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Issues on Linux so far

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lessster:
Today I tested AI War 2 (Version 0.602) on both of my gaming machines.

1. Desktop PC with i7 4770k and nVidia GTX 670 16 GB RAM, running Ubuntu 16.04.
2. Alienware Steam Machine i3 B001 8GB 1TB GTX 860, running the latest version of SteamOS.

On BOTH machines I encountered the following problems:

- Everything seems to work fine on the first startup. On the second startup I can not click any of the buttons. If I do a hard kill of the game and then delete the prefs file in the folder ~/.config/unity3d/Arcen Games, LLC/AIWar2 and then start the game again, then everything works fine again. But I have to delete this file every time before I start the game. I already tried different settings (window mode, fullscreen mode, various resolutions) but nothing helps. This is really annoying (never had this issue with AI War Classic, though).

- I can use the minus key to make the game run slower, but no key or key combination works to make the game faster again. The game tells me to use the minus key to make it slower and the equals key to make it faster, but pressing the equals key just shows no result. Maybe this has to do with my localization settings (Austria / Western Europe), but I never had such issues in AI War Classic. So I made some tests and can tell you the following: In AI War Classic we have minus for slower and plus for faster. Pressing the minus key on the numeric keypad works (makes the game run slower) and pressing the plus key on the numeric keypad also works (makes the game run faster). Pressing the "normal" minus key (on the non-numeric keyboard) also works, but pressing the "normal" plus key (non-numeric keyboard) does not do anything. In AI War 2 for some reason we are expected to use minus and equals (instead of minus and plus), but pressing any of the keys on the numeric keypad doesn't do anything (even the minus key on the numeric keypad does not work), pressing the minus key on non-numeric works, pressing equals key or plus key on non-numeric does not work. Maybe this can be fixed by allowing the plus and minus keys on the numeric keypad, just as it is in AI War Classic?

Only on the Alienware Steam Machine I encountered the problem that the machine seems to be far too slow to run the game, even too slow to finish the tutorial. As soon as there are more than a couple of ships on the screen there are extreme input lags that make the game completely unplayable after a couple of minutes. I am aware of the fact that the new game has a little higher hardware requirements than the old one. Still I think that the mentioned configuration of said Steam Machine should be sufficient to play the game in a normal way (and of course, to complete the tutorial) without any noticable lags (the Desktop machine is fast enough, though, at least I was able to play the tutorial; didn't really have time to try the game itself for more than a couple of minutes so long. But as soon as I find the time for it I will peek deeper into the game and provide the results here).

But to report something positive as well: The game looks great so far (although I must admit that I am a little bit skeptical about the new graphics style.  I loved almost everything in AI War Classic, even the sparse graphics style; even more so: I am of the opinion that those in a weird way kind of "scanty" graphics contributed REALLY A LOT to create this indescribable awesomeness that made AI War Classic so special. But I look forward to it and I guess after some time of "acclimatization" I might get used to the new style as well).

keith.lamothe:

--- Quote from: lessster on November 08, 2017, 03:09:58 pm ---- Everything seems to work fine on the first startup. On the second startup I can not click any of the buttons. If I do a hard kill of the game and then delete the prefs file in the folder ~/.config/unity3d/Arcen Games, LLC/AIWar2 and then start the game again, then everything works fine again.
--- End quote ---
What's in this prefs file? That's not a file we create, so I'm guessing it's something the Unity3d engine is making, as presumably your OS doesn't create one for every executable you run.



--- Quote ---In AI War Classic we have minus for slower and plus for faster.
--- End quote ---
AIWC actually detects KeyCode.Equals for plus, as the non-keypad plus is actually not a primary key on the keyboards we use. We have a key that does "minus" normally and "underscore" if shift is held, and next to it a key that does "equals" normally and "plus" if shift is held. So if we listened for Plus you'd actually have to press shift+equals on many keyboards.

Not all keyboards have numpad minus or plus so the main defaults can't use those either.

I believe AIWC also detects KeyCode.KeypadPlus as an alternate for that keybind, which is why you see the behavior you see. I can add alternates like that here, once the mechanism for alternates is implemented. For now you could edit your (ai war directory)/PlayerData/inputmappings.dat file and change


--- Code: ---<map bind="IncreaseFrameFrequency" key="Equals" modifier_1="None" modifier_2="None" modifier_3="None" />
--- End code ---

To:


--- Code: ---<map bind="IncreaseFrameFrequency" key="KeypadPlus" modifier_1="None" modifier_2="None" modifier_3="None" />
--- End code ---

Or maybe Plus instead of KeypadPlus.



