How does lag affect you?

[Aamer Khan]

This is really a request for information from fellow players on what YOU see as the cause for lag.

We know that towns cause more grief that the wilderness. And, we know that viewdistance make a big difference on you FPS. Some feel that scaffolding and trees/hedges/fountains cause the most trouble. Other believe that festival decorations are the real problem.

In view of how hard TG is working to get content out, and the fact that many are having issues that need to be resolved, but due to other pressing matters cannot be addressed by TG atm, I'm hoping that we the players can put our heads together and come up with work-arounds until TG can fix these in the proper way. Many "tweeks" have been around since the beta days. Lets dig a bit deeper. Editing .def, custom "adjustments" to client side settings files... ( that dont break the eula ) or even customizations like the map paks are what I'm hoping for here.

Specifically, what causes YOU the most change in FPS and overall memory usage? ( good or bad )

Have you discovered a way to minimize the effects? ( just changing viewdistance, is not what I'm looking for )

Does editing .def or sector files make a difference for you?

Please be specific and as detailed as you can.

[imported_GhostRdr]

Personally, I think the biggest memory hog is using IE. If they made a stand alone game launcher, I beleive the memory saved would help alot and maybe last longer in between logs.

Also, to answer another question of yours, I get the most lag when i get near alot of scaffolding or large groups of player/mobs.

[padishar]

The memory hog isn't IE. you can start horizons with a batch file. same problems.

For me, the only time I really experience lag is after many ports.
Before that, I can set view distance to full and still have around 40 fps, only problem then is that I need to relog sooner.

I noticed that 3d sound and all the lod settings lower my frame rate, better to turn them off completley.
Also, a huge fps increase can be seen when turning off the interface. I can go from 60 to 100+ fps if I turn it off, but in towns I only get around5 fps more.

[Hasai]

....Specifically, what causes YOU the most change in FPS and overall memory usage? ( good or bad ) ....

Simply put, the memory leaks.
Both myself and more than a few players that I know invariably re-log before engaging in any sort of conflict in order to recover all the RAM that Hz has dumped over the side up to that point. If they fail to do so, then they run a very real chance of being quite literally lagged to death, or CTD.

Have you discovered a way to minimize the effects? ( just changing viewdistance, is not what I'm looking for )

Turning combat spell effects off helps a little.
[st]

[imported_Frith-Rae]

I';m curious myself - as to what has changed the lag factor so much "post merge".

Before merge, I never had *any* of these issues..

Now - I lag straight to CTD - within two minutes of porting to Tazoon and arriving
I lag - CTD - in less time - porting to Feledan and arriving
I lag - CTD - in about 6 minutes or so if I stick around - within arriving at NR

I lag - CTD around the Ancient ROP Lair. I can fly outside of the entrance- SEVERE Lag spikes (we're talking 30+ fine..fly fly fly..see lair BAM 2). If I try and land and go in - get a few paces - LAG CTD - reload, walk a few steps, see the chamber - LAG CATD.

And as I found out just a few days ago, the Selen Forest Dire Wolves - see them - LAG SPIKE - and eventually CTD.

Spell effects off helps in Selen - makes no difference at the other places (anytime I start to lag this is the first thing I type in, you know, before my chat window becomes unusable :)).

I've never had problems with repeated ports, and 99.9% of the rest of the time - nothing else in game ever much lags me, much less CTD (the other night in Selen I actually had to hardboot the lag was so bad my entire computer laggged out)

The tickets I filed after the merge, when three towns became inaccessible, the response was "turn down your graphics". My view distance and playable characters are always set at less than 20% for the display charactters, probably less than 10% if not 5% at the "view distance".

Sorry - I dont know enough about the background files to give much more help than that. The only "fix" I can do for tazoon or the AROP lair - is to turn ALL graphics to "lowest" and turn off everything that is turnoffable about graphics.

This of course, is not the solution I was looking for - nor is it a solution at all.

Now my concern is - if the AROP lair CTDs me with such severe immediate lag - what happens when that lair model goes in game for the plots...*sighs*

[imported_tjl]

The game renders objects that are not in view. I mean if they could cull the entire underground complex in aughundel unless you were in it, fps would soar upwards. but they can't.

