[OS X 10.9] 1.3 Ironman: 3 minute autosaves

[LancerX]

When playing in Ironman, every autosave is taking 3+ minutes which renders the game somewhat unplayable.

I just updated to Mavericks with the latest Steam release and EU 1.3 and had not played EU 1.3 before upgrading so I have no baseline for comparison but it was never like that in Mountain Lion and EU 1.2...

MBP 15" Early 2011: 2.2 Ghz, 8GB RAM, AMD Radeon 6750 1024Mb

 

[AndrewT]

We've had some people report slow play in general under 10.9 - but so far always with under-spec video cards. What if you play a non-Ironman game with Cloud Saves? And then the same game with local saves?

 

[LancerX]

I just tested all three modes and can confirm that both my ironman/cloud autosaves take 3+ minutes while local works just fine. Steam also becomes unresponsive during this time. My general performance remains great with about 50 years of local save play completed.

Actually, I'm much happier now that 10.9 supports true multi-displays - I'm playing full screen on my Apple Cinema Display and now have the laptop screen for multi-tasking

Edit - Further tests:

#1 Wiped Steam - except games - and reinstalled. Same results.

#2 Logged test with timestamps. I'm attaching a consolidated set of log entries where the top entry is the log of my actions and the rest are from various Steam logs. The EU4 logs weren't timestamped and I didn't see anything that jumped out as highly relevant besides one entry about issuing the warning. I don't know enough about how the Steam API works, but it looked odd to me that I initiated the autosave at 13:43 but Steam doesn't log the cloud sync until almost two minutes later at 13:44:51. The actual file sync only takes a few seconds, but something unlogged is definitely chewing up at least two minutes between the action and actual sync.

 

[wyatt842]

I just tested all three modes and can confirm that both my ironman/cloud autosaves take 3+ minutes while local works just fine. Steam also becomes unresponsive during this time. My general performance remains great with about 50 years of local save play completed.

Actually, I'm much happier now that 10.9 supports true multi-displays - I'm playing full screen on my Apple Cinema Display and now have the laptop screen for multi-tasking

Edit - Further tests:

#1 Wiped Steam - except games - and reinstalled. Same results.

#2 Logged test with timestamps. I'm attaching a consolidated set of log entries where the top entry is the log of my actions and the rest are from various Steam logs. The EU4 logs weren't timestamped and I didn't see anything that jumped out as highly relevant besides one entry about issuing the warning. I don't know enough about how the Steam API works, but it looked odd to me that I initiated the autosave at 13:43 but Steam doesn't log the cloud sync until almost two minutes later at 13:44:51. The actual file sync only takes a few seconds, but something unlogged is definitely chewing up at least two minutes between the action and actual sync.

I have a similar issue to yours. On occasion I will get long auto saves like the ones you describe above, and sometimes it will randomly drop my connection to the Steam servers. I am relatively sure its not my connection because the stream I had on in the background was fine along with my music. This only starts happening after I play for a bit (lets say 50 years). Also I am on Windows 7.

 

[AndrewT]

I just tested all three modes and can confirm that both my ironman/cloud autosaves take 3+ minutes while local works just fine. Steam also becomes unresponsive during this time. My general performance remains great with about 50 years of local save play completed.

Actually, I'm much happier now that 10.9 supports true multi-displays - I'm playing full screen on my Apple Cinema Display and now have the laptop screen for multi-tasking

Edit - Further tests:

#1 Wiped Steam - except games - and reinstalled. Same results.

#2 Logged test with timestamps. I'm attaching a consolidated set of log entries where the top entry is the log of my actions and the rest are from various Steam logs. The EU4 logs weren't timestamped and I didn't see anything that jumped out as highly relevant besides one entry about issuing the warning. I don't know enough about how the Steam API works, but it looked odd to me that I initiated the autosave at 13:43 but Steam doesn't log the cloud sync until almost two minutes later at 13:44:51. The actual file sync only takes a few seconds, but something unlogged is definitely chewing up at least two minutes between the action and actual sync.

Well frankly, I'm really not sure what to suggest. I've just run a test myself and I'm not seeing it on my Mac, but I haven't gone to 10.9 yet. As I said above we have complaints of general game performance under 10.9, but no others specifically about cloud saves only.

Do you have any firewalls active? Do you have a 10.8 machine around you can try it on, using the same internet connection?

 

[LancerX]

I just finished upgrading the other two machines that are even close to spec, so I'd need to do a complete TM restore to test and I don't have enough spare time this weekend to pull that off. There's no local firewall so I pulled the logs off my internet gateway (Zywall USG20) and there was no outbound requests from my machine at 13:42 until 13:44. That smells to me like a hangup in the inter-process communication between EU4 and Steam that's choking (just a guess, I'm not a Steam or Paradox developer).

 

[LancerX]

Bumping this. I've completely reinstalled EU4 and Steam (per instructions elsewhere in forum) twice now and am still experiencing unplayable Ironman save lags.

 

[AndrewT]

The saves don't get synced up to Steam until you exit the game, so you wouldn't expect to see anything on your gateway until then.

I've just started a fresh Ironman game as England from 11/11/1444 and the monthly autosaves took about 1-2 seconds each. Mind you this is on an iMac with a hybrid SSD drive, so saves will be fast. But I don't see that could account for this extreme difference, 2 seconds to 3 minutes. It's on OS X 10.9.1 BTW.

Can you go into the Steam client - Help - System Information, and post the output of that here please? No need for the "Installed Software" info at the end, but everything before that please.

