[FIXED] File size bloats with save / load cycles - Still in .621

[malichai11]

When playing the game earlier, it kept taking longer and longer to save the game, and longer and longer to the load the game (35 seconds to save, 40 seconds to load). Eventually, I reached around 3000bc and I had a save game that would CTD when trying to load it.

I even uploaded my file to a message board I frequent and someone tried my save and it CTD'd for him too.

No mods or anything. Playing on a huge map, with reseeding after reloading on. I did a lot of saving/reloading during this game. The save game clocks in at 8.6mb. Is that an unusual size save game for 3000bc? I started some new games (huge map, with and without reseed on) and the save game sizes are much, much smaller, and the game saves instantly.

I'm not trying to get someone to fix this save game, just want to get this info back to Firaxis.

 

[warpstorm]

You may want to include important things like your computer specs and which version of the game you were playing (9 or 11).

 

[malichai11]

Intel i7 Quad 2.8
8G Ram
5850 1G ATI Video Card
Win 7 - 64 bit
Latest drivers

Played version 11. Tried switching to version 9, but it still CTDs when attempting to load the latest save game. Can load a couple older saves from this game, but they take 40+ seconds to load.

 

[malichai11]

I've just started a new game and done some testing:

Every time you load a game, you're increasing the size of your next save game, somehow. So if you do a lot of saving/reloading during battles / ruins exploration, your file is going to bloat, and your save game will eventually become unuseable.

It's 3880
Save game 1- 657kb
load save game 1, then save it again- 672kb
load save 1, then save it again - 704kb
Load save 1, then save it again - 707kb
Load save 1, then save it again - 713kb

Each time, I'm not moving or doing anything, just saving in a new slot and checking the size of the save.

Realize that during my last run with the 9mb save game, I wasn't constantly saving, just doing lots and lots of loading. I was just doing extra saving now to see what's happening to the size of these files to see if I could figure out a pattern.

 

[brisos]

Did some testing too. It seems that the saves size goes up and never goes back down, even if you restart the game, clean your saves folder, start a brand new game. Meaning the save on turn #1 of your new game will be at 9mb if your last save on your broken game was at that size.

Anyone else noticed that?

 

[ainwood]

Wow - well spotted. I've confirmed this as well.

 

[Petek]

I can't confirm. Here's the directory listing of my saves folder:

09/21/2010 09:29 AM 465,529 Petek of Egypt 1.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 12:41 PM 527,272 Petek of Egypt 2.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 03:44 PM 568,212 Petek of Egypt 3.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 04:51 PM 569,221 Petek of Egypt 4.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 05:51 PM 470,749 Petek of the USA 1.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 08:23 PM 554,479 Petek of the USA 2.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 09:32 PM 556,480 Petek of the USA 3.Civ5Save
09/22/2010 09:01 AM 580,568 Petek of the USA 4.Civ5Save
09/23/2010 04:41 AM 580,564 Petek of the USA 5.Civ5Save

Two games: one with Egypt, the other with USA. The save size goes up (with one exception) as each game progresses, as expected. Save 1 with USA is smaller than save 4 with Egypt. Also, save 5 with USA was produced by opening save 4 and immediately saving. The size of save 5 is actually 4 Bytes smaller than save 4. Why am I not seeing the same results as reported above?

 

[Clammo]

Sounds like this guy is having the same problem on the 2K forums:

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87624

 

[warpstorm]

Brand and type of hard drive might be important.

 

[malichai11]

Western Digital Caviar Black 2.0TB

 

[brisos]

I can't confirm. Here's the directory listing of my saves folder:

09/21/2010 09:29 AM 465,529 Petek of Egypt 1.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 12:41 PM 527,272 Petek of Egypt 2.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 03:44 PM 568,212 Petek of Egypt 3.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 04:51 PM 569,221 Petek of Egypt 4.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 05:51 PM 470,749 Petek of the USA 1.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 08:23 PM 554,479 Petek of the USA 2.Civ5Save
09/21/2010 09:32 PM 556,480 Petek of the USA 3.Civ5Save
09/22/2010 09:01 AM 580,568 Petek of the USA 4.Civ5Save
09/23/2010 04:41 AM 580,564 Petek of the USA 5.Civ5Save

Two games: one with Egypt, the other with USA. The save size goes up (with one exception) as each game progresses, as expected. Save 1 with USA is smaller than save 4 with Egypt. Also, save 5 with USA was produced by opening save 4 and immediately saving. The size of save 5 is actually 4 Bytes smaller than save 4. Why am I not seeing the same results as reported above?

