Windopaene Posted September 26, 2001 Share Posted September 26, 2001 Playing my first operation via PBEM, and even though it doesn't appear to have all that many units and such, even on the first few turns where nothing is happening except movement, the file sizes are huge!, (like 800-900 K when zipped). Anyone know why this is the case? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted September 26, 2001 Share Posted September 26, 2001 With each PBEM file that is saved, everything about the Operation is saved in it: the map, the on board units, operation paramaters, reinforcements, unit movement, unit fire, etc... The number of units doesn't really make much difference in file size, unless a large number of the units are firing or moving. You say that nothing is happening except movement. That tells me that you and probably your opponent are both moving a lot of units, this dramatically increases the file size. Also you probably arn't seeing the entire map. Operation maps are usually larger than battle maps although only a small portion of the overall map is show in any given battle. But the map size is still very small compared to the affects of movement and fire resolution. I've played PBEM single battles where the file size reached 1.5 megs for some turns. These were turns where there was lots of firing and/or movement. Bottom line: since there isn't any firing in your operation yet, your file size is large due to a lot of movement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windopaene Posted September 26, 2001 Author Share Posted September 26, 2001 Well that explains it. I didn't realize that ALL of the operation stuff came along with each movie. Interesting that orders only turns seem to still be small, (35k or so), but the movies! 900K+ without any arty or anything... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted September 27, 2001 Share Posted September 27, 2001 In fact there's no difference between Scens and Ops as for file sizes. Movie are necessarily larger, the file has to have ALL events of the turns. So it goes from 100 Kb up to 2 Mb according to what happens : moves, fire, ... Whereas order files are very small, in fact the entire map + units + orders are under 50K in all cases I've seen. The movie file size is the factor slowing very much IP play when on telephone modem (up to 56 Kb), for my part only since I have broadband do I play IP games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windopaene Posted September 28, 2001 Author Share Posted September 28, 2001 OK, well that contradicts was was said by the other poster. Here's the deal.I'm playing Drive To Mortain PBEM as Americans. I have a bunch of units, but not more than I have had in some other scenarios, (though I haven't played with this much armor in a PBEM before). The movie files for the first few turns, where there was no firing going on, only movement, were in the 900K range which was larger than any other file I'd ever seen, including those with lots of firing, arty, etc. This seemed odd to me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted September 28, 2001 Share Posted September 28, 2001 But movement can cause file size to explode, too, even without any firing, because LOS information needs to be transported. Mind you, though, "movement" includes that of your enemy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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