Fixing Slow Startup Times

[sven4669]

Particularly on older laptops, Stars in Shadow can take several minutes to start.

The reason for this slow start time is usually the system's virus scanner: during startup, sis64.exe needs to load a few hundred megabytes worth of high resolution images. These images are stored in .png files, and most virus scanners (including Windows Defender, which is built into Windows 10), will run a full scan over all those image files each time Stars in Shadow loads. That virus scanning overhead is the main cause of long startup times.

Depending on your virus scanner, there are usually a couple ways you can disable these repeated scans. If you're using Windows Defender, opening "Windows Defender Security Center", and navigating to "Virus & threat protection" -> "Virus & threat protection settings" -> "Exclusions" will get you to a menu that can be used to add various kinds of exemptions.

Two options that work reasonably well are to either 1) add an exception for the png file type, or 2) add an exception for the sis64.exe process. On the oldest laptop I own, adding either exclusion reduces startup times from around 3 minutes to around 30 seconds. I'm not a computer security expert, so I'm not certain which exclusion (the png file type or the sis64.exe process) is technically safest, but I am fairly confident that either option is safer than the more extreme step of simply disabling your antivirus software -- which is almost always a bad idea :)

If any users of other virus scanning software (AVG, Kaspersky, etc.), have had success adding specific exclusion rules to speedup their own startup times, please share your knowledge with other players by dropping a comment in this thread.

[Pherdnut]

Are you guys familiar with png compression? You could probably cut the size of a lot of the images I've looked at by at least half without any noticeable differences.

https://tinypng.com/

[Arioch]

Originally posted by Pherdnut:

Are you guys familiar with png compression? You could probably cut the size of a lot of the images I've looked at by at least half without any noticeable differences.

https://tinypng.com/

If the problem is CPU load as the antivirus scans the files, I would expect compression to make that even worse.

[Pherdnut]

Originally posted by Arioch:

Originally posted by Pherdnut:

Are you guys familiar with png compression? You could probably cut the size of a lot of the images I've looked at by at least half without any noticeable differences.

https://tinypng.com/

If the problem is CPU load as the antivirus scans the files, I would expect compression to make that even worse.

It's not really compression. PNG is an indexed file format, meaning instead of a bitmap which is just a dumb table of each color value at each and every single grid value (lots of duplilcation of 3-byte values (much larger than the space it takes to store a location on a grid) you get more like:

<color-value 1>:<list of pixel locations>
<color-value 2>:<list of pixel locations>

What these optimizers do is find color values that are near-identical depending on what tolerance setting you choose and merge locations to the same index. If tolerance is too high, you'll notice an increase in contrast. I tried tinypng on one of your images at default settings and it was a little too high (output looked good but noticeably brighter in places in side-by-side) but it reduced the image to about 1/5th of its size. You can usually knock 50% off of something straight out of photoshop without any noticeable difference to the naked eye.

[sven4669]

Originally posted by Pherdnut:

You can usually knock 50% off of something straight out of photoshop without any noticeable difference to the naked eye.

I have been looking into compression options. The thing that strikes me as most promising is to convert a lot of the game's files to DDS format -- i.e., to use S3TC compression, with some parameters, on a bunch of the data. S3TC has a bunch of perks; one being that it's designed specifically for use in textures, and supported as an internal format by virtually all OpenGL drivers. That means we'd reduce memory overheads not just in terms of disk space (which only really affects game startup times), but also on resident memory during runtime (which could make a big difference to people running on relatively low-spec machines).

I also think there's a chance that whatever virus scanning hooks are being triggered by the game's loading lots of .png's might not be triggered if, instead, we were loading lots of .dds's, as one can imagine virus scanners including an exception specifically for the dds file type.

S3TC integration is still a feature that's at a theoretical stage though -- and will almost certainly need to wait until after we get the first DLC done.

[Pherdnut]

I love how it always comes down to something somebody else figured out in the '60s/'70s (or much earlier):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Texture_Compression

[Scharlach]

Hi

The game is almost unplayable in my laptop. It takes several minutes to start and 1 to 2 minutes to load the portrait and description of each race when I try to start a new game. I tried adding an exclusion for it in Kapersky but that didn't work. My laptop is from 2014, has an I5 processor and intel 4000 HD graphics. Are there any other solutions for this problem?

[Arioch]

Using built-in graphics like the Intel HD that don't quite meet the game's minimum requirements can cause problems, but it shouldn't make the game load slowly.

Sometimes when there are unreasonably slow load times, it can be caused by the antivirus doing a real-time scan. You can do a quick test by temporarily disabling your antivirus (Windows Defender or whatever you're using) and starting the game. If this fixes the problem, you can usually make a custom exception for SIS64.exe in your antivirus.

[halibi]

Jep this game is totally crap in older laptops (over 3year) with virus scan and that why dont ever buy this game then.

[halibi]

So i have I5 1,8 ghz 6gt memory and amd radeon 8500 graphic gard and bitdefender and this game load times are minutes and you even cant put it on to the star map. So if you dont have super computer DONT buy this game before there will be some kind of update wich will solve those issues.

[Bergwerkzwerg]

The Radeon 8500 graphic card is from 2002...if wikipedia is correct in this point. And it does not fulfill any of the minimum requirements. So no wonder why you have problems. Not the fault of the game.

[halibi]

=D =D =D =D =D =D Yep fault is not in game. It is in programming =D =D And like that service dont ever buy any this firm game because looks like they evern dont want to help. =D =D

[Bergwerkzwerg]

Your graphic card has 64 MB, while the requirements clearly tell you that the ATI Radeon HD4000 series is the absolute minimum. Quick look on google, the slowest card of this series has 256 MB.
Conclusion: Your laptop is not potent enough to play SiS, so why do you buy it?
In my case the game crashes not because of hardware problems. The GTX 1050 Ti has 4 GB and even the onboard Intel HD 630 can go up to 1150 MB.

[halibi]

Hihihi. My lap top works well in skyrim and civilization IV and even Fallout 4 but not this absolutely simple garphic. =D So i buy game because i really didnt guess that there is so poor programmers who can make so crap game code wich dont work with those absolutely old graphics in nowdays. =D =D =D This game is not worth to buy new laptop. =D

[Bergwerkzwerg]

I really don't want to argue about technical requirements because they are not negotiable. Civ IV only needs a 64 MB graphic card so no annotations from my side. But i am pretty sure that you can not play Skyrim or Fallout on your laptop. Maybe with the lowest settings but even then i doubt your answer.
I don't say that you should buy a new laptop that's none of my business. You can decide that on your own but i find it quite unfair to rant about a game which is clearly outside your equipment.
Maybe the game could have lower requirements but first i am no computer or programming expert and second like i am knowing only two people designed and programmed SiS. Games which you mentioned are made by large developer groups and so it is not a secret that they could have more budget to decrease the technical requirements.
I like SiS, it's a nice game with beautiful artstyle and it is perfect for the first steps in the 4X genre. And for the future i recommend that you should check first the needed requirements to avoid such disappointments. That would be better for your nerves. :*

[halibi]

Sorry i mean Civ VI wich works really well nowdays (there have before problems). And my problems not change that truth this game is crap with old laptops with virus scan. So dont buy this game anyone before you have super computer or they make better graphic code.