ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I reinstalled TOME a few days ago and have played just fine on my system until today. I started playing TOME many years ago, generally without any issues. When I reinstalled it this time, I initially had a controller bug causing extreme lag that was resolved by unplugging the controller. After that, everything was reasonably quick to load and the game ran fine.

The problems started this afternoon - Steam was down for a few minutes when I began playing and I thought it was the cause initially. However, Steam came back up and the issue persisted. No other games on my computer are affected. When I launch TOME from Steam (and a standalone download of both 1.7.4 and 1.7.3), it takes about 2 minutes to load to the Main Menu. Once there, I can open Options, Credits, or use Exit to quit without issue. If I try to open New Game, Load Game, or Addons, it takes another 2 minutes to load the menu. During this time, Task manager shows about 8% CPU usage and 0 disk, network, and GPU usage. Once loaded, GPU usage shows a few percent.

Inside the Options menu, I can open normally all menus EXCEPT Game Options. This also takes about 2 minutes to load each time I open it. Once it opens, everything in the UI is snappy.

After I choose Load Game, I double-click a character and it takes another 2 minutes to load. But after that, everything seems normal. Menus open quickly and the graphics are quick and responsive. Levels (even new ones) load instantaneously, and saves happen quickly.

I believe Windows Update installed KB5013624 since the last time I played TOME and that's the only thing I can think of on my computer that has changed. I have since downloaded the most recent NVIDIA drivers and that changed nothing. I have disabled shaders, controllers (physically unplugged and disabled Steam Input for TOME) and even unpaired all bluetooth connectors. I set the video to a lower resolution and windowed. I have restarted my computer multiple times. I tried renaming the T-Engine folder and it created a new configuration, but nothing solves the problem.

System Info:
ROG Crosshair VIII Hero
NVIDIA GTX950 (Driver ver. 512.77)
Windows 10 21H2 64-bit
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

I scanned through my te4_log.txt for obvious errors, and the only thing I saw was mismatched modules. Not sure if that's normal though. I attached the file in case it helps.

Any ideas would be appreciated! The load times are insane.

This will likely be something weird that will never be solved, but will just disappear for no apparent reason.
But anyway.

First thought is that you may have a non-SSD drive, and the files are somehow extremely badly fragmented. But this shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Second thought is that antivirus software is causing issues. This could be interfering on the cpu level, the file read level, or the internet connection level. Disabling it should allow you to test this.

Third thought is that it is only loading with 1 cpu core, which is running at a low speed for whatever reason. I have no idea how to check this, or what to do about it.

This sort of issue does come up rarely, so you might be able to find a fix if you search through the bugs forum.

Thanks for the response!

I do have my game files on a non-SSD drive but it isn't fragmented. I also run AV software, but it isn't easy to disable so I may eventually try that out but not right now. The AV software hasn't really changed and TOME was running fine a couple days ago, that's the weird part. That possibility is in the back of my mind though. Not sure about the CPU core either. That idea hadn't occurred to me. Would it really be that bad if it was constrained to a single core? Hmm.

The game does run fine once loaded so it is still playable as long as I can tolerate the startup. I just wondered if there was anything in the log that stood out or other places I could look.

Anyway, thanks again!

There is nothing obviously wrong in the log file, but you could also check the web log file. It should be mostly empty.

The web log contains only this: I've been watching Process Explorer as TOME loads. It doesn't use GPU at all for about 2 minutes. During that time, steady 9% CPU and 90% idle. My AV doesn't seem to be working more than usual. Steady 50k-100k file I/O deltas (every second or so), mostly reads. When the Splash screen pops in, GPU starts getting use and dedicated GPU bytes goes up to 80-100MB. Everything is responsive until I choose New or Load (or Options->Game Options)

When I selected New Game, GPU dropped to no use again. For the 2 minutes it didn't respond, dedicated bytes dropped once to 55MB and once to 35MB. The loading bar shows up and GPU starts up again and the loading bar made it to 28%, when it hung for quite a while (no GPU use) again. Then, the GPU ramped up and the rest of the loading bar finished quickly and I was at the creation screen.

I unplugged all my non-essential USB devices just in case (not my external hub... will remove that entirely next time). No change in that so far.

Still circling back to the weird fact that there was nothing wrong with TOME for me a week ago and can't think of anything. The search continues...