Saving time

[Linio]

Hi.

I saw people complaning here and there haven't found no real topic about it.
I'm playing Ironman, and am about 300 years into the game.
The saving time is killing the experience for me.
I don't think my computer is that bad, i have a SSD, and i checked the "compression" for saves but still, i'm playing at quite a high speed, and at this point at least 1/3 of the time i'm playing is watching the little hourglass turn on and on and on...

Is there any way to change that. Are the dev aware of this?

Thanks.

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

The game has to render every character that ever lived, and every character alive. It has to store their birth date, death date, traits, siblings, parents, titles, claims, kids, spouses, courts, and all that.

The game takes more time to save because the information doubles, triples, or quadruples every year.

 

[Linio]

Even so, it probably could be optimized...

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

Even so, it probably could be optimized...

There are always ways to optimize the game, but it'd slow down the pace of any additional DLC and/or patches. That may not be a bad thing, but when the DLC do come out, knowing Paradox, they'd be rushed and pretty bad.

Unfortunately, I think we'll have to wait for CK 3.

Once Paradox uses the new engine for CK 3, the game will run much smoother, like Stellaris.

 

[Linio]

I don't see why we should wait for the next game...

Modifications are added to the game as we speak, on the game setup, i think optimization of this magnitude should be a priority.

And from my perspective (which may be a narrow one...), it's not exactly complicated to remove unuseful data from a save. Like removing people not linked to any other relevant character.

Another way could be to unobfuscate save files in Ironman (it's not like the achievements can not be cheated) so that people could imagine ways to do it, if the devs are unwilling to do it...

I'd like at least to know the point of view of the devs on this particular topic...

 

[Cymsdale]

I'd like at least to know the point of view of the devs on this particular topic...

Good luck with that. I've been wanting to hear them talk about this forever.

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

I don't see why we should wait for the next game...

Modifications are added to the game as we speak, on the game setup, i think optimization of this magnitude should be a priority.

And from my perspective (which may be a narrow one...), it's not exactly complicated to remove unuseful data from a save. Like removing people not linked to any other relevant character.

Another way could be to unobfuscate save files in Ironman (it's not like the achievements can not be cheated) so that people could imagine ways to do it, if the devs are unwilling to do it...

I'd like at least to know the point of view of the devs on this particular topic...

Well every character is linked to another. After about 400 years, every character has parents. Their parent's grandparents were once counts. If you erase them from the game, it'd be ending that line.

I like my games to be populated. I feel further in depth when I can see a list of characters, not just the important people. I'd be willing to have a 30 second save time if it means that the rest of the time I feel more immersed.

 

[Linio]

Good luck with that. I've been wanting to hear them talk about this forever.

Well, this is were this subject is strange. A lot of people DO complain about it, but there's no answer... We should press this further...

Well every character is linked to another. After about 400 years, every character has parents. Their parent's grandparents were once counts. If you erase them from the game, it'd be ending that line.

I like my games to be populated. I feel further in depth when I can see a list of characters, not just the important people. I'd be willing to have a 30 second save time if it means that the rest of the time I feel more immersed.

And this is where I would like to say : You should be able to do that. But people should be able to play normally also. At some point considering than waiting 30 seconds every 30 seconds to play a game is just not normal.

I'm going on a stretch saying they should remove data, maybe they just could organise it better i don't know. If it's not possible at this stage and the only way to do it is remove data, there should be a checkbox to give the option...

I did heard that some useless data was actually saved in that file... I'll have to try a not ironman save to see if the data is not encrypted what this is all about...

 

[Cymsdale]

Well, this is were this subject is strange. A lot of people DO complain about it, but there's no answer... We should press this further...

When EU4 came out with ironman, people did complain and they did respond. The response was Johan rudely said "get an SSD" and that was all they were ever going to say on the matter. (I have an SSD, it doesn't really help that much.)

 

[predatorfe]

I don't see why we should wait for the next game...

Modifications are added to the game as we speak, on the game setup, i think optimization of this magnitude should be a priority.

And from my perspective (which may be a narrow one...), it's not exactly complicated to remove unuseful data from a save. Like removing people not linked to any other relevant character.

Another way could be to unobfuscate save files in Ironman (it's not like the achievements can not be cheated) so that people could imagine ways to do it, if the devs are unwilling to do it...

I'd like at least to know the point of view of the devs on this particular topic...

What you are asking for is not something that can be done with modding, but requires fundamental structural changes in the ways the game handles ist data (wich there is a lot of).
This, from my understanding, would require the rewriting of a very large portion of the code that runs the game.
Of course some kind of relational DB saving system would slim the save game's time and size, but for that, i'm afraid, we'll have to wait for the next incarnation of the Clausewitz Engine and CK.

