No auto-save?

Hell is a turn-based tactical skirmish strategy game developed by award winning developer Hunted Cow in partnership with Slitherine.

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Tridenz0
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No auto-save?

Post by Tridenz0 »

Hello, I am just learning the game, and was on mission 1 of the Gilrand campaign when the program froze. I had to force close it, and expected the program would have auto-saved after the last completed turn. Instead I lost all of my progress on the mission and had to start over. Is there no auto-save in this game so that you can restore to the last completed turn if you experience a crash? If not, this seems like an easy and useful feature to implement. Thanks for considering it.
pipfromslitherine
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by pipfromslitherine »

The game doesn't save after each turn no. What platform are you running the game on? Obviously we don't expect the game to crash at all :)

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Tridenz0
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by Tridenz0 »

Running on Windows 8.1. I noticed slow-down and stuttering, both of graphics and of music for about 2 minutes before the crash. Is there a reason why an auto-save feature wouldn't be implemented? Seems like it would be a simple and inexpensive way to avoid some frustration on the part of users. My time is already very limited, so having a game I've got 45 minutes into crash is a night wasted. :)
pipfromslitherine
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by pipfromslitherine »

It's not something we have seen a need for - the engine is pretty stable and so crashes are a fairly rare occurrence. What kind of system are you running on? Stutter of the music tends to imply that your machine is becoming CPU limited in some way.

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Tridenz0
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by Tridenz0 »

It's a Lenovo Thinkpad T530, Intel Core i5-3360M @ 2.8Ghz, 16GB RAM. It's also got Intel/Nvidia Optimus video. I'm able to run games that are much more graphically and computationally intensive without a problem.
pipfromslitherine
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by pipfromslitherine »

Is it possible that the laptop is overheating? Try adding the line

FPSLIMIT 100

to your user.txt file in My Documents/My Games/HELL. This will slow down the max framerate (laptops often tinker with the internal timings to save power and this can trick the system into rendering at too high a rate). You can tweak the value up or down to perfect the framerate verses overheating.

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zakblood
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by zakblood »

nope pads and tablets are fussy things tbh, where the o/s should be the same, there are also cut down versions like RT, which while it says it's windows 8.1, it's not as it's a totally different version, not saying yours isn't either, could be video drivers issues as does it use the normal windows one of it's own?

only ask as it's not or wasn't supplied with windows 8, but MS Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

Graphics Card Intel HD Graphics 4000 Video Memory Shared - as a 64bit o/s it's defaults unless upgraded is 4gb, which tbh is bare minimum for just windows alone, so video is shared, which could be as little as 256mb or less, depending on bios settings

http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/th ... tech_specs

so first question is, did you upgrade it yourself to windows 8.1?

if so which version?

second question is, does it use the default windows drivers, if so, first find out what it says in the bios for video ram, as default won't maybe be enough, and tbh it was never designed either for windows 8 or win 8.1 either, as the site doesn't even offer it as an upgrade

NVIDIA® Optimus™ Graphics Technology is from intel so default drivers for windows 8.1 install should be fine, but for me i'd zip up and attach a drx report here so mods can check that for you...

How to get a DirectX Diagnostic file:

1. click on "START"
2. click "run"
3. type in "dxdiag" and click "OK"
4. check through the tabs and perform all tests
5. click "Save all Information..." and save the text file to a location of your choice

We prefer that DxDiag files be posted as message attachments rather than pasted into the body of the post.
Tridenz0
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by Tridenz0 »

pipfromslitherine wrote:Is it possible that the laptop is overheating? Try adding the line

FPSLIMIT 100

to your user.txt file in My Documents/My Games/HELL. This will slow down the max framerate (laptops often tinker with the internal timings to save power and this can trick the system into rendering at too high a rate). You can tweak the value up or down to perfect the framerate verses overheating.

Cheers

Pip
Thanks for the suggestion. I doubt it's overheating, as I don't have this problem with any other game, and play some others that are much more graphically intensive (flight sims, FPS, etc.). Also, the problem hasn't occurred again since I reported it the first time, so that's a good sign. Still leaves me wishing there was an auto-save feature as a safety-net though...random crashes can happen, fault of your app or another app or OS or ??? I hate wasting an hour or so of playtime like that...please consider this as a way of honoring the time of those playing your game. Thanks!
Tridenz0
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by Tridenz0 »

zakblood_slith, thanks for taking so much time to try and help me out. I appreciate it! Actually, the problem hasn't reoccurred since the first crash, so I'm hoping it was a one-time thing.

To answer your questions, actually my laptop was shipped from Lenovo with Windows 8 pre-installed. Also, the Optimus / Nvidia card uses shared memory, yes, but mine also comes with 1GB Dedicated DDR3. (The "card" is the NVS 5400M). Even though not a powerhouse, it's plenty of horsepower to run games much more intensive than Hell at a decent framerate.

