22 replies to this topic

[CecilPaladin]

I've been playing a game where I'm on turn 350.  The saved game file is over 378 MBs large.  That's for one save.  I'm going to assume that this could keep going up.  Have you guys considered shrinking the size of these saved files?  If you are a game for say 500 turns, would each save file reach over 500 MB large?  This should be addressed.

[fourteenfour]

deleted.

Edited by fourteenfour, 25 May 2016 - 11:51 PM.

[CecilPaladin]

Turn 400's save is 525 MB now.  Make it stop!

[fourteenfour]

deleted.

Edited by fourteenfour, 25 May 2016 - 11:51 PM.

[fourteenfour]

deleted.

Edited by fourteenfour, 25 May 2016 - 11:51 PM.

[Palisis]

Where are these games stored? 

[fourteenfour]

deleted.

Edited by fourteenfour, 25 May 2016 - 11:51 PM.

[CecilPaladin]

For Windows, its under the following:

 

Libraries > Documents > Master of Orion > Saves

 

There's a .save and .data file for each save, which shows the turn #.

[Palisis]

LMAO 32.7 GB of saved files... wtf... 

[CecilPaladin]

Yup.  And post turn 400 they are in the Half Gig range EACH.

[AmbassadorCK]

Hi All;

 

I am new to this game and genre in general so is this size of save game normal or just an early access thing specific to this game?
 

I had no idea until I noticed my SSD had lost 30gb of free space in the last week or so and a file scan showed my save folder was using it all. That will surely be an issue when it launches.

 

Also this is made worse by the current save game screen not showing a list of saves that you can click on and overwrite so you are always making new ones unless you remember the exact names of previous saves.

[Fairwater]

Are you guys running hard drives from 1997 or something?  I can't see how current save file sizes are a problem otherwise.

[Prrsha]

Fairwater, on 01 June 2016 - 10:45 PM, said:

Are you guys running hard drives from 1997 or something?  I can't see how current save file sizes are a problem otherwise.

 

If they hope to make this game accessible to as many people as possible (including those new to the genre) they need to consider that some people don't have huge gaming rigs.  I have ample space, however many people don't have that much space to devote to save game files.  You know something is wrong when the save file sizes exceed the core game file sizes.

 

I assume this is being done for alpha in order to keep everything accessible to the devs for decrypting errors and the like.  If this were to happen in retail people would be in outrage.  Just think how many games you would play of this game in your lifetime (if you really enjoy it) and how many times you would save in each game.  After a year of owning the game, your files would soon eat up most HDDs.  If the save files are going to be this large, people need a better UI to manage the save files.  Not every lay person know to look in My Documents for save files (it's a personal pet peeve of mine for games to place them there as I make backups of my professional documents from this directory often... and I don't need to back up game files each time too.  :P  )

[CecilPaladin]

Fairwater, on 02 June 2016 - 03:45 AM, said:

Are you guys running hard drives from 1997 or something?  I can't see how current save file sizes are a problem otherwise.

 

My SSD isn't big enough to hold that many saves.  I save often and 500 MB + for each save quickly adds up on a 256 GB SSD.  

 

You are using a SSD right?

[Fairwater]

Prrsha, on 02 June 2016 - 03:46 AM, said:

 

If they hope to make this game accessible to as many people as possible (including those new to the genre) they need to consider that some people don't have huge gaming rigs.  I have ample space, however many people don't have that much space to devote to save game files.
 

I assume this is being done for alpha in order to keep everything accessible to the devs for decrypting errors and the like.  If this were to happen in retail people would be in outrage.  Just think how many games you would play of this game in your lifetime (if you really enjoy it) and how many times you would save in each game.  After a year of owning the game, your files would soon eat up most HDDs.  If the save files are going to be this large, people need a better UI to manage the save files.  Not every lay person know to look in My Documents for save files (it's a personal pet peeve of mine for games to place them there as I make backups of my professional documents from this directory often... and I don't need to back up game files each time too.  :P  )

It's 2017 - and you don't need a huge gaming rig to have a terabyte plus size hard drive.  No, most lay people don't know to look in My Documents for save files.  Because they don't need to!  Most lay people aren't idiots and are quite capable of using the existing save file menu to handle save files.   Most lay people aren't saving multiple times either, they use the autosave function.
 

CecilPaladin, on 02 June 2016 - 06:14 AM, said:

 

My SSD isn't big enough to hold that many saves.  I save often and 500 MB + for each save quickly adds up on a 256 GB SSD.  

 

You are using a SSD right?

No, I'm not using an SSD.   Most people aren't because for most people raw speed at load time isn't that big an issue.

[CecilPaladin]

Fairwater, on 02 June 2016 - 02:59 PM, said:

 

No, I'm not using an SSD.   Most people aren't because for most people raw speed at load time isn't that big an issue.

 

Its not 2017 yet (unless you are from the future).

 

And a lot of people do use SSD's.  It provides faster OS load, and loads games faster, along with saved games saving/loading.  Overall performance increase, so I don't know why everyone isn't using one.  They are pretty cheap nowadays, but they can always provide larger sized SSDs.

Edited by CecilPaladin, 02 June 2016 - 07:14 PM.

[Prrsha]

Fairwater, on 02 June 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

It's 2017 - and you don't need a huge gaming rig to have a terabyte plus size hard drive.  No, most lay people don't know to look in My Documents for save files.  Because they don't need to!  Most lay people aren't idiots and are quite capable of using the existing save file menu to handle save files.   Most lay people aren't saving multiple times either, they use the autosave function.
 

No, I'm not using an SSD.   Most people aren't because for most people raw speed at load time isn't that big an issue.

 

Most lay people don't know about autosaving in the game.  It is hidden far from the main menu or the main interface screen.

[CecilPaladin]

Prrsha, on 02 June 2016 - 11:46 AM, said:

 

I assume this is being done for alpha in order to keep everything accessible to the devs for decrypting errors and the like.  If this were to happen in retail people would be in outrage.  

 

You're probably correct on this.  I've been playing XCom 2 all weekend and saved about 160 saved files.  The combined total of all those saves was 150 MB.  That would EASILY be ONE save in MOO4 without breaking a sweat.  

[CecilPaladin]

I said the COMBINED TOTAL of 160 saved files was 150 MB.  They are roughly 1.5 MB each save.

[Horizon_Breaker]

It would be a good idea for saves to be compressed at release.

 

LZMA2 with a 1MB dictionary brings save files down to 50% size (7-zip Fast preset). LZMA2 with a 16MB dictionary brings save files down to 30% size (7-zip Normal Preset).

 

Another idea to bring total save file sizes down would be to implement incremental multi-part save files.

Right now if you manually save at say turns 20, 100, 250. 300. 450, 500 each save will contain a database of all turns back to turn 1 which wastes space with duplicate turn data.

What really should be happening is the turn 20 save contains turns 0-20,  turn 100 save turns 21-100, turn 250 save 101-250, turn 300 save 251-300, turn 450 save 301-450, final turn 500 save 451-500.

 

Doing both this and compression would probably bring save size down to 10% of what it is currently for people who make multiple saves over the course of a game.

 

 

Side note: If you currently run out of disk space on the drive with save files, the turn history feature will silent fail without any error message. Lack of an error message there is a bug which needs to be fixed. In reality such an error message should really be thrown by the game once free space falls below 1GB so the user can do something about it.