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So lately I've been putting together a five or six level demo for my game. I came across an issue (expected of course), this was that it was repeatedly crashing when loading the second level, but on occasion succeeding in loading it. At this stage I was building them traditionally through the FPSC build game menu. So I searched up methods around this and found this thread here which I took the idea from, changed it a little and applied it to my own game. The great news was that it allowed me to reliably load most of my levels. I say most of, because after some testing I found two levels that I couldn't load, which suspiciously enough were larger levels.

I looked into the levelbank folder of the built games and noticed one of the levels was 13 - 12.5mb while the other was 11mb. With a bit of level optimisation, LMQ reduction I quite proudly managed to knock these levels down to 9.4mb each without sacrificing too much quality. My third level, sitting at 8.9mb loads safely and has done plenty of times, enough for me to be confident in it. However, the 4th and 5th levels would always crash when the load bar was right at the end.

This brings up one of my questions. Tested individually, (as in built one level, then ran that level as a game itself) the 4th and 5th levels load, ever at higher level sizes. Why is it that levels will load on their own but when placed into a game, crash? This has me stumped. Well,it may have something to do with data that carries over eg variables, weapons, etc and this data tips the next level over the cap, but that could be completely wrong. Regardless, I'm left with a crashing level, so I work around it.

The obvious answer may be to simply 'reduce' the size of my level, and it may come to that, but doing that will comprimise on the quality of my level. Maybe that was down to not planning the level most effectively from the start (still learning as a developer) but this is why I came to the forums, there may be someone who has some helpful words. If someone knows a way to help my problem and that my levels in their current quality (at the least) can be loaded assuredly, its just something I'm missing or not doing right, or can give some advice on better optimisation.

If my levels can somehow be further optimised to keep their current quality but bring their size down to a reasonable size then that would be greatly appreciated.

I just thought I should mention, I'm using v120 beta 17a, lightmaptexsize=1024 and lightmapquality=20/30/40, always changing but at the moment at the lower 20.

Thanks,
Burger

Hey there,

just take the time and reduce object texture sizes. Most small objects don't need to have a 512x512 texture. Most of the time even 128x128 is enough and when you have many entities in the level, reducing the texture size of individual objects can be very helpful. This way you won't need to compromise and because of the reusing of objects in other levels (which I'm sure you did), the smaller levels will have an even smaller memory footprint.

Also let the engine make logs, so you know at which point it does crash (producelogfiles = 1 in setup.ini)

Greetings,
Jan

EDIT:
By the way, let the lightmaptexturesize be smaller when you don't use any high-poly objects in your level. 512x512 pixels is usually enough for every kind of level. The quality doesn't have a big impact on the memory. I use 256/40.

I've followed your advice and reduced the texture size of some objects. It turns out I didn't need to reduced many objects. There were some in the level that had 1024x1024 textures which halving to 5112x512 didn't harm the visuals and reduced the sizes of the levels. However I've run into another problem. On loading the 4th level, for some reason its decided to start crashing again. Using the logs it ends with this line:

1178391981 : Loading Sound:gamecore\guns\eai\g22se\

I'm not sure why it would crash on this (or if it is). I haven't come across this issue before either. I don't particularly know what to do about it either. It's kind of frustrating really, I know this level loads and works but when placed in the game it crashes?

Any help will be greatly appreciated

I thought I'd bump this thread. The above issue is sorted (I don't know how, but it did) but I've got a question.

Could somebody please explain what 'Creating entity instances' specifically means? It's the latest issue I've run into with my map. I can't understand why its still crashing, when the level is 8.5mb, which is smaller than third level at 8.9mb which never crashes. It must have something different about it, because the level should be able to run.

My level is crashing with the line:

'187525103 : MEMUSED:331908K [302] Creating entity instances... (1838MB used)'

It runs fine in test game. What can be done to reduce this number? Why does this level not run while other, larger ones do?



Sorry for the bombardment, but its clawing away at me that its not even functioning properly when it should be. Any help will be greatly appreciated

Hi man look I got the same error can you
Please tell me what version you use
and check this thing out in my problem the loading crash
happen after some levels so try to take your level
4 as first level and put after it a empty level
and lets see if the crash happen after level 4 lets see if we got the same error :S

Please I need some info to look into the problem.

is this a already built game that has problems loading once built or are you having issue building the game to an exe.


If you could send me a link of the built game for me to look over not protected so I can test where the problem is coming from.

a level being 8.5mb in size does not reflect how much memory it would use to load in.

best s4real

Hi my problem is only on exe game look at the image
how can I send you my project to take a look?

Thanks

@Peri :- On the built exe right click it and go it to compatible then click run as administrator.

See if that fixes your problem if not you can upload to any of the free media hosting sites or dropbox.

If you using the latest version of fpsc you need these two file in a built game.Just place them in the same folder as your exe.

best s4real

s4real I tried what you said but its doesn't solved it
I am using version 1.18 I sent you a link of dropbox
of a simple I made of 3 levels level 2 cause to the error
after level 2 I putted a empty level in all the levels I putted
the win zone in front the player for a quick test for you.

Thanks

Got your test level will be checking it out as soon as its downloaded will get back to you
best s4real

Oh yes I didn't update this.

I solved the issue. The reason my games crashed while loading was because the audio file used during the loading time was waaay to big. Greatly reducing that allowed my levels to function and load. But since then, I discovered the memory saving ability of Dxt1 .dds files. I converted all my textures that don't contain alpha to Dxt1 and saved around 300-400mb per level (awesome!). Now I've bumped the lightmapping up to the likes of 30-60 and added more content to all of my levels. Using the latest beta also speeds up progress (thanks s4real).

The version I use is v120 beta 17a with unofficial FPSC game.exe 19e

There a new beta come out tonight 19f fixes d13 docks pack and also saves a little on build size.

glad you sorted it out

best s4real

Hello s4real
Did you saw the crash on my simple I sent you?