It's not just re-saving over a save that will wrongly add data to the save file, I think. It is saving and loading. Or loading and loading and loading, then saving. Something like that. I'm done testing this stuff. But basically it happens for players who enjoy saving/loading before battles/captures and other events affected by the random seed.

 

[ainwood]

Brand and type of hard drive might be important.

Really?
Western Digital 500 GB SCSI.

 

[Malkaviel]

Maybe you should try only saving when you have to exit the application instead of before every fight and ruin exploration.

I hope they never fix this.

 

[DarkSchneider]

I noticed that the save file sizes get exhorbinant as CIV V progresses, and I think I've found the culprit. Approximately 30% of the file is the following line, repeated over and over:

FINAL_RELEASE200405 FINAL_RELEASE200405 FINAL_RELEASE200405

This might also explain the extremely long save and load times as the game progresses into the later eras. I do not see this line at all in the initial 4000 BC save, which is only 0.5 MB, as compared to 5+ MB for the later saves.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Threads merged.
Thanks for the info, i guess it will be helpful for the devs .

 

[DarkSchneider]

Someone on another forum did some tested that confirmed this:

"PostPostScript - -
Tested a save weighing 2311kb. 53570 instances of "201080 FINAL_RELEASE" in the file.

Opened it in-game rather than from the Main Menu. Saved without doing anything. New save file is 3507kb and has 107140 instances of "201080 FINAL_RELEASE". It added the 53570 FINAL_RELEASE notes back to the save.

Opened the original save again, saved again without doing anything. Now it's 4703kb with 160710 instances. (Adding 107140 to the 53570 that were already in that save file.)

(Closed the game and counted... took a while.)

Opened the last save (the 4703kb one), saved again. Got 8290kb with 321420 instances, twice the amount it had when it loaded.

Opened an old Autosave of a mere 739kb. Saved again. The new save is 8275kb. It added 6.5mb to the file, presumably in the form of 321k copies of the release version.

So when it loads it stows all those FINAL_RELEASE thingies somewhere and adds them to the file again when it's saved. Looks like they accumulate with each load, too. This doesn't happen on the Main Menu, only the Game Menu. Someone loading from the Main Menu, playing for a while, and then shutting down won't have a problem. Chronic re-loaders like me (aka "cheaters") end up with bloated save files. I only tested it a couple of times, but it looks like going back to the Main Menu to load instead of loading from the Game Menu avoids the problem."

 

[huserib]

Someone on another forum did some tested that confirmed this:

"PostPostScript - -
Tested a save weighing 2311kb. 53570 instances of "201080 FINAL_RELEASE" in the file.

EDIT: Deleting all but the first and/or last "2010XX FINAL_RELEASE" entries with hexedit does not work - causing a CTD when trying to load. I've also tried copying the entire header from the initial 4000BC save, which contains many FINAL_RELEASE entries as well, to no avail. Seems to be fairly buggered atm.

I can confirm this issue as well. Some entries are 201040 FINAL_RELEASE, while others are 201080... My son played for a bit with random seed, and by 3000BC and several ruins/combat reloads his file is 15MB compared to my 268kb file at 1300AD, with fewer reloads. Both Large/Epic maps. Going to try editing out those blocks to see what happens. Needless to say, 15 turns vs 200+ turns this is a bug

 

[Lopsided]

First time poster. Same thing happening to me. Went from a slick game to crippling lag and freezes.

Found another post on this topic at the 2k forums. Important point, finally someone at the company has said they are looking into it.

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88736

"Thanks all, we're looking at this now."

I am so curious to know how wide spread this is. Are a lot of people just not feeling the effects yet?

 

[Zelig]

Are a lot of people just not feeling the effects yet?

Probably depends on how often people save/reload as per DarkSchneider's post.

I only save/load if I'm exiting the game, so my end-game culture win on a standard map only made it to 850kb. (Although still brutally slow to open.)

 

[brisos]

Turns out the bug happens when you load a game from within a game. If you load from the Main Menu, it's ok.

Any time you load from within the game, the next time you save your save will have extra lines of useless data.