Anyway, here's hoping it was a one-time glitch, and that the developers realize adding a simple and cheap-to-implement auto-save feature could save a lot of time and frustration in the long run (and, to me, just seems like the right thing to do...what's the down-side?).

Thanks again for your help!
zakblood
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by zakblood »

that maybe your answer then, if the laptop has both shared and dedi card, i'd disable one, and then if you have any issues, as it has been noted before elsewhere on the forum that it does sometimes cause problems, but not seen it mentioned with this game mind you, and most dual card laptops get discontinued because of it, for me if it happens again disable the integrated one through the BIOS, and use the dedi one only, and remove the shared memory bit also, as memory can't be used twice, but if it tries to, then you get a memory error or ctd as mentioned
Tridenz0
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by Tridenz0 »

Thanks, zakblood_slith. I'll keep that in mind if the trouble returns. I appreciate your input.
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by zakblood »

your more than welcome, glad you enjoyed the game and keep in enjoying it :wink:
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by Eraser »

I want to second this. So far the game froze 3 times in about 20 hours of gameplay, not enough to be a game breaker, but it's still annoying to lose progress. I've been saving the game every few turns, so auto-save would be great.

The game stops responding completely and has to be killed in the task manager. I don't know if it's due to overheating. My laptop doesn't have problems with any other games (and I play a lot of games). It's an older generation Core i5 with Nvidia GT 230M, 4 GB RAM and Windows 7.

The "FPSLIMIT 100" line seems to cause massive slowdown on this PC, it makes the game and music run at about half speed with stuttering. "FPSLIMIT 50" runs better, but still not as smooth as without the line.
stubbieoz
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by stubbieoz »

Gosh am I glad I came here.
I was just about to click the "purchase" button on the App store when I thought I best check how the game saves.
The fact there is no mid battle save is a definate no buy for me when it comes to strategy games for my iPad.
Computer games get away with it as I usually start a pc game with the intent of being there for an hour at least.
iPad games are totally different and developers should realise that.
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by pipfromslitherine »

stubbieoz wrote:Gosh am I glad I came here.
I was just about to click the "purchase" button on the App store when I thought I best check how the game saves.
The fact there is no mid battle save is a definate no buy for me when it comes to strategy games for my iPad.
Computer games get away with it as I usually start a pc game with the intent of being there for an hour at least.
iPad games are totally different and developers should realise that.
I have no idea where you got that impression. You can save at any point in battle, and the game also auto-saves when it is put into the background. The above thread is about the PC version which also allows you to save at any point, but doesn't have any kind of autosave because it doesn't need it. The original poster's PC kept overheating (usually a dust issue).

So you can purchase the iPad version without worry :)

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stubbieoz
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by stubbieoz »

pipfromslitherine wrote: I have no idea where you got that impression. You can save at any point in battle, and the game also auto-saves when it is put into the background. The above thread is about the PC version which also allows you to save at any point, but doesn't have any kind of autosave because it doesn't need it. The original poster's PC kept overheating (usually a dust issue).

So you can purchase the iPad version without worry :)

Cheers

Pip
I got the impression that you could not save the game during a battle from the op and your first response.
I guess I must have misunderstood?!
But it seems that I can save when I want, so it's a purchase for me. :D
Thanks for clarifying things. Looking forward to playing.
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by zakblood »

good luck, happy gaming in Hell :twisted:
stubbieoz
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by stubbieoz »

Okay, so save anytime is great.
But there is no date stamp when you do make a save so it can get a bit confusing if you have 3 or 4 saves as to what was the last one.
Oh I know I can probably come up with some sort of save system myself so I will know which one is the last but is it too hard to patch in a dated save system?
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by pipfromslitherine »

IIRC the saves are listed in saved order. Though it's been a while since I looked at the code.

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Tridenz0
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Re: No auto-save?

Post by Tridenz0 »

pipfromslitherine wrote:
stubbieoz wrote:Gosh am I glad I came here.
The above thread is about the PC version which also allows you to save at any point, but doesn't have any kind of autosave because it doesn't need it. The original poster's PC kept overheating (usually a dust issue).

Pip
For what it's worth, I would disagree with both assertions here. 1) I think the game should have an autosave. Saying it doesn't need one makes little sense to me. Based on that logic, what game DOES need an autosave, and on what basis?

An autosave feature would prevent loss of progress in the event of a crash. Crashes happen...it's a fact of life. Whether it's your app, another running app, a driver, or the OS, at some point a crash is going to happen. An autosave is a pretty simple player-oriented feature for these inevitable eventualities. It honors the player's time as valuable.

2) My laptop did not "keep" overheating (in fact, I stated specifically it only crashed once). As I stated in my prior posts, I don't have this trouble with any other game I play, and other games like racing and flight sims are much more taxing on hardware. Claiming my PC was overheating is an unsubstantiated opinion.

It's your choice not to have an autosave feature, and you're obviously free to make that decision. Just please don't pass it off as unneeded because your app never crashes unless it's the customer's fault. :?
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