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Thread: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

  1. #1
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Icon9 Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Pour some malt liquor out for your fallen homie, because today is a sad day, a cathartic mixed bag if you will, or a Pyrrhic victory of sorts.

    I just got a brand new Acer laptop that is super sweet, mega fast, and downloads, installs, and plays basically everything smoothly, unlike the somewhat crap HP Pavilion laptop I've been using since circa December 2014. The new laptop, which has a way better graphics card and processing power, will play EBII super fast, end turns are finally a breeze, a true dream for any player still playing with laptops instead of a desktop PC, but it comes with a very big catch. It doesn't have a DVD/CD Rom, so I'm playing a downloaded version of M2TW, not the disc version I have for the previous laptop.

    Transferring EBII as I have it on the previous computer allows the game to still play and I can start new campaigns just fine, but it refuses to work with any of my previous saved games and just crashes to desktop. I'd share the error log but eh, what's the point? I've been modifying my own files a bit, so downloading a new version of EBII wouldn't work either. I'd rather just sulk and show you guys the glorious empire I was busy building at turn 500 for Koinon Hellenon.

    You can see it for yourself in the attachment below.

    Also feel free to use this thread to share your technical woes that you are having or have had in the past, and I will grieve with you and be a shoulder to cry on. Who's cutting all these onions? Surely that's the reason tears are being shed.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Second Campaign aborted for new computer, 148 BC, turn 500.jpg 
Views:	653 
Size:	488.8 KB 
ID:	360306
    Campaign map also in spoiler here, showing how I was in the process of moving into central Gaul by 148 BC:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  2. #2

    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    F

  3. #3

    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    My prayers and sacrifices to the gods are with you. At least you still have your old laptop around and in operable condition, so you can revisit your glorious campaign there. I cannot offer you any help, but I can provide you with an experience of my own so that you do not have to feel alone in your predicament.

    Fallout New Vegas used to be my favorite game and I poured hundreds of hours into it, exploring and enjoying the scenery. I saved the namesake, the city of New Vegas, last. Did all the quests around the place until there was absolutely nothing left to do except getting in and getting serious with the main storyline. Just as things were getting really interesting, all of my savegames got corrupted. Hundreds of them. No reinstalling or countless of hours reading up online would help me. The mothereffer somehow accessed all of my savegames in one go and turned them into garbage. When people tell me that I should just start anew, I still get too depressed about all the trouble gone down the drain to even seriously consider.

  4. #4
    paleologos's Avatar You need burrito love!!
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Get a grip on yourself man, laptops and tears don't mix well.

  5. #5
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis View Post
    My prayers and sacrifices to the gods are with you. At least you still have your old laptop around and in operable condition, so you can revisit your glorious campaign there. I cannot offer you any help, but I can provide you with an experience of my own so that you do not have to feel alone in your predicament.

    Fallout New Vegas used to be my favorite game and I poured hundreds of hours into it, exploring and enjoying the scenery. I saved the namesake, the city of New Vegas, last. Did all the quests around the place until there was absolutely nothing left to do except getting in and getting serious with the main storyline. Just as things were getting really interesting, all of my savegames got corrupted. Hundreds of them. No reinstalling or countless of hours reading up online would help me. The mothereffer somehow accessed all of my savegames in one go and turned them into garbage. When people tell me that I should just start anew, I still get too depressed about all the trouble gone down the drain to even seriously consider.
    Thank you for these kind words and sharing your woes with us! This is seriously grating on the mind to think about and I'm glad I've created a thread as a proper release valve for it. I hope at least you had fun while the fun lasted in playing Fallout. Best of luck in future endeavors! Was it a virus or something that you had to eventually scrub?

    Quote Originally Posted by Rad View Post
    F
    Indeed.

    Quote Originally Posted by paleologos View Post
    Get a grip on yourself man, laptops and tears don't mix well.
    Here's to hoping I don't fry the motherboard or worse, that I don't get comically electrocuted from all the H20 seeping into the keyboard!

  6. #6
    paleologos's Avatar You need burrito love!!
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    Here's to hoping I don't fry the motherboard or worse, that I don't get comically electrocuted from all the H20 seeping into the keyboard!
    Such things have indeed happened to other people but my concern is for the laptop.
    There's plenty of you...but laptops?

