Feedback on the NEW blight client version 366.2

[Aamer Khan]

Today at lunch I decided to try out the new client build on Blight, and I'm very glad I did.
What I was curious about is whether the new client was managing memory better, and what the resultant FPS would be after porting all over.

To layout what I saw, a few specifics about my system...

1gb system memory
256mb ATI 9600 pro videocard
Running a memory manager that reports current system memory free in realtime.

OK, So I login to blight, and am at Aug. I start the lagwindow to see what my memory usage is. Texmem is 115, and fps is 25. My memory manager reports having 380mb still free.

I port to dali, bristugo, kion, back to aug, to NR, to fel, back to aug, and then recall to Ambato. Each stop I would run around town, check the connies, then port to the next town.

Each time I would port in, I would check free system memory, it averaged around 220mb free most times, dropping as low as 100mb at fel which also gave me the highest texmem of 196. After porting system memory was recovered and freed back up to use. And even when the system memory dropped the lowest my FPS never dropped below 11fps. after getting to ambato, I ran up the road to the center of the island to check out the golems. had 19-22 fps, 230mb of system memory, and texmem had dropped back down to 134.

All told, I feel very happy about these numbers. Where as not perfect, they do seem to correct the serious memory problems we all were seeing. Tonight I plan on doing more extensive testing and report back very accurate numbers. YMMV.

I'm curious to hear others that have done similar testing on blight, to compare notes.

( I'm hoping that I'm not alone in seeing a marked improvement )

[Pharcellus]

Logged in near Aughendell, 30fps.

Four ports, ending up in Dralk, 4fps. MASSIVE stuttering causing it to drop below 1fps for about a minute.

Stuttering continues to be a huge issue no matter where I go.

Interesting enough, the Blight client still says it is 363.3.

[Justa Mirage]

I will try this tonight when I get off work. I have a copy of myself over there and probably can find out what portalling does to me... usually takes about 5-6 portals and I notice the Frame... frame... Frame...

[Fireclaw]

After several ports I averaged about 8 fps over Tazoon, up from about 6 fps with the live client. Unfortunately, 15 seconds after arriving in Tazoon I got a crash to desktop on the Blight client.

[Fireclaw]

There was/is a problem with the patcher too. It was not downloading, and required a manual select of full patch...

I don't know if that was fixed or not, but if your client didn't update, sounds like that MIGHT be the problem. Try a full scan.

My client appeared to do a full update, because prior to that I had the live client installed, not the blight client. I did notice it spending its usual long time downloading the update when I launched.

[AA0]

I've been having good and bad experiences starting with 366.0 to 366.3, all of which I think are the same code.
Soon as I got 366.0 I had definitely improved performance, fps was up decently (on live). I would range anywhere from 17-40 fps depending where I am, which wasn't a great increase, and is definitely not as good as it used to be.
After porting around a lot initially fps remained pretty consistant, it did not drop and hz didn't balloon in size. However after a few hours of fighting in one location and then deciding to recall, I found my first problem. The port (which usually takes 5s max) took at least 3 mins, and the hd swapping went mad.
My next log in was less successful, fps was still up initially, but after just an hour or two the recalls would take 5 mins just to load the town. And the hard drive just goes nuts (with a gig of system memory).

Tonight I plan on exploring a little further, and the game is mostly more playable right now. As the old client would just CTD if you didn't port and just stayed in one location anyways (just wouldn't have a performance drop).
Deleted the world cache, redefraged the hd and cleaned up some items to see how this hd swapping happens. My 2nd and 3rd loads made the hd swapping excessively bad, and I'm not sure why the game is even starting out with problems, only a reboot and clean up seemed to fix it.

[Illyist]

Thanks guys, great reports here.

Yes, the FPS degrading from teleporting looks like it'sback up to about where it was in the past (playable) on the 366 builds. We're currently looking into the page file usage and build up. It's just not releasing some things from memoryunder certain conditions, and when it builds up it results in a crash. It's for this reason I've asked not to let it go live for tomorrow's maintenance period. It was actually a tough call for me... on one hand FPS performance improvment that pretty much affects everyone, and on the other a crash that doesn't seem to be affecting everyone - but is still a crash.

I guess bottom line for me was living withthe FPS degradation the way it is nowis familiar, and theplayer gets to choose when to log out and refresh.

We are currently working on the page file memory build up problem, and I hope we'll get a breakthrough on it soon... but I have no ETA at this time.