And of course memory leaks and porting.

those are the biggest causes for me.

an option to turn off unfinished structures, or scenery structures would really be appreciated by all at some point I think.

[Stranyr]

For the most part what people is is a Graphics issue, caused by the rendering engine, not so much lag (lag has more to do with internet preformance). The client prediction could also be a bit better or used slightly less. (more position updates perhaps)

Because this is mainly a rendering issue, anything you do to decrease the work the renderer needs to do will increase preformance IE: turning down veiw distance, keeping as few windows open as possible, keeping only the minium number of hotkey bars up etc.

I can maintain a constant conection to multiple FTP servers sending and recieving files, andbrowsing the webwith no hit on HZ preformance.

setting my video options to minimal and closing most of the windows that I keep open allows me to see very high frame rates 70+ even in crowds, but when buildings and especially large amounts of scaffolding are on the screen even with these settings 30+ fps is unlikely (20-25 is usual). I find that I can't play with my settings so low as I have gotten quite used to seeing everything with higher video settings so I maintain my video settings at a point where in the wilderness out hunting solo I see 30-35fps and in towns 15-25fps (depending on the towns) and Taz 10-15.

just my 2c

Edit: System Specs AMD 3000+xp on Asus A7n8xx-deluxe MB (ver2.0), Gainward FX5900 128MB 8xAGPnVidia card driver version 66.93 DirectX 9.0c. 1GB twinned Corsair PC3200 Ram, 80GB SATA 7200rpm Seagate HD, SB Audigy 2.0.

[Bori Grimbattle]

The only time I really suffer lag is after numerous ports. A simple reboot will fix this. However, on occasion I suffer severe lag and eventually will crash out. (happened maybe 4 times so far post merge).

One thing I did notice is in the World Cache folder there is one (cannot remember exact name as posting this from work) labelled textures. If you have not cleared this folder in awhile take a look inside. You will be shocked at the number of files in it.

I am just wondering with that many texture files if that is what causes the lag as it searches the cache for the proper texture to apply? Just a guess but those suffering bad take a look and see exactly how many files you have in that directory.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

Big problem I run into with video issues is:

1.) Lack of LOD (level of detail) settings for things like crafting machines and other indoor objects. Hopefully the new resource manager will help fix this, but right now when I'm loading a town I'll see the intricate models of crafting machines pop in before the basic structure of the building. The machines should be occuled anyway if they're behind a stone wall.

2.) Certain world models seem to give me trouble (Radeon 9700 Pro). Biggest for some reason is the twisted, brambly roots that inhabit blighted areas. These models kill my framerate noticably. I'd say they cause about a 30% decrease in performance. Conversely, snowy areas like Mahagra and Kira run amazingly better than most grassy or blighted areas. Dralk seems more friendly as well, fighting or crafting out there seems to require less relogging.

3.) No matter how much memory you have (up to 1.5GB myself), porting, moving, or generally loading and unloading any game assets degrades performance over time.

[Kulamata]

In continuing heavy combat, such as the Selen (?) raid, or the four hours I spent on the invisible maple anchor (Order) I use /setpref effectson false. This is a very powerful command. It may prevent porting by causing thedestination structures to not load, and it prevents loading of some buildings, dragon cave entrances, etc. So after combat, before recalling, reset the command to true.I have had to reset this offline in the prefs file if I recalled without resetting.

However it allows heavy combat for four hours with steady frame rates of 20-22 fps. I also have max char and vision distance turned down of course.

ATI 9600 Pro, P4c, 2.6 GHz, 1 GB, WD Raptor HDD.

[Tarod_Chaos]

What causes the most lag for me is porting into Aughendell and exiting Dalimond city into the surrounding area. Also several spell graphics tend to immensely drop down my FPS. I know one can turn them off but I like seeing the various spells cast.
Also some of the raids caused everyone I have talked to horrible FPS droppage, like the 120 Conjurer in Aug, dropped my FPS to 1. New Rachival and Mahagra also cause a large drop in FPS. I like having my view distance high but it causes extremely slow FPS rates so I have lowered it quite a bit. Same with certain graphic options I have had to either turn off or down. Overall most of the time my FPS is good. Just certain cities or battles with alot of spell effects cause it to drop bigtime. Also alot of porting seems to drop FPS and or cause connection loss.