region preview issue

[Diggis]

I'm feeling like a right TM at the moment. I built a plugins folder, damned it and dat-packed it. That took all weekend.

Finally I started laying down roads and farms. First section of growth triggers the street side mod... Brown Box!  Aaaargh

But I'm pretty sure I know the issue there.  However...

When I save my region view doesn't save and I get a blank tile instead.
I'm on Windows 7 home, 64 bit. It just occured to me it could be windowed mode, which I've used while prepping everything. I have it set to my main screens native resolution. I'll check that tonight.

Has anyone else encountered this?

[wouanagaine]

Not sure about the issue , I know that saving a big city in 1600x1200 gave the 'missing bottom part' issue

Is it a big city or on all sizes ?
Does your city is actually saved ( ie only the region view is screwed and only the normal view or also the transit view ? )

I also remember that if you ALT-TAB while saving, this might happen

Also drunkapple has upload a mod on STEX for custom resolution http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/28390-drunken-rendering-the-custom-resolutions/ ( haven't test it not sure it relates to your issue )

[BarbyW]

I am also on Win7 64 and use windowed mode. I have the same "problem" in that region view doesn't always show the city correctly although it is actually saved.

[Diggis]

Not sure about the issue , I know that saving a big city in 1600x1200 gave the 'missing bottom part' issue

I use 1960x1040 or whatever the closest standard numbers are. It's not an issue with the bottom missing though.

Is it a big city or on all sizes ?
Does your city is actually saved ( ie only the region view is screwed and only the normal view or also the transit view ? )

I have only large regions so only tested it on them. The city is saved, but the region view isn't. Haven't tested the transit view.

I also remember that if you ALT-TAB while saving, this might happen

This is possibly the issue, I have looked at facebook etc while saving.

Also drunkapple has upload a mod on STEX for custom resolution http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/28390-drunken-rendering-the-custom-resolutions/ ( haven't test it not sure it relates to your issue )

I do not have this.

I'll take a look at the Alt-tab and at being not full screen tonight. Thanks for the tips.

I am also on Win7 64 and use windowed mode. I have the same "problem" in that region view doesn't always show the city correctly although it is actually saved.

Cheers Barby. Good to know it's not just me.

[Swordmaster]

Yeah, you can't really do anything while saving. When the mouse pointer changes, the saving is normally done and you can de-focus the SC4 window. At least that's my experience with it (I'm on 1920x1080).


Cheers
Willy

[rooker1]

Same thing happens to me and my findings are the same as Willy's.  When you are saving you need to wait until it's done saving before doing anything else and the tile will show properly than.

Robin

[M4346]

I'm also on 1920x1080 and this often happens to me too. I just reload and re-save.

Nearly died the first few times it happened. Thought I'd lost entire cities! lol

[dobdriver]

Yes what Willy says is correct, wait for the hour glass to go and the system cursor to show then alt tab out or move and click. In practice one can usually leave the SC4 screen 3-4 seconds before the hour glass finishes. I have often clicked something else while rendering and thought Crikey I'll have to re-render that one, but no the region screen has been fine.

You should all try my fast rendering mod, It will give the fastest possible rendering of sc4m maps going and the custom res's are suitable for a variety of laptop sizes or desktop and none will display the missing strip on large tiles. I currently render in a window 1920x1080.


Cheers
dobs

[wouanagaine]

dobs, cna you explain how your mods work ?

[dobdriver]

Sure, it is the normal Exit to Region button. I have made it as large as the screen size, I removed the other two options (Exit without save and Cancel) and I made the active area of the Save and Exit to Region the same size as the screen size.

So in region view two mouse clicks will enter the city per standard and having the F8 key depressed will invoke Exit to Region (standard SC4 hotkey) the third click activates the Save and Exit. One can press the third click immediately after the the first 2 and it will register to save, hence the triple click.

I use a ball bearing about 5/8 of an inch or 15mm to keep the F8 key depressed while rendering tiles. It sure as hell speeds up rendering.

Other tricks I use to speed up rendering include rendering everything that can be without scrolling in region view then scroll to show as many adjoining unrendered tiles and moving the mouse to the next city to be rendered while the current one is saving.


Cheers
dobs

[wouanagaine]

nice & smart ideas I thought you found something to speed up the rendering in itself

[Diggis]

Thanks for the advise everyone, it appears to be because of me Alt Tabbing out (actually, just clicking on the other screen). Now to find that missing prop pack, I know it's a tree....

You should all try my fast rendering mod, It will give the fastest possible rendering of sc4m maps going and the custom res's are suitable for a variety of laptop sizes or desktop and none will display the missing strip on large tiles. I currently render in a window 1920x1080.

Thanks for the tip. From your description, it's not something I really need. I only play one region and it's only 16 large tiles.

[dobdriver]

Yeah with only 16 tiles Diggis you don't really need it.

Wouanagaine that's correct, it doesn't speed up SC4 rendering times, what it does cut is all the farting about while rendering not attributable to puter time.

For manual rendering of sc4m files the time is broken up as: 1. computer time - time to save and create region image. 2. human time - time to scroll, click buttons etc.

For in-game rendering time is only for saving.


This machine can render in-game 8.8 tiles per minute. With the mod I render at about 5.5 tiles per minute on a 100 tile map, previous to it I rendered at about 3.5 tiles per minute.

The time will slow as the map size increases because the time to produce a region image increases but it will still save hours if rendering a very large map.


Cheers
dobs

[wouanagaine]

Interesting bits about the save time in relation with the size map

Is it related to the config size or to the number of cities ( does a huge gray config.bmp with only a red pixel ) take the same time as the same size config.bmp with all cities on ?
if no there is maybe a way to speed up your rendering
Create a bunch of regions for one map, but with stripped config.bmp then copy all rendered cities in the full region
Don't know however if the gain in time will excess the time to create the strips and merging

[dobdriver]

It is quite intricate, the portion attributable to saving the city is about equal whether on a large map or small map, a touch over six seconds. The portion attributable to producing the region image is longer on a large map than a small map.

The time taken to produce the region image on a 400 tile map is the same whether all tiles are in play or only one blue tile because the game appears to see transparent as a "colour" and still produces a full image of a 400 tiler.

The saving grace is there is only one tile to render ;<)

I think the way to speed up rendering times would be to not produce a new region image after every save, the only problem with this is there is no visual clues to which tiles have been rendered and hence it would be very easy to lose one's place and re-render previously rendered cities.