Savegame Backup for Gothic

An old teammate - Lord Banes - has programmed a background service for Gothic 3
every saved game will be automatically copied to a backup folder, you can restore the backups, too.

This Tool is a counterstrike for the ugly and famous save game bug - it works great.

you need .Net Framework 2.0 (most people have it already)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d…d-aab15c5e04f5

and the Tool: (13k)
http://rapidshare.com/files/34874450…gameBackup.zip
never fear Quicksave (F5) again

HiddenX,

Just to clarify: Does the tool create a new, distinct file for each save? Or are saves of the same name (that is, to the same save slot) simply overwritten. I am assuming it is the former because automatically copying a corrupt savegame and overwriting a good one is what should be avoided.

It copies each file to a different folder that can be selected by you.

and

you can say how many "Generationen" = generations of each file you want to backup,
so you have not only the last quicksave - you have the last 3 or more !

This works for the other save slots, too.

Sounds like a great idea; nothing is more frustrating than losing hours of effort due to corrupted saves!!

Very nice! This could save many hours of gaming, I'll definetly try it out.

Any performance hit? Possibly because of .Net Framework residing in memory?

absolutely no performance hit

and be sure to tweak the ge3.ini, too:

the default ge3.ini has a bug:

ResourceCache.u32ImageMaxMemUsage_Low=32000000
ResourceCache.u32MeshMaxMemUsage_Low=30000000
ResourceCache.u32SoundMaxMemUsage_Low=10000000
ResourceCache.u32MaterialMaxMemUsage_Low=18000
ResourceCache.u32CollisionMeshMaxMemUsage_Low=1300 0000
ResourceCache.u32AnimationMaxMemUsage_Low=25000000
ResourceCache.u32SpeedTreeMaxMemUsage_Low=500000

ResourceCache.u32ImageMaxMemUsage_Medium=70000000
ResourceCache.u32MeshMaxMemUsage_Medium=40000000
ResourceCache.u32SoundMaxMemUsage_Medium=15000000
ResourceCache.u32MaterialMaxMemUsage_Medium=20000
ResourceCache.u32CollisionMeshMaxMemUsage_Medium=1 6000000
ResourceCache.u32AnimationMaxMemUsage_Medium=30000 000
ResourceCache.u32SpeedTreeMaxMemUsage_Medium=75000 0

ResourceCache.u32ImageMaxMemUsage_High=96000000
ResourceCache.u32MeshMaxMemUsage_High=96000000
ResourceCache.u32SoundMaxMemUsage_High=20000000
ResourceCache.u32MaterialMaxMemUsage_High=21000
ResourceCache.u32CollisionMeshMaxMemUsage_High=180 00000
ResourceCache.u32AnimationMaxMemUsage_High=4000000 0
ResourceCache.u32SpeedTreeMaxMemUsage_High=100000

last entry should be "1000000" and not "100000"

You count your memory usage from 500k --> 750k -> but at the highest settin it's 100k and i am certain it's supposed to be 1 mil.

EDIT:
this tweak/correction is important:
the save-game bug occurs less often
stuttering occurs less often

The program (I don't read German) seems to indicate that you select the Gothic 3 Save directory. However there doesn't appear to be a save folder, so I'm not sure how to get this program to work?

Any tips are appreciated!

Daniel.

As with most newer games… check your My Documents folder .

Ah yes, I haven't noticed that before! (to be fair it's the only game in there)

Cheers!

Daniel.

Do you need to leave the program running in the background?

Daniel.

@Daniel

Yes, it have to run in the background. Everytime, when you save a game, a new generation of this savegame will be copied to the backupfolder, until the limit of generations is reached - then the oldest generation will be overwritten and so on.

the newest generation have always the ending .1
the second generation have the ending .2
the third generation have the ending .3
and so on.

Keep in mind that every Savegame in Gothic 3 consists of 2 files.

for example
QuickSave.g3savdat and
QuickSave.g3sav

after 3 savings with quicksave (F5)
you will have 6 files in your backup folder:
(With the Setting "Generationen" = 3)

QuickSave.g3savdat.1
QuickSave.g3sav.1
QuickSave.g3savdat.2
QuickSave.g3sav.2
QuickSave.g3savdat.3
QuickSave.g3sav.3

For save-game-recovery use the Button "Spielstand wiederherstellen"
A list of your backup-files will appear - select the files you want to recover and then click on the Button "Wiederherstellen". After that the selected files will be written back to the Gothic 3 Savegame-Directory.

Tip:
Use at least 2 generations to be safe, when Gothic makes a corrupt save game.

Nice one, yep I just left it running, seemed to do the trick, it had lots of text on it when I was done anyhow! :-)

Daniel.

Great tool!

Thanks HiddenX.

Shiron's Tool works 100%:

Together with using alternating save game slots in Gothic 3 you'll never lose a savegame again.

Use Shirons Tool to bypass the "smartheap - out of memory"-bug completely.
This tools is a Gothic Starter and it reserves some memory (choose 100 MB).
When the error occurs

a) change to the desktop via Alt-Tab
b) release the reserved 100 MB with the button "Speicher wieder freigeben"
c) push the "retry" button on the smartheap requester
d) Alt-tab back
e) Gothic can finish the save game process.
f) At last close gothic and start again.

Description (german)
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum…7&#post2507867

short:
Unpack "G3Starter.exe" and "memTool.dll" in your Gothic 3 folder and make desktop link to "G3Starter.exe" then start it.

Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/32446515/Shiron.zip

Tried and verified, it does work.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Shiron's Tool works 100%

While this have helped me numerous times now, I still had a case when it didnt. Good to know.

This tool seems invaluable, I shall download it as soon as I get home.

It works only for the smartheap - out of memory requester.