it takes me 3 mins to save. Is that just me?

[Lonck]

Is it just me? Do I need to upgrade my comp? Its ridiculous that it takes 3 minutes to save a game. Played plenty of games in my life and this is the only game that takes 3 minutes to save. E8400 3.00 GHz, ATI HD 4800.

[Shark7]

If you are playing on a 1400 star galaxy with a large number of empires, then it will take a bit as the game progresses. Keep in mind there are literally thousands of ships, troops, etc that the game must compress into the save file.

[Starke]

Early in the game and in smallish games it doesn't take me more than 30 seconds to save. But as I get to mid and large size maps, especially late game, it can take a minute or two. I've found that a pretty huge factor in save time is pirates - in one game there were around four pirate factions that supposedly had 300-600 ships each - but as I set about destroying them I realized that 80% of those ships were just partially constructed bits of ships at spaceports (not sure if it also counts the 50 or so ships each spaceport had in queue =P ). I nuked six or eight such spaceports and my save time was cut roughly in half.

[Jeeves]

I suspect that the disk drive speed is the most important factor. When my brother bought me new drives my save time was cut in half. Terabyte drives are fast and cheap now. You ought to look into that...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Keldun]

With an ssd it takes about 10 sec to save a 1400 stars, 20 player galaxy. So I think it is mostly affected by storage speed.
If you do not have an ssd you might want to try a ramdrive if you have some spare memory over 3GB, that would probably be even faster than an ssd, except that it would slow down the windows shutdown to save the changes.

[Shark7]

Most likely. I'm still using SATA drives, so the save time doesn't surprise me.

In a couple more years when I'm more convinced that SSDs are stable and bug free, I might make the switch to the newer tech. Plus there is always that thing about not fixing something that isn't broke. [;)]

[FireStarterXoX69]

I'm using a SSD with i7 980 @4.1g w/ 12 gigs of ram. In mid/late games with 1400 stars/largest maps my load/save times can take up to two minutes.

[mSterian]

Nope. It's most probably the CPU that's slow in creating the save.
Just look at your HDD light. If it's constantly blinking while saving, then get a faster HDD. If not, it's your CPU.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
In a couple more years when I'm more convinced that SSDs are stable and bug free, I might make the switch to the newer tech. Plus there is always that thing about not fixing something that isn't broke. [;)]

They are amazing right now, don't wait if you have the opportunity to get one. They are well worth it, especially as a boot/system drive.

Large galaxy games will still take a while to save once you get into the late game though. There is just a lot for the game to record at that point.

Regards,

- Erik

[Keldun]

ORIGINAL: FireStarterXoX69

I'm using a SSD with i7 980 @4.1g w/ 12 gigs of ram. In mid/late games with 1400 stars/largest maps my load/save times can take up to two minutes.

I' m not sure what would make that much difference.
But here is a video I captured of the load / save process of a 1400 stars 20 players galaxy in year 2202 with the cpu usage shown in windows task manager, it doesn't seem to be very high, never going higher than 35% cpu use during the save.
The ssd used was a samsung 840 pro. the load process seems to take about 45 sec and save 15 sec here with the capture software running in the background.
http://youtu.be/XTEoZ1dr7_U

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Keldun

ORIGINAL: FireStarterXoX69

I'm using a SSD with i7 980 @4.1g w/ 12 gigs of ram. In mid/late games with 1400 stars/largest maps my load/save times can take up to two minutes.

I' m not sure what would make that much difference.
But here is a video I captured of the load / save process of a 1400 stars 20 players galaxy in year 2202 with the cpu usage shown in windows task manager, it doesn't seem to be very high, never going higher than 35% cpu use during the save.
The ssd used was a samsung 840 pro. the load process seems to take about 45 sec and save 15 sec here with the capture software running in the background.
http://youtu.be/XTEoZ1dr7_U

The Steam client is hogging second place on the CPU and has absolutely nothing to do with Distant Worlds, and folks wonder why the there are so many anti-Steam posts ... [8|]

Darkspire

[Keldun]

Yes it takes even more resources than my av kaspersky which is reputed as bloated av but its a necessary evil because so many games are steam exclusive now

[Shark7]

Not a necessary evil as I have nothing to do with steam. I just don't play games that require it.

