[Ironfist ver 1.3.0] Weight of save files and loading/saving time

Have you changed what is saved in the save files?
Before the last release, a save file was much less than 500 ko (typically around 300-400 ko for a huge map), now it's more than 1 Mo (1200 ko) for a small map.
Almost 10 Mo for a huge map (9860 ko)!!!

The loading and saving times are very long, several seconds to load or save a file and the game hangs during this time.
Outch...

It was so quick before, almost instant.

Yes we have. We've moved more data from the original HoMM II binary format into XML. This gives us much more ability to change the savegame format in the future without breaking old saves.

The new format is a bit verbose, and this is causing problems, as you've noticed.

Okay I see.

Just a quick idea:

Use a template and save only the values.

Currently:

Save01.sav
***** File Start *****
version="1.0"
blabla01="0" blabla02="0" blabla03="0"
blabla01="0" blabla02="0" blabla03="0"
blabla01="0" blabla02="0" blabla03="0"
blabla01="0" blabla02="1" blabla03="19"
blabla01="0" blabla02="0" blabla03="0"
***** File End *****

Save only the values:

Save01.sav
***** File Start *****
template version="1.0"
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 1 19
0 0 0
***** File End *****

Adding new values to the save file.

Currently:

Save01.sav
***** File Start *****
version="1.1"
blabla01="0" blabla02="0" blabla03="0"
blabla01="0" blabla02="0" blabla03="0"
blabla01="0" blabla02="0" blabla03="0"
blabla01="0" blabla02="1" blabla03="19"
blabla01="0" blabla02="0" blabla03="0"
addedblabla01="0" addedblabla02="0" addedblabla03="0"
addedblabla01="0" addedblabla02="0" addedblabla03="0"
addedblabla01="0" addedblabla02="5" addedblabla03="8"
***** File End *****

Save only the values with added values:

Save01.sav
***** File Start *****
template version="1.1"
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 1 19
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 5 8
***** File End *****

You can even go further and compress the save file, a kind of "zip" save file.

If it is necessary to consult and change the values in a save file, this can be done by a small external tool that generates an xml file using the template and the save file and can save the changes to a file in the format of the save file.
If it is necessary to change the save file format to add new values, simply create and add a new template and it is thus possible to keep compatibility with save files of different versions of the program.
This tool can also allow you to update an old version of a save file to the latest version.

Currently, it takes between 12 seconds and 20 seconds of waiting each time the player presses the end of turn button, or when the player loads or saves a save file, this is insane.
This really makes the game unpleasant to play.

Original Heroes 2 launches and load/saves a save file in a fraction of a second, this makes the game transparent in its use and contributes to the pleasure of playing.

I see some quick changes that can be made which could potentially speed up the save function.  In game/save.cpp, there are a ton of places that can benefit by using reserve():

Code:

for (int i = 0; i < MAP_WIDTH * MAP_HEIGHT; i++) {
    int x = i % MAP_HEIGHT;
    int y = i / MAP_HEIGHT;
    gs.mapRevealed().push_back(ironfist_save::gamestate_t::mapRevealed_type(x, y));
    gs.mapRevealed().back().revealed(mapRevealed[i]);
  }

In the above, this may cause dozens of memory allocations to the tree::sequence container.  Use its reserve() function at the start to allocate all the memory it will need, since you know the total size needed at the start (in this case, MAP_WIDTH * MAP_HEIGHT).

Thanks. Good idea!

Has there been progress for loading and saving time? Currently, the game is impractical because of this, it's really too long.
Every turn is a real martyr.