Client 384.37 performance issues during load of playerbuild plot structures

[Garfonso]

Hi,

I tried the current blight client on Order this week. And what I recognized was a serious decline of performance compared to the current live client, when I approach my plot in Sheperd's Home.
It always takes ages until the right half of my plot structures load... but with the old client I did not get performance hits. With the new client I usually can barely move, while structures are still loading... sometimes that lasts for several minutes... the complete client bogs down and seems to only draw a frame every few seconds... the fps goes down from well above 50 to 2-4.

If anybody wants to try (Maybe a dev? ): My plot is, as I said, on Order in Sheperd's Home, the one west of the teleporter (not the pad), so from the pad you need to walk around the mountain. There are three heavily build plots in that area and if you jump down to middle clifside and so on, there are also many living plots there... So this most probably is a very hard area for the client with many player build structures that he has to handle and so on...

But what bothers me, is that with the old client I don't get performance issues, with the new client, as I said, I can barely move in that area. And that happens everytime I port & run there for a 10-60 seconds.

I already disabled object fading, because I thought, maybe that's the issue... It did not change much, though.

I have seen this in some other areas, but not as bad as on my plot. It's not that my computer is overloaded, but it seems Istaria still is single threaded and it's core is at 100%... but it's a 3Ghz Core i7... and as I said: the old client works quite smooth. The new one shows awful performance here...

Please look into that again! If my Plot keeps that laggy, I need to consider my subscription... seriously.

[Kelsaka]

I've not managed to write a report on the matter yet, but I've been suffering really bad lag spikes using the Blight client too.

Whenever I go near built or semi-built plots game performance seriously declines for me as well, which is a bit of an annoyance given the number of plots between the Genevia landing pad and mine! I've mostly been running between the slate field by Maghara and my plot in Genevia and get hit with the game freezing and then stuttering whenever I reach the plots by the slate, and the plots in Genevia.

I didn't have this issue with the older client.

[Steelclaw]

I encountered something similar to this on an earlier 384 client and reported it internally. The client guys were unable to replicate it. Hopefully this thread can serve to refine the conditions necessary for replication.

In my case, I logged in to Chaos at Bristugo. The FPS was super low; 10-ish. I normally get 25+ in the same area with the 383 client. Oddly, spinning around (i.e. holding left or right arrow key) a few times, and stopping facing in the same direction would result in a slightly higher FPS. 10 -> 14, 14 -> 18, 18 -> 20.

The bogged-down FPS did not improve if I just left my character and camera stationary.

I'm running on a core2 duo.

[Gimthen]

Is the .37 part of the 384 client patch which is "ready for release" ?

If so, I am not looking forward to having potentially experience the problem described below.

[Yfelvik]

I'm working with the developers to help them pinpoint where the trouble is. We'd like to ask for your help in tracking down what / where the problems are happening.

The 384.37 client has a number of new features, as well as changes in how the graphics preferences are used. For example, there's object fading, real shadows, clutter quality changes, and on the preferences side of things, graphics/ texture settings have three options: "performance", "normal" and "quality" (and these mean slightly different things now), instead of the old 5 settings. These changes make it difficult to compare the old client (383) and the new client (384).

It would help the developers a lot if anyone willing to test could do the following:
1. Patch and update to the Blight client using these instructions.
2. Reset your Global Preferences (graphics, view distance, various LOD options, etc.) so that the developers know what your preferences are. The following knowledge base article describes how to reset your Global Preferences. Please note: Do not reset your **Character Preferences**.
3. Do any test you like, as long as you can provide clear instructions on how to repeat that test. The developers will use your notes so they can do the same test and compare results. In your notes, write down what character, what shard and specific notes on where you are in the world (You can get your position by typing: /printpos). For example, logged in Chaos with Hitchling at coordinates: "x, y" ran east for 2 minutes and noticed frame rate jumping all over the place (5 to 40) when approaching town "x". Normally frame rate would be constant and high 30s.
4. If the test above was similar to your normal experience, adjust graphics or texture quality up, or options, restart Istaria, and re-run the test. Take note of all changes you make to your preferences.
5. If the test above was not similar to your normal experience, adjust your graphics settings down, or options, restart Istaria, and re-run the test. Take note of all changes you make to your preferences.

Once you have some notes / information, create a dxDiag report so that the developers know what kind of computer you have, and submit a support ticket at https://support.istaria.com. We ask you to use the support site because if there's further questions, we can ask you directly / get into specific details of your characters.

The feedback above will greatly help the developers understand what's happening with the latest client, your experience and pinpoint where they need to look to help resolve the issue.

Yfelvik
- Istaria Customer Support

[Garfonso]

Did it with global prefs reset, had the same issues. I did submit a ticket with more information and description. I hope you can find something. *sigh*

For me this is 100% replicable on my plot on order with all of my characters. Just port to Sheperd's Mountain: Sheperd's Home, running from the pad around the mountain to 22795 / 17025, which is roughly the center of my plot. (So take the north road around the mountain to the plot just west of the porter).

Then wait for all the structures on my plot to load. Usually the unfinished clock is the last building to appear for me... there also is a findish large house, large gazebo, large fountian, t2 guild house, t5 silos, small tavern,... that are loading delayed for me. They all will appear after a few (or not so few) seconds and during that the client will bog down beyond usability.

[Yfelvik]

The latest client release, 384.38, has a fix for the performance problem in towns. This will be released to Blight April 25, 2012 in mid-afternoon PST.

The developers are asking for feedback on this latest client and if it resolves or reduces the performance problem (please let us know which one). As always, the best way to contact the developers is through the support system at https://support.istaria.com

* FIX: Performance improvement for areas with high density of objects, especially player towns. ticket:2877
* FIX: Non-collide objects have calculated bounding volume, even though manual volume specified. Should make gathering of resource trees easier (cedar trees) ticket:2869

[Garfonso]

Great work guys!
The latest version stays well above 30fps during all the loading of my plot and so... great.