AI War Beta 3.712 Released -- Multiplayer Lobby!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/10/ai-war-beta-3712-released-multiplayer.html

Copied:

Now that we're nearing the end of our "early beta" period for the AI War 4.0 work, it appears that twice-daily is our new release schedule for a bit. This week is basically the last of our "big overhaul" timeframe for AI War 4.0, and then next week is going to be all about polish, polish, polish. 

A few secondary things, like the updates to the last tutorials, the high scoreboards, and the achievements lists, will also not happen until next week -- but at this stage, the game is getting very close to being fully functional in terms of gameplay and the in-game HUD, menus, and interface itself.  There are still a number of gameplay changes and interface additions coming this week, of course, but the road ahead is much shorter than the road behind.

So.  This new version 3.712 is a great one, because it includes a functional multiplayer lobby for the first time since the AI War 4.0 betas have been around.  There are also some other fixes and in-game tweaks, my favorite of which is the re-implentation of the resource bar tooltips.  Those tooltips include a lot of handy information and breakdowns that are useful in any game (it's hugely useful being able to check your allies' resource flows, the current AI Progress Floor, etc).

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 3.701 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 3.701 or later, you can download the installer for 3.711 here.

[Giegue]

nice.

also: I chose 4 random screenshots that I took today, all within the same minute second, note that the lag was worse than usual and sort of like a hell.

[x4000]

nice.

also: I chose 4 random screenshots that I took today, all within the same minute, note that the lag was worse than usual and sort of like a hell.

Can you post your save, either here or in the bug tracker?  Looking at the Process/Render times you posted there, the processing is massively more than the rendering, and is just in general really awful there.  Is it that laggy all the time, or just in patches?  I suspect it has something to do with that specific savegame, but also it may be that your graphics card can't handle that many draw calls at a time; the render processing time there seems higher than it should be for that few of draw calls.  But in either case, the render time is 1/3 or less of the actual processing time there.

You can definitely get better peformance by lowering your performance profile or using a lower ship cap scale, though, in any case.  But I suspect we can also look for a performance bottleneck in that specific save's instance.

[Giegue]

well, it varies... in the earlier versions, it was sort of all the time, but only when my mass of ships are in view. then more recently, it was just in patches. and when I tried 3.711, it lagged in a massive tangle of lag that I had to CTRL ALT DEL to end the game.

note: this game was started before version 3.700 came out.

[x4000]

We'll see what we can see -- thanks.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, this is weird.  When I run the game on my system, which is a mildly powerful quad-core (but running the game in our debug environment, which slows it down a little), I get what is shown in the attached screenshot.

Last Process/Render MS of 17/21 is actually pretty good.  Actually that should be full-speed since a cycle can be 50ms on High and maintain full speed.  Apparently I'm not reading the numbers quite right because it was nonetheless reporting 55% of full-speed, but nonetheless the game was running and not quagmiring like in your case.

Hmm.

[x4000]

Bear in mind that te actual render time isn't included in those numbers anymore, hence the 55%. It's just render prep time. That is quite odd, but he was saying it was fairly intermittent.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I tried running it for quite a while, but the times stayed in the same range.

[x4000]

Hmm. It sounds like possibly his hardware can't cope, then. Single or dual core, I wonder. Etc.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, maybe, but the sheer magnitude of the difference is pretty intense, even for a single-core.

However, if the computer's active working-set is near or approaching the size of its physical memory, then the pagefile thrashing would slaughter performance across the board.  Giegue, do you know how much ram the AI War process is holding onto and how much is free on your computer at the time?

[Giegue]

well, there WAS something screwy about that particular run of the game, it seemed to be slower to load things in general.

I just tried again, and during the first part of the game when things were loading, it was pretty slow, but then it got better and better until it was back to normal. but then, for no reason, it screeched to an extremely slow speed. Perhaps it could be because the save is originally from the impulse version of the game, or because of some bizzare new way the game processes things.

anyway, the point is, if it were my machine, then it would have lagged in the past.

[keith.lamothe]

Perhaps it could be because the save is originally from the impulse version of the game

Nah, the game's binaries are exactly the same between the different distributors, though there are some additional dlls for steam (though I think they're always bundled in and just not called if steam's vendor.dat is missing).

or because of some bizzare new way the game processes things.

Always possible But iirc I haven't seen other reports of this kind of lag in this kind of not-very-high-load situation.

anyway, the point is, if it were my machine, then it would have lagged in the past.

Well, things aren't always so consistent.  It can take an odd an unpredictable confluence of situations (some hardware related, some otherwise) to, for instance, run out of physical memory.  The OS will keep things running by switching stuff in and out of the pagefile, but that's the end of decent performance.  It seems likely that you have more memory than the game can address anyway, but for kicks; how much RAM do you have?  And how much is free before you run AI War?

[Giegue]

...I have no idea. how do I find out that kind of thing?

[Shardz]

I've been playing a game through the last few versions and I'm now past 5 hours...and appear to be about 75% done except for a massive build-up on one planet. What I am missing is some kind of notice that my planets are being attacked - preferably an audio clip and an info popup with some info. I'm finding myself hearing explosions and frantically trying to find the battle...I do see on the Galaxy Map there are numbers when a raid is in progress, but am I missing something here?

I had to start one game over again cause the AI somehow got on my home planet and thrashed it without me even knowing they were there. I don't recall feeling like I'm sitting in the dark before...but now I have to constantly check each planet personally to ensure the coast is clear before I mount a raid or something. Is it just me, or could we use some kind of "Your home planet is under attack" notice?

[Mánagarmr]

As far as I am aware, that once a command station is under attack, a claxon will fire and the "XXX station is under attack!" will show in the top left. As for planets under attack...hm, I've felt the same way. All of a sudden you check the map and see you're under attack...Not quite sure how to solve that though.