Occasions freezes in game and really slow performance with large fleets

[x4000]

blackied and BudBacker (and anyone else with this kind of problem), I think it would help if you could post saves where you're having performance problems.  Specifically cases that don't seem like they're all that heavy (I think one of you mentioned it slogging on 500 moving fighters or something like that), so that profiling doesn't bog down trying to tell the difference between "it's lagging because there's 4k ships fighting here" and "it's lagging because of a rendering bug"

I have yet to get to a numerical quantity where I'd had problems before but I will advise if there is an issue.

What I have had again - with very small forces of <200 - was a total freeze of the game requiring a Force Quit. Weird.

Sorry it's still doing that.  On 8.006?

I honestly am very doubtful that is a graphics problem.  That sounds like some sort of game logic issue with a specific scenario.  If you can post something that lets us repro it, that would be really useful.  Maybe it is a graphics problem, but it really doesn't sound like it.

[keith.lamothe]

If it were game logic, though, I don't imagine it would be limited to such a small set of players (possibly only on Macs, though I'm not sure of that), and it probably would have showed up before the engine switch (since not much game logic changed after that point).

It may not be graphics per-se, but related to the engine more than the game logic.

That said, a save where it reproduces at least on the original machine would be great.

[x4000]

I don't know, the fact that it is limited to such a small set of people is precisely what makes me think it's a game logic thing of some sort.  This game is HUGE, and it's possible that some sort of gameplay interaction between two ships is causing an issue.  Versus everyone is hitting the exact same rendering pipeline all the time, and I'd expect more widespread issues if it were a rendering thing causing literal freezes.

With slowdowns I can see that being GPU-specific, but with low numbers of ships and an outright freeze?  I don't know, it doesn't feel likely at least.

[keith.lamothe]

Like I said, it might not be graphics per-se, but related to the change in engines.

[x4000]

Could be.  At the moment it seems to be affecting both folks on osx and windows, though, so I'm not sure that it's just an osx thing.

[keith.lamothe]

That's certainly possible.  Though if you're thinking of http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15788 on the windows side that could be a different issue since it actually does crash and seems related to runaway memory allocation (though that may just be the new preloading tons of textures, rather than just allocating forever).

Though it brings up an interesting question: Bud Backer, what's the AIWar process doing memory-wise when you start the program, when you start a game, after playing a bit, and (if you can see this) around the time it freezes?

[blackied]

I've been busy today and haven't tried 8.006 yet. Will do so in the morning and get back to you. FWIW I've posted some saves of my current (only) game at the Drive link.

[x4000]

There is definitely something up with ram usage based on the framerate.  I think it is probably leading to the out of memory errors on some machines.  I'm looking into that now...

[x4000]

Okay, 8.007 is out: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Post-8.000_Beta#Official_8.007

[Bud Backer]

blackied and BudBacker (and anyone else with this kind of problem), I think it would help if you could post saves where you're having performance problems.  Specifically cases that don't seem like they're all that heavy (I think one of you mentioned it slogging on 500 moving fighters or something like that), so that profiling doesn't bog down trying to tell the difference between "it's lagging because there's 4k ships fighting here" and "it's lagging because of a rendering bug"

I have yet to get to a numerical quantity where I'd had problems before but I will advise if there is an issue.

What I have had again - with very small forces of <200 - was a total freeze of the game requiring a Force Quit. Weird.

Sorry it's still doing that.  On 8.006?

Yes, it's 8.006 - and a clean reinstall with everything removed and redownloaded.

[x4000]

Gotcha.  How about now on 8.007?

[Bud Backer]

blackied and BudBacker (and anyone else with this kind of problem), I think it would help if you could post saves where you're having performance problems.  Specifically cases that don't seem like they're all that heavy (I think one of you mentioned it slogging on 500 moving fighters or something like that), so that profiling doesn't bog down trying to tell the difference between "it's lagging because there's 4k ships fighting here" and "it's lagging because of a rendering bug"

I have yet to get to a numerical quantity where I'd had problems before but I will advise if there is an issue.

What I have had again - with very small forces of <200 - was a total freeze of the game requiring a Force Quit. Weird.

Sorry it's still doing that.  On 8.006?

I honestly am very doubtful that is a graphics problem.  That sounds like some sort of game logic issue with a specific scenario.  If you can post something that lets us repro it, that would be really useful.  Maybe it is a graphics problem, but it really doesn't sound like it.

I don't mind posting something, but what is frustrating is that I can't see a clear pattern, so its not like I can submit something and say - wait 12 seconds, do this and wham, it freezes. I reload the most recent save, pass the time where it crashed previously, and it runs past smoothly.

I agree it seems unlikely to be a graphics issue. The graphics issue was with large fleets and here I had well under 200 ships, which were on top of it stationary, not in battle.

[x4000]

It may have been an issue in the 8.006 version only, if you were seeing it there.  Not sure exactly what was up there, but it seemed to cause a graphics-related memory leak for some folks.  If it doesn't do it in 8.007 anymore, then that one was definitely a graphics thing after all.

[Bud Backer]

It may have been an issue in the 8.006 version only, if you were seeing it there.  Not sure exactly what was up there, but it seemed to cause a graphics-related memory leak for some folks.  If it doesn't do it in 8.007 anymore, then that one was definitely a graphics thing after all.

It's difficult to say if it's fixed, as it can take half an hour to several hours of play to get the freeze. I'll let you know as soon as I have some confidence either way.

[x4000]

Got it, thanks!

The freeze looks like you are running out of RAM, anyhow, so I'm not sure that's related to the other stuff.  If it's that intermittent, then that would point to potentially just having the ram literally running out after a while.  I noticed you have 2GB and only 5% was free in one crash -- or perhaps that was the guy on mantis, not sure.