--- Quote ---Only on the Alienware Steam Machine I encountered the problem that the machine seems to be far too slow to run the game, even too slow to finish the tutorial. As soon as there are more than a couple of ships on the screen there are extreme input lags that make the game completely unplayable after a couple of minutes.
--- End quote ---
Hmm, so it's a 2 core 2.9GHz cpu? That might be it, as the game makes heavy use of multithreading and if the visual thread is getting pre-empted by the simulation threads that would make things hiccup.

Do you have any error logs in the PlayerData directory?

There's probably something slowing down performance somewhere; the graphics themselves are extremely fast (unless you've hit a platform-specific issue that slows them down) but the simulation is always changing and sometimes is unintentionally much slower than it could be.

lessster:

--- Quote from: keith.lamothe on November 08, 2017, 04:38:42 pm ---
--- Quote ---Everything seems to work fine on the first startup. On the second startup I can not click any of the buttons. If I do a hard kill of the game and then delete the prefs file in the folder ~/.config/unity3d/Arcen Games, LLC/AIWar2 and then start the game again, then everything works fine again.
--- End quote ---
What's in this prefs file? That's not a file we create, so I'm guessing it's something the Unity3d engine is making, as presumably your OS doesn't create one for every executable you run.
--- End quote ---

The content of the prefs file looks like this:


--- Code: ---<unity_prefs version_major="1" version_minor="1">
<pref name="Screenmanager Is Fullscreen mode" type="int">1</pref>
<pref name="Screenmanager Resolution Height" type="int">1080</pref>
<pref name="Screenmanager Resolution Width" type="int">1920</pref>
<pref name="UnitySelectMonitor" type="int">0</pref>
...

--- End code ---

As I already mentioned in my initial posting I also tried to change some of those settings (Fullscreen mode 0, Fullscreen mode 1, various resolutions), but without any success.
The only thing that helps is to manually delete this file every time before I launch the game.
It seems that the default settings of the game work, but they get overwritten every time after the game launch (which should not be a problem per se, but for some reason this is messing up things for any subsequent launch).



--- Quote from: keith.lamothe on November 08, 2017, 04:38:42 pm ---AIWC actually detects KeyCode.Equals for plus, as the non-keypad plus is actually not a primary key on the keyboards we use. We have a key that does "minus" normally and "underscore" if shift is held, and next to it a key that does "equals" normally and "plus" if shift is held. So if we listened for Plus you'd actually have to press shift+equals on many keyboards.

Not all keyboards have numpad minus or plus so the main defaults can't use those either.

I believe AIWC also detects KeyCode.KeypadPlus as an alternate for that keybind, which is why you see the behavior you see. I can add alternates like that here, once the mechanism for alternates is implemented. For now you could edit your (ai war directory)/PlayerData/inputmappings.dat file and change


--- Code: ---<map bind="IncreaseFrameFrequency" key="Equals" modifier_1="None" modifier_2="None" modifier_3="None" />
--- End code ---

To:


--- Code: ---<map bind="IncreaseFrameFrequency" key="KeypadPlus" modifier_1="None" modifier_2="None" modifier_3="None" />
--- End code ---

Or maybe Plus instead of KeypadPlus.
--- End quote ---

I did this as suggested by you:


--- Code: ---<map bind="IncreaseFrameFrequency" key="KeypadPlus" modifier_1="None" modifier_2="None" modifier_3="None" />
--- End code ---

and also


--- Code: ---<map bind="DecreaseFrameFrequency" key="KeypadMinus modifier_1="None" modifier_2="None" modifier_3="None" />
--- End code ---

and it works. Thanks a lot! I hope you can put this in one of the upcoming releases (or at least the "alternate" key bindings you have mentioned), so that every affected user can benefit from it.



