Update #7 - V.2024.02.01

First a short list of added features and fixed bugs, if you don't like long texts to read. Then a more detailed description of each important feature and bug fix.

Added Features

• added save-load functionality (CAUTION: disk space and memory heavy procedure)

• added FPS limiter

• game will now pause when option menu is open in-game

Fixed Bugs

• fixed game breaking bug when creating more than 1 million stars

• fixed color banding

• fixed FPS counter, which couldn't count below 10 before

• fixed missing letters in some languages

• fixed font size to fit button texts for some languages

• other minor bug fixes

Savegames

The most wanted feature is now implemented. You can now save and load your simulations to play them further at another time. You can find your savegames in the option menu. BUT BEWARE: Saving costs a lot of disk space and memory. It costs ~4,6 MB in disk space and ~40 MB in memory and takes ~0.5 seconds per 10.000 stars. If your PC don't have either the memory nor the disk space, the game will most likely crash.

Here an example: The game itself takes ~800 MB in memory plus an extra of 1,1 GB for 1 million stars in-game. On top of that comes now the saving process, which takes an additional ~4 GB. So to save 1 million stars you need ~6 GB of memory and ~460 MB of disk space. It will take about 50 seconds to save it, but the performance depends on your device, so it may be faster or even slower for you.

This means I still recommend over 1 million stars only for high-end PC's with more than 16 GB of total memory.

FPS Limiter

You can now set an FPS limit in the graphics option menu. I recommend to use it instead of VSync, as VSync can cause performance problems, if your FPS rate is far below your monitor refresh rate. With activated VSync and low performance, the FPS counter shows more FPS than you actually have and the game will stutter.

If you have a 120 Hz monitor, deactivate VSync and set the FPS limit to 120 instead. For new players, this is set automatically.

Pause Game

The game will now pause if you press ESC during the simulation. This frees performance capacities for the newly introduced save/load function. It also allows you to get away from keyboard without have to fear that a nearby Black Hole will absorb you.

More than 1 million stars

Before you were only able to create a few more stars over 1 million, but not a lot more. This is now fixed. You can create now up to 10 million stars. BUT BEWARE: Test in smaller steps if your PC can handle such an amount of stars. Start with 1 million and if you have at least 30 FPS, then you can go further with 2 million, and so on.

For the leaderboard hunters, which can now save their sessions and create a lot more than 1 million stars, I can only say: happy hunting!

Here a few screenshots how galaxies with 2 million stars and activated orbital velocity can look like:

Color Banding

The color banding issue with very bright objects is now fixed. This means that all the bright stars will have a more smoother light now without visible brightness steps. You can see this the most with the bright star in the main menu.

These features