As per this post: https://forums.stardock.com/493605/page/1/#3741547
Here are two files produced yesterday by GC3/Crusade in a medium galaxy with default settings, PC, Steam, latest version 3.4.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zixgciblngcyi5k/loadtime_shenanigans.rar?dl=0
And here's the DXDiag:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tcf3jcv0zvsklvb/AACwdVgyvQxebhAf3JC7z9GJa?dl=0
(And before anybody asks, the swap file is under Windows 10s control which sets it to 16 GBMB, same size as my physical memory, and Steam cloud synchronization is disabled.)
Altairian_initial: Turn 1: Compressed size 8 MB, uncompressed 140 MB.
s2: Turn 18. Compressed size 33 MB, uncompressed 2500 MB.... an increase of 1686%.
s2 was produced by saving and reloading a lot during gameplay without exiting to desktop during play.
The excruciatingly slow loading I saw reproducible yesterday in 3.4 is 100% reproducible in 3.5 today with the 3.4 save files on my system. To reproduce:
- Start the game from the desktop
- Load the game s2. On my setup with a hard disk drive rather than solid state drive, that takes between 70 and 90s (differed between the 3 tests)
- Within the game, click load, select game s2 and confirm that you'll abandon the current game. On my setup this takes 10 minutes+
- Exit to desktop
- If duplication tests needed goto 1
- Start the game from the desktop
- Load the game s2. Again 70-90s for me
- Exit to menu
- Load the game s2. 10+ minutes, no noticeable difference from attempting to load within the game
- Exit to desktop
- If duplication tests needed goto 6
I think it is safe to say that regardless of whether the loading time and save file bloating are related or not, there is something terribly wrong in (I presume) the dispose/load code in 3.5 (and 3.4) when loading the same save file will take radically longer to load the second time from within the game than the first. Sounds like a problem with cleaning or disposal, but you guys are the ones with the code, so you tell me.
(I know you guys would prefer save files created in 3.5, but honestly, at this point I can't be arsed. Since I started playing yesterday, I've spent considerably more time trying to track down your bugs and being annoyed by slow loading than playing the game, so you'll just have to make do with this as I return to other games, because GalCiv 3 certainly isn't worth playing for me in the current state.)