  7. #7

    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    Was it a virus or something that you had to eventually scrub?
    It was in fact just some kind of bad coding that is endemic to Bethesda's titles that are perhaps too large and too open-ended for their own good. As anyone can do almost anything where ever in a world with gazillion objects and characters, I am surprised that the games are even as stable as they are. But savegame bloat and unpredictable glitches are the reality of the affair.

    I found out that savegame corruption has happened to others as well. When working with databases, changes are often applied to entire record sets unless specifically restricted, but those are not independent files like the savegames in a regular PC title. I know next to nothing about games programming, but it really boggles the mind how an error in saving could possibly affect all the fully independent files in the savegame folder (that can be deleted without consequence, for instance). I have noticed though that Bethesda games do something to the savegames, because just opening the savegame listing for loading purposes takes really long unless you regularly remove save files from the folder. It has to do more than just list the names.

    I ended up getting an external hard drive just for savegame backups and I always do a backup of the recent files before starting a gaming session. EBII files included, although they cannot conceivably be corrupted through any Bethesda-style magic miracle algorithm. But at least my precious empire is safe from HD failures that way, too.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by paleologos View Post
    There's plenty of you...but laptops?
    I was about to ask about laptops, but did not want to mix it in with my genuine expression of sympathy towards Roma Victrix. I know that some people use laptops for gaming, but, each time I hear someone has actually purchased one for gaming, I find myself surprised. Why would one do that instead of getting a tabletop computer?*

    For other tabletop owners with better gaming than soda handling skills, I recommend this (3:50 onwards):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5y6tHpGhA

    *Someone once told me that his wife forbade him because "tabletop computers are so ugly" and she did not want one in her home. For once, I just stood there in reverent/confused silence and could not come up with anything to say.

  9. #9
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis View Post
    I was about to ask about laptops, but did not want to mix it in with my genuine expression of sympathy towards Roma Victrix. I know that some people use laptops for gaming, but, each time I hear someone has actually purchased one for gaming, I find myself surprised. Why would one do that instead of getting a tabletop computer?*

    For other tabletop owners with better gaming than soda handling skills, I recommend this (3:50 onwards):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5y6tHpGhA

    *Someone once told me that his wife forbade him because "tabletop computers are so ugly" and she did not want one in her home. For once, I just stood there in reverent/confused silence and could not come up with anything to say.
    It is more convenient for me to own a laptop because I have to be mobile and I'd rather be able to play this game away from home whenever I like. Besides, the ACER laptop I just got handles the game perfectly, plays smoothly even on the absolute maxed out graphics settings due processing power plus its NVIDIA Ge Force card as mentioned above. I could also play Rome II Total War if I wanted to on this laptop, but I don't care as much about it or the mods for it compared to EBII.

    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis View Post
    I ended up getting an external hard drive just for savegame backups and I always do a backup of the recent files before starting a gaming session. EBII files included, although they cannot conceivably be corrupted through any Bethesda-style magic miracle algorithm. But at least my precious empire is safe from HD failures that way, too.
    Again, sorry to hear about your woes here and thanks again for sharing them! I'll keep this in mind when playing other games, although I don't play very many these days.

    Quote Originally Posted by paleologos View Post
    Such things have indeed happened to other people but my concern is for the laptop.
    There's plenty of you...but laptops?
    The laptop is certainly worth its weight in gold as far as I'm concerned, since it's the best one I've owned as far as processing power and performance.

    Also, I take objection to this idea that the forum has had enough of me. At least I've contributed submods to EBII, along with those for MOS, DAC, and SSHIP as you can see in my signature. What exactly have you done for EBII lately?

  10. #10

    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    I can understand him as I started to shift more and more to laptop use from the standard tabletop. So I eventually bought one that supported gaming too instead of upgrading the old PC. Costed me quite the penny but I have to say Im very satisfied with its performance.

    Reasons of why a laptop? Well, I had a laptop when I was studying at college, due to having to bring it with me often, and got used to using it at home for general purposes. The place where I started to use it mostly was not the most fitting to have a tabletop one (at least without buying more accesories) due to limited space, lack of multiple power supply sockets nearby, need to use wifi... Not hard blocks any of them but I had grown used to the flexibility/convenience of the laptop so when I had to upgrade one for gaming I decided for it to be the laptop. Its also handy when I want to use it in other places of the house (to be with my family maybe) or to transport when I go away even if its not as common as it used to be. It means I can game even when go on holidays to the other apartment in my parents hometown which before I could not.

