Huge loadtimes and performance decrease

[Stworca]

Improved Ust'Natha waves Archmage+ till Finadryl tend to run at a stunning 5 fps.

 

Is it solely due to mage script size, priestesses spamming bless each round, or amount of gear lying around is a contributor as well?

 

Any suggestions on how to improve the rate enough to actually.. brace yourself.. RECORD the last few waves?

Disabling impr. mage scripts? Impr. demon ones?

 

I'd feel pretty cheap doing so, but drow mages are not the reason this encounter is challenging, so if that'd be it - i'll do it gladly.

 

I am already thinking about going between Tavern and outside (autosave) to reload and clear out memory usage.. but.. Meh

 

One option that i know of, is having an extremely well prepared party, built for this encounter alone, that would keep the amount of enemies intact.. But this time it's not an option.

 

Just for information sake

i3-370 Intel

Radeon HD 5470

3 GB DDR3 memory

[Ardanis]

or amount of gear lying around is a contributor as well?

It certainly does add up. I remember slaughtering duergar spawns in Sendai tunnels, the slowdown was horrendious. It may be dependant on enabling 3D acceleration though, when it's turned on things run much more smoothly.

[Stworca]

I've just loaded a save post Ust'Natha, with no enemies, just hundreds of items scattered everywhere.. And indeed it DOES slow down! A tiny bit, but it's a tiny bit without any enemies!

 

Turning their equipment into undroppable items may cause wonders!

Is there a way to do so?

 

Here you can see three priestesses casting bless the moment this SS was taken and the map drowning in teleport and chaos fields (and equipment) . This is where things start going laggy.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/8039/us...welcomesyou.png

[DavidW]

One quick observation: I don't think I've changed Ust Natha in any significant way since it was first released. Did you have similar 5 FPS problems when you first played it? (I recall you played it about 18 months ago.) If not, it may be something local about your system.

[Stworca]

Ahh.. v9 memories.

First time around i had enormous fps problems with Ust'Natha, that barely made it playable even during pause. But it was on a much older laptop, a relic even.

Now there are just slowdowns when it's un-paused and only at the last few waves (when there are tons of enemies)

 

Is it possible to disable the gear drops for these drow? I don't think anyone who beats it would bother hauling it around, and it would save a dozen frames for sure!

Over 150 drow with 4 items each equals pain!

 

Regards.

 

Edit : If you wish i can upload a video proof that the game slows when walking over 600 lying items.

[Ardanis]

Destroying corpses alongside with undroppable equipment makes sense imo.

[Miloch]

Are you seriously saying that having extra corpses/items on the ground bogs down the game significantly, as opposed to massively large scripts etc.?

[Stworca]

I never said "As opposed", good sir.

The scripts may cause trouble as well, they certainly slow the game for half a sec when mages spawn, and they surely can be one of the slowdown reasons when in large numbers. I just said that 150 stacks of 3-5 items each lying on the floor does lower the frame rate too.

[phordicus]

@ miloch: is it that unreasonable? it doesn't even have to be a gpu/cpu issue; the game engine itself could be the choke. i know of several games where you could be running on a Cray but would still have problems going far outside the scope of what the engine was originally built to do.

[Stworca]

@ miloch: is it that unreasonable? it doesn't even have to be a gpu/cpu issue; the game engine itself could be the choke. i know of several games where you could be running on a Cray but would still have problems going far outside the scope of what the engine was originally built to do.

 

This.

 

 

Even with 5 frame rate i can alt tab the game at any time and watch a video with no performance drop and CPU and memory usage at 50% tops. It's possible that it's the game engine that cannot handle it.

[Stworca]

I've just re-installed the game without Priestess and Mage AI's, and Ust'Natha runs smoothly while recording, with winamp playing alt+tabbed and 50+ enemies on screen raising hell.

 

This may be shocking, but what shocked me more was the fact that the "dumb" mages posed greater threat than the improved ones. Does "improved drow" help the drow mage AI too, DavidW?

 

Let me elaborate : Improved mages buff themselves, buff themselves some more, then they buff themselves and finally buff themselves.. Which is a pain to deal with when they're alone, but requires no attention from me in Ust'natha, due to fifty crossbowmen firing at me from all directions.

Stupid mages swarmed me with Nishruu's, horrid willings and other spells.

 

Improved priestesses spend the entire combat casting bless and curing debuffs like fear from others, making dealing with the drow warriors somewhat harder, but a +1 to attack and saving throws means absolutely nothing in this case.

"Dumb" priestesses were hitting me with a mace with circle of blade turning party to shreds.

 

Sure "stupid" spellcasters are also easier to kill, but improved ones in Ust natha i most of the time just ignore.

 

Regards.

[Miloch]

@ miloch: is it that unreasonable? it doesn't even have to be a gpu/cpu issue; the game engine itself could be the choke. i know of several games where you could be running on a Cray but would still have problems going far outside the scope of what the engine was originally built to do.

My point was it's looking at maybe 2% of the issue when the remaining 98% is here:

I've just re-installed the game without Priestess and Mage AI's, and Ust'Natha runs smoothly while recording

Note you could probably get away with Smarter Priests, but Smarter Mage scripts are truly ginormous.

[Guest guest]

This is probably a silly question but what is it about mage scripts that necessitates them needing to be so long, as opposed to cleric scripts?

 

It's true that I notice the little 1 second lag when an enemy mage spawns and not when a priest does, like others.

 

Maybe a lite version of improved mages could be possible? Improving only upon a better spell-selection, or targetting?

 

I get no lag with anything else, just to say.

[DavidW]

This is probably a silly question but what is it about mage scripts that necessitates them needing to be so long, as opposed to cleric scripts?

 

Antimagic, spell defences, and contingencies and triggers, mostly. (... I think. I haven't tried doing a quantitative assessment.)

 

It's true that I notice the little 1 second lag when an enemy mage spawns and not when a priest does, like others.

 

Maybe a lite version of improved mages could be possible? Improving only upon a better spell-selection, or targetting?

 

Feel free to write one.

[DavidW]

Replying to the original discussion: I haven't touched this code for 18 months but I dimly remember that it's supposed to have a check to keep that absolute number of enemies on screen at a time below some given number (that's the way the core game handles this kind of CPU issue). It's possible it isn't working. When I have a chance (don't hold your breath) I'll take a look.