 

[LancerX]

Sure thing, here it is

EDIT #1:
The "real" graphics card is an AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1Gb onboard
The "real" display is an Apple Cinema Display

EDIT #2:
I'm also experiencing the CIPC CTD when exiting the game, per the bug filed in the bug reports forum.

------------------------------
Processor Information:
Model: MacBookPro8,2
Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0x2a
CPU Stepping: 0x7
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 2200 Mhz
8 logical processors
4 physical processors
HyperThreading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported

Network Information:
Network Speed:

Operating System Version:
MacOS 10.9.1 (64 bit)

Video Card:
Driver: Intel HD Graphics 3000

Driver Version: 1.2
Driver Date: 0 0
OpenGL Version: 2.1
Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 0 Hz
VendorID: 0x8086
DeviceID: 0x126
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 2
Primary Display Resolution: 1440 x 900
Desktop Resolution: 1440 x 900
Primary Display Size: 12.95" x 8.15" (15.28" diag)
32.9cm x 20.7cm (38.8cm diag)
Primary VRAM: 451 MB

Memory:
RAM: 8192 Mb

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
Microphone: Not set
Media Type: DVD
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 1074824 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 210509 Mb

 

[LancerX]

Andrew, I just posted on this report asking the other folks experiencing the CTD to see what their ironman save times are compared to their normal save times. That should help validate/invalidate my pet theory

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?745078-Mac-CTD-on-game-exit

 

[AndrewT]

If your theory is that the long save times are connected with the crash on exit, no, sorry - everyone on Mac gets that crash at the moment.

Are you absolutely sure the game is running on the Radeon card, not the Intel? Because that Intel is way under-spec for this game.

 

[LancerX]

positive - I'm runnng it at 2560x1440 on an Apple Cinema Display, full graphics details, speed 5 as needed, no appreciable lag to date. Non-Ironman annual autosaves take 2-6 seconds depending on year. I'm pretty sure the Intel chip would just whimper in a corner... Seriously though, I have a menubar utility that shows which card is currently in use - it's the Radeon

Edit:
For anyone running an MBP, this menubar utility lets you see which card is being used and override automatic switching to force a card: http://gfx.io/

 

[LancerX]

I did a little more digging on my side. Using Activity Monitor to watch both EU4 and Steam, both will run without bumping the "Recent Hangs" counter at all. As soon as EU4 starts an ironman save, both EU4 and Steam will increment their respective "Recent Hangs" counters by the exact same amount, usually 16, during the course of the save. Unfortunately, without getting even more intrusive, ie running with a debugger, I can't really tell you much more than that.

 

[AndrewT]

Interesting. The first thing I notice is that EU4 doesn't show as a process name, the process which I'm sure is EU4 is actually unnamed. It gets 5 'recent hangs' on startup for me, but none after that whether playing as Ironman or not. Whether this difference is due to hardware, an installation problem, a Steam problem or what I don't know.

The Steam Community overlay, on the other hand, gets them continually. Can you try turning that off please?

For the record here's my system info from Steam

Processor Information:
    Model:  iMac13,2
    Vendor:  GenuineIntel
    CPU Family:  0x6
    CPU Model:  0x3a
    CPU Stepping:  0x9
    CPU Type:  0x0
    Speed:  3400 Mhz
    8 logical processors
    4 physical processors
    HyperThreading:  Supported
    FCMOV:  Supported
    SSE2:  Supported
    SSE3:  Supported
    SSSE3:  Supported
    SSE4a:  Unsupported
    SSE41:  Supported
    SSE42:  Supported
    
Network Information:
    Network Speed:  
    
Operating System Version:
    MacOS 10.9.1 (64 bit)
    
Video Card:
    Driver:  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX

    Driver Version:  1.2
    Driver Date: 0  0
    OpenGL Version: 2.1
    Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
    Monitor Refresh Rate: 0 Hz
    VendorID:  0x10de
    DeviceID:  0x11a3
    Number of Monitors:  1
    Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
    Primary Display Resolution:  2560 x 1440
    Desktop Resolution: 2560 x 1440
    Primary Display Size: 23.46" x 13.19"  (26.89" diag)
                                            59.6cm x 33.5cm  (68.3cm diag)
    Primary VRAM: 2047 MB
    
Memory:
    RAM:  32768 Mb
    
Miscellaneous:
    UI Language:  English
    Microphone:  Not set
    Media Type:  DVD
    Total Hard Disk Space Available:  1060320 Mb
    Largest Free Hard Disk Block:  508252 Mb

 

[LancerX]

Correct, it's in unnamed process, making it a little difficult to find at first, then again how many unnamed processes are going to be chewing 1Gb+ RAM You can verify you've got the right one as soon as you look at the open files for that proc.

Here are the Steam settings I've been using since the last re-install about a week ago (overlay is off).

Account:
No beta participation

Friends:
Automatically sign into Friends when I start Steam
Notifications and Sounds: All Unchecked or Never

In-game
Unchecked Enable Steam Community In-Game

Interface: N/A

Downloads:
Unchecked Allow downloads during gameplay...

Cloud:
Checked Steam Cloud sync...
Checked Open the screenshot uploader...

Recording: N/A

 

[AndrewT]

Well, I really don't know what to suggest. It's a fair guess those hangs are connected with your problem, but what's causing them and what to do about it I do not know. Do you have access to another comparable machine to try this problem on, as a test? Do you have Bootcamp installed, and can try it under Windows on this same machine?

 

[LancerX]

I have Windows on Bootcamp and Parallels, I'll update the OS's, install Steam/EU4 and give it a shot. It might be a couple of days