Mana Games

[holt77]

Hi,

Today I've been testing the stability of longer careers in World Tour mode on the PS5 version.

First tests using XKT and Stef's ScoreBoard mod, but with no further mods. I updated the MaxYear to allow a 100-year career, and started simming from 2001, but after about 15 years I started experiencing random crashes. They were infrequent at first, and I could go back to my last save, but from 20 years onwards they became far more frequent. Lots and lots of reloading the game and I was able to almost reach 30 years before I just couldn't get any further without it crashing. My thinking was that the XKT mod beyond 2025 suffers from a big reduction in the player pool, down to around 700 players in total, of which 300 are juniors, so I thought it was an issue with the game being unable to fill tournaments that was causing the crashes.

So, I tried the same tests using the original version of the game with no mods (on the latest patch from a few days ago). This time I started at 2025, as I wanted to see how the game deals with generating new players. With this version, there were no issues with the player pool, as it keeps regenerating large numbers of players, more than enough to fill the fields of all the tournaments. However, the same crashes started randomly appearing after about 15 years, and again it became almost impossible to get beyond 25 years.

With both sets of tests, the triggers for the crashes were exactly the same. Almost every crash was from one of four things: trying to enter the Ranking Boards, trying to access a CPU player's Character Sheet, trying to save the game, or very occasionally a random crash while simming through a year. The crashes only started around 15 years into each game. With each one I submitted the report, as requested on my PS5.

Do you know if these issues are likely to just be affecting the PS5 version at this stage? I haven't tried this on the PC version of the game yet.

[holt77]

After looking into it a bit more, I found this thread, which possibly explains the issue I'm having:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=33938&p=282082&hilit=generate#p282082

Is it possible that my tests with XKT crashed because there were too few players, and my tests with the original, un-modded game crashed because there were too many players? The same as in the thread above, my game with the original files kept crashing around 2045, and now that I look at my most recent save, there are more than 1800 active players at that point. I'm guessing beyond that it would remain constant, as there would be no more players from the original Players.ini file to regenerate, but the numbers are just a bit too high at that particular time?

[manutoo]

Hello,

yes, if there are not enough players, it's quite possible it can crash.

And maybe you hit the 1800 active player limit. I didn't get any crash report from you, except if you didn't put your nickname or write anything in them ? So could you send me a new one with a saved game right before it crashes ? (ie: do a yearly save game, and when it crashes, load it, then send me a Bug Report)

Also, if the game completely crashes (and go back to the PlayStation home, I guess), then it means it ran out of memory. I did some checking and it turned out that after 15 years the Ranking Database was taking ~500MB more than needed (so ~800MB after 25 years)..!
This basically means it's currently not possible to play the game after a few years when having the XKT Mod, as it will crash from being out of memory.

So at least this one is fixed for the next update, thanks to your report !

[holt77]

Also, if the game completely crashes (and go back to the PlayStation home, I guess), then it means it ran out of memory. I did some checking and it turned out that after 15 years the Ranking Database was taking ~500MB more than needed (so ~800MB after 25 years)..!
This basically means it's currently not possible to play the game after a few years when having the XKT Mod, as it will crash from being out of memory.

The crashes with both the XKT and original versions were complete crashes back to the PlayStation home screen. And they happened after roughly the same number of years with both versions. I just assumed it was due to the number of active players, as it was really low with XKT and really high with the original version.

Does this mean it’s possibly a memory issue with the PlayStation version of the game? Not sure if this also happens with the PC version.

[manutoo]

Ok, so it was a memory issue.

An issue with the number of active players would lead to an in-game crash with the Bug Report pop-up like on the screenshot there => topic5-31732.php . So there's no need to send me a Bug Report.

However, you said "With each one I submitted the report" ; maybe it was some kind of form for Sony, not me ?

The PlayStation is indeed very short on memory. On PS5, there are only 5.5GB for the game, and with the XKT, it's very close to being out of memory when playing a match (especially a doubles). So a 500MB waste is massive. On PC, if you have 16GB or more, it's barely noticeable, though...

[holt77]

However, you said "With each one I submitted the report" ; maybe it was some kind of form for Sony, not me ?

Yes, when the PlayStation crashes to the home screen it gives you the option to report the problem, so I always click "Accept & Report". I always assumed these reports make their way to the developers, via Sony!

I did some further testing this evening, again with the original version of the game, with only one small mod to use the Players.ATP.ini file from the TE4-ModdingSDK files, on which I updated MaxActivePlayer to 2500. I started in 2021. Retiring players from the Players file were gradually replaced by fictional players. Something seems to change around 2045 though, once all the players from the Players file have retired. At that point, I'm assuming the numbers should remain constant, with retiring fictional players being replaced by new fictional players? However, the numbers continue to grow by anything up to 100 additional players each year. I got up to around 2300 before it crashed again. I thought it was maybe the case that the game will automatically try to raise numbers to the MaxActivePlayer amount, then remain constant after that? However, I tried reducing the MaxActivePlayer to 1900, then starting a new sim, but again, after 2045, the number of players dramatically increases each year, well beyond 1900, to the point where it crashes again.

Is there a way to stop the game from generating so many extra players after 2045, or do you know what might be causing it? Curious to know if it's related to the fact that there are no players left from the Players.ATP.ini file after that date, and it's all regens. Or possibly related to going beyond the original 25 years that World Tour mode was intended to be?

[manutoo]

It may be normal to have more active players if it's only from having more juniors : the average career length of regen players might be shorter than the current generation, leading to having more junior players. However, it seems strange to get 100 more players in a year...

Could you send me a Bug Report when you have reached ~2100 players in the rankings and manually saved your game ? I'll try to check a bit more about what's going on. (click on the top left little white icon in the save menu or in the rankings menu)

[holt77]

I've sent the bug report for my PS5 save to you just now.

I'm going to switch over to the PC version, as I think it better suits the much longer type of career mode that I'm looking for.

[manutoo]

I got your Bug Report but the saved game was too big to be put in the email ; so I tried on my PC and actually, the same happened. After further checking, it turned out the Pure Junior players (the ones never making it to the Pro Tour) who are generated apart from the base players were also regenerated like normal players and thus were making the Tour grow & grow..!

It's fixed for the next update, thanks to your report !

[holt77]

Ah, I'm glad to hear it was fixable!

So, NbPureJunior is the number of pure juniors that are created each year, that never make it to a senior career? They're just created from scratch using names from the PlayerNames file, and I'm guessing they're mainly to make up the numbers in the junior events?

I remember reading somewhere that players will only start their career as a junior if they are set in the Players file to debut by the age of 17? If they're set to debut at an older age and miss their junior career, does this also mean they won't regenerate, or do all players regenerate after the LastYear date?

[manutoo]

1) You're guessing correctly, except NbPureJunior is the total number of added Junior players, so you get NbPureJunior / 4 created every year, as the Junior career lasts 4 years.

2) They will still regenerate, all non-Pure-Junior players do.