Why exactly is the game crashing when you build too much ?

[dukemordred]

Title question please.

 

Now I`m not a big expert, I know a thing or two about PCs but I don`t really understand this crashing when I build huge settlements.

 

Is it because the RAM fills up? Is it the HDD cache? Too little video RAM to render all the pieces? What exactly is causing it?

 

Please don`t guess, just post if you really know what you`re talking about.

 

Thank you.

[MonarchOLight]

Drawing from experience in prior sandbox games, crashes involving a large number of player generated items generally is the result of limitations of the engine - the result of not being able to update all objects quickly enough or even at times exceeding an array's size limit (causing a buffer overflow that the engine may not have accounted for) in the code.

 

RAM, VRAM, and the general efficiency of your PC are also valid factors, of course. The actual problem generally resides in poor engine optimizations, though.

[dukemordred]

Hmm, thing is, sometimes I would crash, load a save from 1 min ago, build the exact same things and not crash. Even add more on top of it and still be ok.

 

If it would be a clear limit it would make sense but this is pretty lame.

[Fl0W]

how big must a settlement be to get the crash? could you please upload a savegame where this crash happens (close to it)?

[dukemordred]

Don`t have it anymore, I kind of accepted the fact that I can`t build as big as I want.

 

The limit for me was a building 10x10 with 3 floors, where 1 unit is 1 big shack floor, on Spectacle Island. Half way through decorating that with lights and furniture the crashes started so I just scrapped it and built smaller.