couldn't be loaded where
dev 39 was still ok.
this was not after loading a saved game, and in fact i did not try
saving or loading.
my guess is that somewhere the removing of points messed with the
loading scripts.
this is seriously going to hault production of a lot of my work as a
lot of the current stuff evolves around the load feature.

austen

On 11/2/13, Ian Reed <support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi all!
Several months ago I attempted to fix the problems with saving and loading. 
I spent several days on it and in the end couldn't get the new system
working.

After dev 39 I attacked the problem again from a different angle, and
failed again.
Fortunately that new angle brought me to better understand the problem.
So I had a third attempt at it and I'm very happy to say that saving and 
loading is now very fast and much more memory efficient.
I'm thinking this may solve all the out of memory exceptions people
would get when saving.

I used Allan's first Warlords map for testing and my focus was on
getting the save game size down as much as I could, which in turn helped 
the speed of saving and loading.

My test case was to open Allan's map, then save to see how big the file
came out.

Here are my results:
Save game size
was: 23847 KB
now: 2295 KB

Saving and loading times in seconds was:
save game 4.0822478
load game 22.2466055
Now:
save game 0.160851
load game 0.2320303

As you can see the new saved game size is less than one tenth of the
original.
And the time it takes to load is 95.8 times faster than previously.

It turns out there were some gross memory inefficiencies that started
with the feature that let you do things like attack_health_inflict
directly in a unit file, and later compounded by random damage and healing. 
So while these inefficiencies were my fault I'm quite glad to have them
greatly reduced.
I wish I could have fixed it ages ago, but I'm just not that smart, smile.
As with many updates old saves will not work in the new version and this 
is especially true this time.

I had to change a good amount of code to get these benefits, and
whenever I change a lot of code it is likely new bugs will appear.
I've played through simple fight and defeating your dark side without
any errors.
I've also played the first warlords map enough to kill some orcs.
So if you're interested in helping me find the bugs feel free to update
and give it a shot.
If you're sick of all the bugs then don't get dev 40.  Wait for dev 42
or so, smile.

And a special apology to Craig as I had to make all the unused point
objects null in order to reduce save game size.
Sorry if this breaks your scripts.

Thanks for your patience.
Ian Reed

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