Save Game Buffer Overrun

ok...

Here's the problem... Save Game Buffer Overrun??

I make a design change in Doom Builder, start Doom 2 to check it out, try to save the game, the game crashes, and the error message appears.

Sometimes the new changes translate to the game itself with no problem... I can play the game and save it just fine.

Now almost anything I do, including something as simple as deleting a box of ammo will cause the game to have the error.

This is causing me a lot of grief.


Any ideas/suggetions?


Thanks,


A

The map is too large and contains too much stuff, so it has to be played in a limit-removing port if you want to save.

If you want to stay with Vanilla Doom, there is a patch to increase this and some other limits: http://prboom-plus.sourceforge.net/

Basically, your level is too big. The more lines, sectors and things in your level, the bigger the savegame will be. There's a limit on the size of savegames; if you exceed it, you'll get a savegame buffer overrun and the game will quit.

Things (ie. in-game objects) are particularly large, so if you can cut out some of those you might be able to get it back down under the limit. If you have loads of ammo boxes strewn around for example, or a room full of health bottles, removing those may help to reduce the size.

Note that the size of the savegame is dependent on the current in-game state at the moment you save, so the size will fluctuate while you play. Don't assume that your changes to the level are the only thing that affect it (like in your comment about removing an ammo box): if there are projectiles flying in the air at the time of save, bullet puffs or blood splats, doors opening or closing or elevators moving, all of those also affect the savegame size.

ok...

yeah, the overload makes sense. I deleted enough "things" to make the "save" function work ok. Thanks.


btw...

this level may lend itself to Deathmatch play. What are the basics I should be considering? Is Deathmatch self-generating, or do I have to add a 2nd player thing?




A

There are deathmatch starts (ednum 11). They're not the same things as normal player starts (ednum 1--4).

In Deathmatch...


When you die, can you regenerate at different locations?

So, even though there are only 2 players, the Deathmatch "thing" starting points can be any number you want... 4 or 6 or whatever. Correct? What is the average number for deathmatch starting points?

Or do you just keep regenerating at the same 2 starting points only?


A

You will spawn randomly at any of the deathmatch starts. Thing numbers have no bearing on this.

Wasn't there some tight limit for how many deathmatch starts the engine can handle? I don't remember exactly.

regarding Deathmatch...

1. I just placed 8 deathmatch starting points in my map. Will the engine handle it? There's no way for me to test it. I started the regular Doom 2 game with the 8 deathmatch starting points, to see if I came in under the cap, regarding saving and buffer size. No problem. It saves just fine. So I assume if there's no problem there, there won't be a problem with a deathmatch game. Unless somebody tells me different, I'll go with that.

2. Weapons... are they community property? That is, if there's a single shotgun laying there, can both players pick it up? Or is it a one-time pick-up, and the second player gets nothing? If it is community property, will it always be there when the fragged player regenerates? How many of each weapon is necessary? I can't see having 8 shotguns, 8 chainguns, 8 whatevers all over the place.


thanks,

a

alamainaloha said:

2. Weapons... are they community property? That is, if there's a single shotgun laying there, can both players pick it up? Or is it a one-time pick-up, and the second player gets nothing?

Both cases may happen, depending on the deathmatch rules. The original Doom has the -altdeath parameter that respawns stuff. Source ports often have their own means of customizing that, for example ZDoom and derivatives have a long series of "dmflags".

Like already mentioned, monsters, corpses, ammo, health and projectiles make the masses. Those few player and deathmatch starts really are insignificant compared to this and thus not really an issue when it comes to the savegame limit.
However, if you have placed things which appear only in multiplayer games, those will obviously not appear in a single player game, therefor you can only test this limit in an actual multiplayer game in this case.

ok...

here we go.

aloha808 completed and uploaded.

if you've got the time, take a look.

it's a little bit different than aloha778.


a

LogicDeLuxe said:

Wasn't there some tight limit for how many deathmatch starts the engine can handle? I don't remember exactly.

The DOS engine requires 4 to 10 deathmatch starts.  If you have more, it will still run, but only use the first 10 points (that's from the pre-source documentation though, so if you really need to be sure, you'll have to look through the code).

Xeriphas1994 said:

The DOS engine requires 4 to 10 deathmatch starts.  If you have more, it will still run, but only use the first 10 points (that's from the pre-source documentation though, so if you really need to be sure, you'll have to look through the code).

    // count deathmatch start positions
    if (mthing->type == 11)
    {
	if (deathmatch_p < &deathmatchstarts[10])
	{
	    memcpy (deathmatch_p, mthing, sizeof(*mthing));
	    deathmatch_p++;
	}
	return;
    }

&deathmatchstarts[10] is one past the end of the array of 10 items (indexed from 0 to 9). So in short, yes, that is correct.