 

[Linio]

Being a developer I get that changing the model is quite complicated.
Still... There are things that can be done. Simplest one would be to just reduce the data. You could simply propose to "remove" data older than X years from a save. I don't think that that would engage such structural changes (it would just be the simple removal of character data). That would leave the possibility for the hardcore players to see if their forefathers had 10 or 11 at stewardship, and the more common folk would be happy with a game saving "normally". The only stuff to be taken into account would be the fact that this does not pose problems for achievements but this should be the case, i don't think any achievement goes past three generation to gather data.

There also was maybe the proposal of removing zones like India (although this could also be complicated if the zones are totally imbedded in the game at this point...)

There is also the simple possibility of unobfuscating the saves. I would pay no mind to develop a save slimer if needed be...

I have a SSD and a pretty buff PC, so the answer of muscling the computer is just admiting defeat at this point..., there ARE solutions, i would like to know why those haven't been considered...

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

Being a developer I get that changing the model is quite complicated.
Still... There are things that can be done. Simplest one would be to just reduce the data. You could simply propose to "remove" data older than X years from a save. I don't think that that would engage such structural changes (it would just be the simple removal of character data). That would leave the possibility for the hardcore players to see if their forefathers had 10 or 11 at stewardship, and the more common folk would be happy with a game saving "normally". The only stuff to be taken into account would be the fact that this does not pose problems for achievements but this should be the case, i don't think any achievement goes past three generation to gather data.

There also was maybe the proposal of removing zones like India (although this could also be complicated if the zones are totally imbedded in the game at this point...)

There is also the simple possibility of unobfuscating the saves. I would pay no mind to develop a save slimer if needed be...

I have a SSD and a pretty buff PC, so the answer of muscling the computer is just admiting defeat at this point..., there ARE solutions, i would like to know why those haven't been considered...

There are always things you can do to prevent the problem: run it on a slower speed, close other applications before playing, you can also make it so it autosaves every 1.5 or 3 or maybe even 5 years!

 

[Linio]

I don't want to be rude, but this is not exactly helping.
If you read my previous post you would see that :
1. I play at "high" speed because i'm deep inside my session and don't want for it to be playing for 2000 hours (then again, playing at a slower speed does not really change the saving time, and not even the annoyment)
2. I only have CK2 launched when I play, it's not like I'm purposely making the saving time slower to barge in here and complain about it...
3. I can't change the autosaving since it's Ironman. That was actually one of the possibility of changing Ironman : removing the forced autosave and let people handle their saves. After all, who really wants to copy/paste saves and such for achievements. There's just being too much cautious at one point.

And that is actually my main question. If the devs gave up on the saving time issue although it's a known one, just remove the barriers for the Ironman like the obfuscation of saves and the obligation for autosaving monthly, this could easily remove the problem altogether at the cost of a few people cheating for the achievements which they obviously can already do, so who cares!? Why holding up all the consumers for a few??

 

[Linio]

Are the dev reading those or is there a better way to have answers on such matters?

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

I have about 8000 total dynasty members with 2300 alive ~1080 AD.

I can't even open my dynasty tree anymore without massive lag and delay, let alone trying to scroll through that.

And that's JUST my dynasty. Crazy. Can maybe erase the portraits after a certain size. But yeah. A ton of data just off one dynasty.

 

[Maizel]

Once Paradox uses the new engine for CK 3, the game will run much smoother, like Stellaris.

After 300 years Stellaris lags much, much worse than CK2. Or at least the game is impacted way more by it than CK2.


CK3 is likely not coming this decade xc.

But that's okay, CK2 will be supported for a while yet, and will serve fine for a few years longer.

I'm hoping for a new Rome and a new Vicky in the meanwhile/

 

[Linio]

I timed my game.
At 4th speed (which I admit is going fast but I do sometimes play at this speed), i have 14 seconds of saving time for 34 seconds of game.
Nearly 50% of the ration, 33% of the time of my game is spent saving.

I think if enough people voice this issue, something can be done.

I will try and work on a script to lighten the saves, i'm pretty sure something could easily be put into the game pruning the dynasties tree. I think a lot of us would rather have normal save time than knowing who was the ancester of the dude 300 years ago...

 

[Spartanlemur]

I would just not play ironman. Not a perfect fix, and self-restraint is tough, but if it takes that long to save, I think it would be the better option.

 

[Linio]

As weird as it may seems, I kinda like the fact that i can win achievements for a game I bought partly for this (and I don't exactly call $100 cheap).

And again, it's not like there are no solutions for this, i gave three, and those are easy ones.

If they can't protect their saves and manage the achievements for everybody, just put the saves like they are in "not ironman" and be done with it...

It's a choice really.

 

[Silver Wizard]

Hmmmm.

Now I don't play Ironman at all, so I don't know if this is even an option, but here it goes:

Have you tried turning off compression?
With a traditional hdd, compression helps, as actual disc access is very slow (compared to compressing). However, with a SSD, the time added by compressing may be more than the time reduced by having a smaller file.