--- Quote from: keith.lamothe on November 08, 2017, 04:38:42 pm ---
--- Quote ---Only on the Alienware Steam Machine I encountered the problem that the machine seems to be far too slow to run the game, even too slow to finish the tutorial. As soon as there are more than a couple of ships on the screen there are extreme input lags that make the game completely unplayable after a couple of minutes.
--- End quote ---
Hmm, so it's a 2 core 2.9GHz cpu? That might be it, as the game makes heavy use of multithreading and if the visual thread is getting pre-empted by the simulation threads that would make things hiccup.
--- End quote ---

Well, 2 core is right, but actually it's the edition that has a 3.2 GHz CPU and has Hyperthreading enabled, thus it is capable to handle 4 Threads simultaneously. This, in combination with the GTX 860, should be fast enough in my opinion (it is, in fact, usually fast enough to run other GPU/CPU intense games like for example Rocket League or Dirt Rally, in FullHD resolution and with high settings).



--- Quote from: keith.lamothe on November 08, 2017, 04:38:42 pm ---Do you have any error logs in the PlayerData directory?

There's probably something slowing down performance somewhere; the graphics themselves are extremely fast (unless you've hit a platform-specific issue that slows them down) but the simulation is always changing and sometimes is unintentionally much slower than it could be.

--- End quote ---

Today I was testing with version 0.603 of the game.
In the error log there were only entries from before that release, no new entries as of today.

The performance issues / input lags on SteamOS are still there, but they seem to mainly affect the mouse input. The keyboard input stays quite responsive, but after a couple of minutes in the game I can't hardly use the mouse any more because most of the time it just doesn't respond (or only with a strong delay).

keith.lamothe:

--- Quote from: lessster on November 10, 2017, 04:08:48 am ---As I already mentioned in my initial posting I also tried to change some of those settings (Fullscreen mode 0, Fullscreen mode 1, various resolutions), but without any success.
The only thing that helps is to manually delete this file every time before I launch the game.
It seems that the default settings of the game work, but they get overwritten every time after the game launch (which should not be a problem per se, but for some reason this is messing up things for any subsequent launch).
--- End quote ---
Yea, that's bizarre. And it seems to be something beyond our control, because we aren't generating that file. Or it would be a simple fix of telling our code to not do so. I could get cheeky and have the code delete that file at the beginning and ending of the application run, but I'm guessing that if for whatever reason it's still present when the app is next run that it will have its effect before our code gets a chance to run.

It's also less than ideal for a game to go hunting and deleting files in your .config/ directory :)

I'll ask Chris if he has any idea on how to get Unity3d to not shoot itself in the foot on your platforms.


Glad to hear that the key-mapping change works for you for time controls. I will make a note to support multiple bindings soon. And we do need to get an actual UI for mapping in there.



--- Quote ---Well, 2 core is right, but actually it's the edition that has a 3.2 GHz CPU and has Hyperthreading enabled, thus it is capable to handle 4 Threads simultaneously.
--- End quote ---
HT is usually better than not-HT, but it's not generally comparable to actually having 2x the physical cores. Each physical core, at any given instant in time, is still only executing instructions from one thread. HT just takes advantage of "gaps" where a thread is having to wait for something else before it can proceed. That's helpful, but it's very dependent on the specific software that is running.

But based on your further comment I don't think this is actually a cpu/gpu performance problem :


--- Quote ---The performance issues / input lags on SteamOS are still there, but they seem to mainly affect the mouse input. The keyboard input stays quite responsive, but after a couple of minutes in the game I can't hardly use the mouse any more because most of the time it just doesn't respond (or only with a strong delay).
--- End quote ---

If one input device is responsive and the other is not, there's probably some other issue, possibly at the driver, OS, or hardware levels.

As a diagnostic test:

1) Update to the newest version (0.603 right now, won't specifically address this but there were some significant graphics pipeline changes)
2) Start a new game, until you get to the part where you see the Ark.
3) Watch the timer in the upper-left corner.
4) With a separate timer (on a watch or another computer, not on the same machine), measure the length of time it takes AIW2's timer to increment from 0:30 to 1:30.

And let me know. That will help us figure out if there's an actual performance bottleneck or whether something is just not playing nicely with your mouse, or something inbetween.

RabidSanity:
Hey Lessster it looks like you are experiencing the issue reported in 0019250.  Seems you have full screen enabled per "<pref name="Screenmanager Is Fullscreen mode" type="int">1</pref>". Does this still happen if you have full screen disabled?

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