Topic: SFC3: Gameplay choppy at officers/refit/map/ect. screen as news is generated

[Eclipse]

When I am playing the game and am in a campaign and am not in a mission and trying to use the map screen or the refit or shipyard or officers screens or whatever the game always goes choppy right as the news is being generated at the news screen. You know, the news that comes up every now and then saying Federation has attacked such and such a hex or Borg has attacked this hex and all that. Well when I play there is no news for a while, then usually a few news items appear right after eachother telling about what's going on in the galaxy. Whenever this happens, the game seems to hang up until the computer is done processing what has happened or something. I can't move the mouse or anything until it is done figuring out the first news event, then I can move the mouse for about a second or two then it hangs up again until it is done with the 2nd news item and it goes on like this until they are all done. Once all the news items are done I get a minute or two of smoothe gameplay at the screens until this happens again. And this happens while I am navigating any of the screens, not just  the news one. I can be in the middle of trying to refit my ship and have to sit around for a while and wait for it to be done with the stupid events or whatever it is that is causing this before the game will come back to life and I can continue, for a time, on my merry way! Has anyone else here encountered this problem or know anything about it. My computer is no high performance machine, but it handles in battle gameplay flawlessly with maximum graphics settings. Oh yeah, and I just reinstalled the game yesterday and I have no mods. I have encountered this problem both with and without the beta patch so that won't solve anything. Sometimes I feel like I spend more time waiting than playing! And yes, I purchased this game brand new about 4 days after it came out, and my disc is still in perfect shape.  

[Warden]

Welcome to the world of SFC3.  Any server administrator can tell you what technically is happening here, but basically the game is "writing" out a file, that details every move, battle, hex flip that occured during the last X number of minutes (the autosave file). On large maps with lots of ai this can sometimes kill a server. You need to remember that when you are playing single player campaign, you are running a server.

So i guess there is not much that you can do about it, but check out  this thread for some tips on making gameplay better.

Hope this helps.
 


 Edit: to many t's in writing  

[L0vetobowl]

I had the same slow down and was able to fix it by editing the AI.gf file. You can find it in

\SFCIII\MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer

You want to change the line so it creates a limited numer of AI ships

MaxAIsPerEmpire     = 25               // ( -1 ) Create a fixed number of AIs per empire. -1 means not to use a fixed number.

Change the first -1 to say 25 to reduce the amount of ships the get created. This seemed to work for me, hope this helps.
Make sure to make a backup copy of the file just in case something goes wrong. Oh I also used notepad to open the AI.gf file

   

[AdmiralFrey_XC]

Quote:
I had the same slow down and was able to fix it by editing the AI.gf file. You can find it in

\SFCIII\MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer

You want to change the line so it creates a limited numer of AI ships

MaxAIsPerEmpire     = 25               // ( -1 ) Create a fixed number of AIs per empire. -1 means not to use a fixed number.

Change the first -1 to say 25 to reduce the amount of ships the get created. This seemed to work for me, hope this helps.
Make sure to make a backup copy of the file just in case something goes wrong. Oh I also used notepad to open the AI.gf file

   

Nice post !!

 

[Eclipse]

Thanks for the welcome, except that I have been here for a long time. I put in tonnes of posts on the old style board a few years ago under the name Arsenal and I have edited and become a master of SFC1, making a total mod for my personal use, consisting of ships that I downloaded off the internet. Let's just say...lots of posts here, but then I left for a while to pursue other interests and then bought this game a year ago and am getting tired of the waiting around. Thanks for the info on the file mod, I'm trying it right now!

[Warden]

Quote:
Thanks for the welcome, except that I have been here for a long time. I put in tonnes of posts on the old style board a few years ago under the name Arsenal and I have edited and become a master of SFC1, making a total mod for my personal use, consisting of ships that I downloaded off the internet. Let's just say...lots of posts here, but then I left for a while to pursue other interests and then bought this game a year ago and am getting tired of the waiting around. Thanks for the info on the file mod, I'm trying it right now!  

Well don't i feel like an idiot , here I am talking to you like a newbie who knows little about sfc and you turn out to be a hardcore fan and modder, doh!!!