There should be a way to turn the Steam client off when not in use though. If not then that is a major problem in my opinion.

[vtecem]

ORIGINAL: Darkspire

ORIGINAL: Keldun

ORIGINAL: FireStarterXoX69

I'm using a SSD with i7 980 @4.1g w/ 12 gigs of ram. In mid/late games with 1400 stars/largest maps my load/save times can take up to two minutes.

I' m not sure what would make that much difference.
But here is a video I captured of the load / save process of a 1400 stars 20 players galaxy in year 2202 with the cpu usage shown in windows task manager, it doesn't seem to be very high, never going higher than 35% cpu use during the save.
The ssd used was a samsung 840 pro. the load process seems to take about 45 sec and save 15 sec here with the capture software running in the background.

The Steam client is hogging second place on the CPU and has absolutely nothing to do with Distant Worlds, and folks wonder why the there are so many anti-Steam posts ... [8|]

Darkspire

Actually it's second in RAM usage not CPU, and steam is not as bad as all the haters seem to believe. Since it only uses 100mb, thats a tiny tiny footprint. Yes it's DRM but is the least intrusive drm that has ever come out. It's not the lesser of 2 evils, it's (so far) the least of all evils. This is ofc referring to the drm option, not the drm free option which is best IMO. Just my two cents.

[Shark7]

I just prefer not to choose any type of evil at all. [;)]

I'm just way too old school, back when DRM consisted of "What is the 3rd word in the 2nd paragraph on page 119?" Yep we had DRM way back then too, but it seemed less draconian than current versions...basically you didn't have to install a third party program to spy on you to just play the games you paid for.

[necaradan666]

You're kidding right? I HATED looking through my drawers for that damn manual in the middle of the game, almost as terrible as 'turn over 5 1/4 inch floppy to continue.' That's the definition of intrusive DRM to me, Steam just sits quiet in the background. I remember installing things from like 30 discs omg. I'd turn and run from any product that required that kind of time and effort in this day and age... I'd choose modern over old skool in this case.

oh man, I just remembered waiting an hour between levels while a DAT tape loads, staring at a seizure inducing rainbow striped flashing screen.. wow, what I used to do just to game. It was so much fun though..

[Anthropoid]

Hey Shark. I used to be a Steamophobe, or whatever.

Then when I realized that (a) it has improved a lot over the years; (b) they have tremendous selection and good prices; (c) there really doesn't seem to be anything 'evil' about it; (d) Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim were Steam exclusive: I finally became a Steam user.

I have honestly had nothing but good experiences . . . well there was that one time I 'accidentally' bought something (their e-commerce page was seemingly intentionally misleading to be honest) and had to ask them to refund my money (which they did as I had not downloaded the game). It was about $90 for a game I already owned if I recall. Basically it was some package and when it saw I was buying Skyrim it 'suggested' this package (previous TES games) and I already owned them. I realized what I had done almost as soon as I had clicked the button.

Other than that, which turned out to be a an overall good experience in that it showed they will listen when you complain, I have honestly had nothing but positive experiences.

When I don't want to play connected to their network, I select "Go Offline" and then no problem.

Not trying to sell anybody on Steam nor get into a debate about it. I was pretty 'anti-' for a long time and then as that kinda slowly wore down in the face of literally years of positive to neutral testimony from other forumites, it evolved into "Ah well. I'm not in need of any Steam games, there are plenty that don't need it." That is how I was for a couple years till a couple games I wanted were Steam only. Then I took the plunge and don't regret it. It is good to do it on your own terms and in your own time, I certainly did; but there is really nothing to worry about.

[Shark7]

Well, I'm probably never going to be sold on Steam, or anything like it. On the other hand, I've been able to play Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas on console, so its all good for me. And next gen consoles are here, and I'm going PS4 this time in stead of Xbox...the new xbox just has too many negatives with it...the so-called 'new and innovative' which I honestly find to be 'creepy and intrusive'.

[necaradan666]

They've done a lot of retracting on their so-called features, seems about the same deal as a PS4. I honestly can't bring myself to use a playstation controller but the xbone hasn't sold me either. I don't know if I'll buy next gen at all unless a game I need to play comes along.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: necaradan666

I don't know if I'll buy next gen at all unless a game I need to play comes along.

A good reason for a next gen [;)]

Darkspire