Sync Issues

Ive read some recent posts on sync issues, and found that people say they are less regular.

 

Ive played sins since release PvE and Lan no ICO, and never had sync problems, i installed SoaSe Diplo yesterday and proceeded with a lan game, after 19 hours the game was out of sync by nearly 15 minutes and was running at a severe crawl.

 

Since I have never had sync problems with SoaSe Vanilla and Entrenchment i have no clue on ways to possibly rectify this solution, im hoping someone has some tips for me, because after 19 hours, id like to finish the game but currently, one player is in the future, and the others can move around there ships for 10 - 15 minutes before they dissapear because they were destroyed in a battle long ago.

 

Although i play on a VPN alot, this game was local

We had 4 players

All techs for all players at this stage were maxed

Playing with 141 Planets

Pirates Dead

Everyone had full fleet research

3 players had reduced fleet numbers, while one player had full fleet capacity.]

 

The computers shouldn't have had a phsical problem maintaining this game

4 gig ram

1 gig GCards win XP Pro (No other will do for me)

AMD Phenom II X6

Cheetah X15 36LP 18gig cache drive

2x 120 gig SCSCI drives Stripped OS and game Drive

 

Thats all 4 computers (Recent gaming machine upgrade)

 

Any input/advice would be apreciated

7,119 views 8 replies
Reply #1 Top

Well first of all there is probably nothing you can do to save that game, other than restart from an autosave before the desync occurred, and it is probably not obvious when that is (otherwise these things wouldn't be such a pain). Given that you had a 19 hour game however I'm not surprised you ran into it, lots of time for the few remaining sync bugs that exists to pop up (2 hours is a long multiplayer game in competitive matches). If you're interested here's a dev blog from years ago that explains what they are and why they are so difficult to stop completely.

The only thing of advice I can think to give you is to make sure you always restart the game before either starting or loading a save from an online game. Having loaded a game previously, even in single player, may lead to one player having slightly different data and increases the chances of both a minidump or desync.

Reply #2 Top

If you play such long games, severe problems are bound to show up. I personally can't stand a game to last for more than an hour and a half or so.

Reply #3 Top

I cant stand a game less than 5 - 6 hours lol, each to there own, its good that such a great game can be played so significantly different and still be enjoyable for everyone with there different likes/dislikes.

 

Thanks for the link, and yeah ill give it a read.  yAlthough 19 hours is a short game for us, and this is the first ever de-sync (noticable one anyway) that we have ever had, and only after purchasing Diplo.

 

We play 4 Players 4 NPC's Pirates, largest galaxy's we can make and NPC's hardest possible setting by the time we all deal with the NPC's and pirates, its already a few hours worth, we give the NPC 2 hours to build up, while we snail a single planet. And then its FFA, we were hoping Diplomacy would add a new environmental variable to our gaming experience with "dynamic" in-game co-alitions, a new form of "war" as it were.

 

As for fixing the game, i managed to extract a bunch of save games, start some new 4 player games and immediately save them, extract that game data, find inconsistent data, map it to physical game environment differentials, extrapolate the "headers" for each systems save games, then realign the "game" from a single computers stand point.  There was alot of stuff in the data files i couldn't understand, so i just shoved it in how i thought it may go, and it worked, so far.

 

The only weird side effect was only one of us got to stay on our original computer to play the side they played (The host), i don't know if this was because the host was the stamp we used or if there was something substantial i missed.

 

That post explaining how the games de-sync, was detrimental to this outcome, so i thank you for the link, very helpful, now we can have a sleep and resume our battle.

 

P.s

 

The reference to "Competitive" match's, I guess i have a different perspective on whats competitive, I Have not played ICO but i used to play many games in internet areana's and seldom ever found them competitive, usually more of a "all in race to the finish"

 

Frequently even after 28 hours of game play, were we are almost assured that we know who will "win" our battles, there can be large turnarounds. 

 

Using prolonged play style incorporates many variables we do not encounter in short game play, each player requires sleep, sustenance, we get tired, we make mistakes, we become complacent.  My last game i lost when i thought i had basically destroyed 2 of my 3 opponents, the 3rd opponent had taken advantage of seeing i was pre-occupied on 2 attacking fronts cleaning up the debris, he amounted 2 large fleets, and landed at a sun and wormhole, i got no warning, since he had no destination within my empire, he flew straight past my gravity well defenses taking moderate damage, and split to attack 2 different planets within my sector, I recalled a fleet from the smallest player and proceeded to secure my sector, after a few more hours, the player had exhausted his reserves, I was weary after a long battle on two front's, and decided to make a decisive move, and end the game, i launched most of my fleets to finish off the previously larger player, and as i began the final engagement, the player i had abandoned for dead previously, launched his rebuilt army, By the time forces had got home with sufficient power to defend against his armies, He had a stronghold within my system, after a mere few more hours, enemy culture , and the inability to safely exit my system to counter attack, rendered me defeated.

 

In saying that, im about to see what ICO is like :)

Reply #4 Top

19 hours is a long time.  I only play PvP on ICO and I haven't seen a desync for a long time, but ICO PvP games generally don't last more than 1.5-2 hours.  Maybe you guys just suffered from some bad luck.  One thing that might help is for everyone to always start the Sins program fresh before starting a game or starting a saved game.  I hope you and your buddies will come join the fun on ICO.  The 5v5 games are the best.

Reply #5 Top

The restarting the Sins program does the trick for our LAN group occasionally. We routinely play on all slow settings games that last between 8-20 hours in length, somethings over multiple sessions. This is either with 3vs3 or 4humans, 6ai, pirates on, FFA on huge maps.

 

Sometimes our games go longer when we use the Distant Stars mod as they expand the research and rebalance a few things in the game.

 

We seldom have any descync issues when using Hamachi or ICO. ICO has gotten a lot better than it used to with desync but it still has the occasional issue.

Reply #6 Top

Quoting spikefin, reply 3
The reference to "Competitive" match's, I guess i have a different perspective on whats competitive, I Have not played ICO but i used to play many games in internet areana's and seldom ever found them competitive, usually more of a "all in race to the finish"

Sins is different from many other popular online games in that it's a strategy game and is completely focused on winning and killing your opponent - completely zero-sum, and player skill levels are everything.

Reply #7 Top

I was un-succesfull with ICO it said mesh files were different for the only running game tried a few times in the last 24 hours.

Reply #8 Top

Quoting spikefin, reply 7
I was un-succesfull with ICO it said mesh files were different for the only running game tried a few times in the last 24 hours.

This is an unfortunately common problem but is very easy to fix: go into your main Sins of a Solar Empire folder (inside your Steam/Steamapps folder, or inside of your Stardock Games folder in Program Files), delete the Mesh folder, delete the Entrenchment/Mesh folder, and delete the Diplomacy/Mesh folder. Then, if you're in Steam, use the tool to reverify your installation, and it should redownload the correct mesh files. Or, if you got it via Impulse, use Impulse to verify the game, and Impulse will redownload the correct files.