Dont know if you have looked at  these they are 5 guides on modding sfc3.

 

[Eclipse]

When I am playing the game and am in a campaign and am not in a mission and trying to use the map screen or the refit or shipyard or officers screens or whatever the game always goes choppy right as the news is being generated at the news screen. You know, the news that comes up every now and then saying Federation has attacked such and such a hex or Borg has attacked this hex and all that. Well when I play there is no news for a while, then usually a few news items appear right after eachother telling about what's going on in the galaxy. Whenever this happens, the game seems to hang up until the computer is done processing what has happened or something. I can't move the mouse or anything until it is done figuring out the first news event, then I can move the mouse for about a second or two then it hangs up again until it is done with the 2nd news item and it goes on like this until they are all done. Once all the news items are done I get a minute or two of smoothe gameplay at the screens until this happens again. And this happens while I am navigating any of the screens, not just  the news one. I can be in the middle of trying to refit my ship and have to sit around for a while and wait for it to be done with the stupid events or whatever it is that is causing this before the game will come back to life and I can continue, for a time, on my merry way! Has anyone else here encountered this problem or know anything about it. My computer is no high performance machine, but it handles in battle gameplay flawlessly with maximum graphics settings. Oh yeah, and I just reinstalled the game yesterday and I have no mods. I have encountered this problem both with and without the beta patch so that won't solve anything. Sometimes I feel like I spend more time waiting than playing! And yes, I purchased this game brand new about 4 days after it came out, and my disc is still in perfect shape.  

[Warden]

Welcome to the world of SFC3.  Any server administrator can tell you what technically is happening here, but basically the game is "writing" out a file, that details every move, battle, hex flip that occured during the last X number of minutes (the autosave file). On large maps with lots of ai this can sometimes kill a server. You need to remember that when you are playing single player campaign, you are running a server.

So i guess there is not much that you can do about it, but check out  this thread for some tips on making gameplay better.

Hope this helps.
 


 Edit: to many t's in writing  

[L0vetobowl]

I had the same slow down and was able to fix it by editing the AI.gf file. You can find it in

\SFCIII\MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer

You want to change the line so it creates a limited numer of AI ships

MaxAIsPerEmpire     = 25               // ( -1 ) Create a fixed number of AIs per empire. -1 means not to use a fixed number.

Change the first -1 to say 25 to reduce the amount of ships the get created. This seemed to work for me, hope this helps.
Make sure to make a backup copy of the file just in case something goes wrong. Oh I also used notepad to open the AI.gf file

   

[AdmiralFrey_XC]

Quote:
I had the same slow down and was able to fix it by editing the AI.gf file. You can find it in

\SFCIII\MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer

You want to change the line so it creates a limited numer of AI ships

MaxAIsPerEmpire     = 25               // ( -1 ) Create a fixed number of AIs per empire. -1 means not to use a fixed number.

Change the first -1 to say 25 to reduce the amount of ships the get created. This seemed to work for me, hope this helps.
Make sure to make a backup copy of the file just in case something goes wrong. Oh I also used notepad to open the AI.gf file

   

Nice post !!

 

[Eclipse]

Thanks for the welcome, except that I have been here for a long time. I put in tonnes of posts on the old style board a few years ago under the name Arsenal and I have edited and become a master of SFC1, making a total mod for my personal use, consisting of ships that I downloaded off the internet. Let's just say...lots of posts here, but then I left for a while to pursue other interests and then bought this game a year ago and am getting tired of the waiting around. Thanks for the info on the file mod, I'm trying it right now!

[Warden]

Quote:
Thanks for the welcome, except that I have been here for a long time. I put in tonnes of posts on the old style board a few years ago under the name Arsenal and I have edited and become a master of SFC1, making a total mod for my personal use, consisting of ships that I downloaded off the internet. Let's just say...lots of posts here, but then I left for a while to pursue other interests and then bought this game a year ago and am getting tired of the waiting around. Thanks for the info on the file mod, I'm trying it right now!  

Well don't i feel like an idiot , here I am talking to you like a newbie who knows little about sfc and you turn out to be a hardcore fan and modder, doh!!!

Dont know if you have looked at  these they are 5 guides on modding sfc3.