    A tabletop its always gonna have a better performance/cost ratio, of course. But I feel odd when people seem so surprised given nowadays good laptops can bear with most games perfectly and depending on personal context they may have a few advantages.
    Last edited by Jervaj; January 11, 2020 at 11:49 AM.

    We will either find a way, or make one.


  11. #11
    Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ's Avatar Yeah science!
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    The following message has been sponsored by Hewlett-Packard

    What can I say RV, I had (still have but rarely use, it's at least 12 years old) an HP Pavilion laptop, it was the first computer I played EB, the original, and later EBII, now I also have a HP Pavilion Desktop...
    "First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure." - Mark Twain

    οὐκ ἦν μὲν ἐγώ, νῦν δ' εἰμί· τότε δ' ούκ ἔσομαι, ούδέ μοι μελήσει

  12. #12
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Jervaj View Post
    A tabletop its always gonna have a better performance/cost ratio, of course. But I feel odd when people seem so surprised given nowadays good laptops can bear with most games perfectly and depending on personal context they may have a few advantages.
    Exactly. My current laptop plays the game so smoothly that it might as well be a desktop computer from the late 2000s or early 2010s, especially with the built in NVIDIA graphics card. My super ancient desktop computers only had 2 and then 4 GB of RAM back in the day, whereas my freaking laptop right now has 8 GB of RAM at its disposal. It just powers through things, especially with the certain executable *solution* to a certain game that enhances things for old TW titles that one can do research about independently of this forum.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ View Post
    The following message has been sponsored by Hewlett-Packard

    What can I say RV, I had (still have but rarely use, it's at least 12 years old) an HP Pavilion laptop, it was the first computer I played EB, the original, and later EBII, now I also have a HP Pavilion Desktop...
    Nice. Well I hope its working well for you, but mine was total crap when it came to gaming even though it had 6 GB of RAM. Not sure which graphics cards you have for either your laptop or desktop, but the HD Graphics Family card was garbage. I wasn't even able to use grass detail in M2TW mods, let alone other cool features like reflection and bloom, and always had to put shadows on low detail, vegetation on medium detail at the most. I couldn't even do the lowest level of anti-alaising (x2) and now everything looks so much more realistic and less jagged now that I'm using the 4x anti-alaising, not just x2. I'm also using highest unit detail, whereas before I only felt comfortable using the regular high setting.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    Exactly. My current laptop plays the game so smoothly that it might as well be a desktop computer from the late 2000s or early 2010s, especially with the built in NVIDIA graphics card. My super ancient desktop computers only had 2 and then 4 GB of RAM back in the day, whereas my freaking laptop right now has 8 GB of RAM at its disposal. It just powers through things, especially with the certain executable *solution* to a certain game that enhances things for old TW titles that one can do research about independently of this forum.
    That is the thing too. Imagine mine that has 16 GB RAM + 4 GB dedicated VRAM and the main disk been a SDD. If only EBII could use the capacity it has...
    At the speed this things tend computers tend to evolve a new laptop (assuming you don't aim for the simplest/cheapest models) tends to already be rawly better than a tabletop that is just a bit older. Like my old laptop from my uni times was already better performance wise than the home tabletop that had been upgraded like 1-2 years prior. The only problem is that it lacked a dedicated graphics card, so in that sense it could really be limited some aspects despite the extra processing power.

    A tabletop today, in the same vendor, that equals my year and a half laptop specs costs still around 75-80% of what this one cost. So yeah the laptop as I said its less cost efficient. But the difference (specially given the time that has passed) its not so crazy to discard it. And given how many brands have (usually several models each of) gaming laptops out there I guess the market agrees despite I find so much surprise every time this comes up xD

    We will either find a way, or make one.


  14. #14

    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis View Post

    Fallout New Vegas used to be my favorite game and I poured hundreds of hours into it, exploring and enjoying the scenery. I saved the namesake, the city of New Vegas, last. Did all the quests around the place until there was absolutely nothing left to do except getting in and getting serious with the main storyline. Just as things were getting really interesting, all of my savegames got corrupted. Hundreds of them. No reinstalling or countless of hours reading up online would help me. The mothereffer somehow accessed all of my savegames in one go and turned them into garbage. When people tell me that I should just start anew, I still get too depressed about all the trouble gone down the drain to even seriously consider.
    Start a new one... but on the future Fallout Vegas mod for Fallout 4, it will be awesome!!!

  15. #15
    Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ's Avatar Yeah science!
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    Not sure which graphics cards you have for either your laptop or desktop, but the HD Graphics Family card was garbage. I wasn't even able to use grass detail in M2TW mods, let alone other cool features like reflection and bloom, and always had to put shadows on low detail, vegetation on medium detail at the most. I couldn't even do the lowest level of anti-alaising (x2) and now everything looks so much more realistic and less jagged now that I'm using the 4x anti-alaising, not just x2. I'm also using highest unit detail, whereas before I only felt comfortable using the regular high setting.
    Well, neither the laptop or the desktop use Intel's integrated graphics. Laptop uses ATI Radeon and my current desktop uses Nvidia.
    "First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure." - Mark Twain

    οὐκ ἦν μὲν ἐγώ, νῦν δ' εἰμί· τότε δ' ούκ ἔσομαι, ούδέ μοι μελήσει

  16. #16
    Grimmy's Avatar Ordinarius
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    I feel for you, good sir.

    But, seriously. You should have invested in a good digital ethics overwatch program. Then corruption wouldn't be an issue on your system.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    It is more convenient for me to own a laptop because I have to be mobile and I'd rather be able to play this game away from home whenever I like.
    Oh, so you actually have a life then? Nice job slipping that into the conversation to make the rest of us feel inadequate.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post
    Besides, the ACER laptop I just got handles the game perfectly, plays smoothly even on the absolute maxed out graphics settings due processing power plus its NVIDIA Ge Force card as mentioned above.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jervaj View Post
    I can understand him as I started to shift more and more to laptop use from the standard tabletop. So I eventually bought one that supported gaming too instead of upgrading the old PC. Costed me quite the penny but I have to say Im very satisfied with its performance.
    Thank you for taking time to describe the benefits of a modern laptop in gaming. It is really eye-opening and also incredible that so much power can be packed into something so small these days. If I think about the sheer component size and the need of ventilation in a modern tabletop, it is hard to grasp how close they can now come without the big cards and fans and whatnot.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lusitanio View Post
    Start a new one... but on the future Fallout Vegas mod for Fallout 4, it will be awesome!!!
    I am really looking forward to that and appreciate you mentioning it in case I had not heard.

    However, those projects are no small undertakings. They take a long time to finish and getting people to commit themselves past the initial excitement with no financial compensation is hard. Most projects never reach a playable state, and unfortunately the New Vegas conversion looks like one that is disappointingly close to the finish line but might not make it. Let us hope that the invaluable work by everyone involved is not in vain.

    Skywind (Morrowind for Skyrim) is another one I would really like to play.

    Quote Originally Posted by Grimmy View Post
    But, seriously. You should have invested in a good digital ethics overwatch program. Then corruption wouldn't be an issue on your system.
    Haha. My system is morally bankrupt in many ways and just waiting to stab my back again, it seems.

  18. #18
    Grimmy's Avatar Ordinarius
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by paleologos View Post
    Get a grip on yourself man, laptops and tears don't mix well.
    I don't think getting a grip is the issue here. After all, the guy has admitted to playing with the top of his lap.

  19. #19
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    Quote Originally Posted by Grimmy View Post
    I don't think getting a grip is the issue here. After all, the guy has admitted to playing with the top of his lap.
    Gotta release all that toxic masculine energy somehow!

    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis View Post
    Oh, so you actually have a life then? Nice job slipping that into the conversation to make the rest of us feel inadequate.
    I do my best!

    Thank you for taking time to describe the benefits of a modern laptop in gaming. It is really eye-opening and also incredible that so much power can be packed into something so small these days. If I think about the sheer component size and the need of ventilation in a modern tabletop, it is hard to grasp how close they can now come without the big cards and fans and whatnot.
    The wonders of modern technology! Seriously, ten years ago I don't think I'd be able to afford a laptop that could handle this game as smoothly as the one I have now. It's really convenient, I must say. It's still worth it to invest in a desktop computer for the super high end games that come out nowadays, though, and my laptop admittedly is limited when it comes to storage, having a 500 GB hard drive as opposed to the 750 GB I had on the previous one (albeit with crappier performance as mentioned above).

  20. #20
    Grimmy's Avatar Ordinarius
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    Default Re: Mourn with me, brothers and sisters

    A portable CD Rom wouldn't work for this, would it?

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