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Some games unplayable after update

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4 months ago
Most recent game from my pov

Just before this i played an hour long game perfectly fine. I am also using the minimal graphics preset in the "reset settings" tab.
I switched to it after this happened once, in the hopes that it would fix the issue. (it did not) i dont think its an issue with there being 32 players, as it gets not THIS laggy, but enough lag to not want to play, in small teams games. (sometimes). thus is why this issue is very confusing, as i can play perfectly fine some games, and then its unplayable the next. i do not recall this happening before the recent update although it could have nothing to do with it, as i dont remember the first time it started getting laggy.

The battle in question: https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1943141

This has happened multiple times before, however instead of saving the replays i just stopped playing zk and played some BAR. ran perfectly fine (better actually), however i like zks gameplay much more, so tried to play again today. All this to say i dont remember which games it had happened on before, so i cant get the replays for those.
+2 / -0
That is concerning, and thanks for the video. Can you gather a bit more information by doing the following?
  • Find the time where it suddenly stops running well, and send a video with /debug view over that change.
  • Check that the very high Swap (blue region) happens without the video recording attached. The high Swap is quite weird, perhaps you need to use Fullscreen or something, because sometimes I get high swap while tabbed out.
  • Check '/luarules profile' as well, since sometimes you synced lua might be a bit high.
  • Upload at better than 720p so I can read the numbers. The engine debug view is ok due to the colours, but I don't think I'll get much from '/luarules profile'. Or you could take some screenshots and send them.
  • Send your infolog from the game. There could be something crashing and trying to restart. You should be able to watch the replay then do this: https://zero-k.info/mediawiki/Reporting_Bugs

Your computer specs will be in the infolog, but you could also post them here for simplicity. I had a look at what BAR is doing regarding multithreading, and it seems to do the same as ZK.

For now, here are some things to try.
  • Fiddle with different window modes. That might fix the giant Swap issue.
  • Try removing multithreading. Go to your ZK folder, find springsettings.cfg, and add PathingThreadCount=1 and WorkerThreadCount=1 as new lines to the bottom.

I have sent an issue, directly responding to engine dev enquires there would be helpful: https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spring/issues/1566
+4 / -0


4 months ago
You could also try copying your BAR settings directly into ZK.
  • Create an empty text file named 'devmode.txt' in the same directory as Zero-K.exe.
  • Go to Settings -> Developer, scroll down and tick Neuter Settings. This stops ZK from changing any of the engine settings with those set by its own UIs.
  • Find your BAR springsettings.cfg. I found mine in 'Program Files\Beyond-All-Reason\data'.
  • Send the BAR and the ZK springsettings to us somehow, you could just post them in the thread.
  • Replace your ZK springsettings.cfg with the BAR one.
+2 / -0
4 months ago
Thanks for the reply.

quote:
Find the time where it suddenly stops running well, and send a video with /debug view over that change.

Its a gradual decline in performance, until it cant keep up and falls behind the simulation. I could make a video just watching the replay with debug view up, however I don't know how much use that would be.

Sounds like thats a simple case of cpu not being powerful enough, however just to make sure i watched the game that took place directly after the problem game, and it ran fine. Not buttery 60fps smooth, but i played in said game until the end completely fine, when i literally couldn't in the previous. I also noticed the high swap in this game as well, maybe its just that there were so many units in the problem game that my cpu just couldn't keep up? and every other game i play just has less units? not sure as i recall the lag in 4v4 games, could be wrong though.

I've also been playing this game for like 3 months now, 2 of those in big teams all welcome lobbys. and I've only had this issue for a week or two, so you'd think i would remember it not running well back then, when i don't.

Additionally, i was only at 50% cpu usage, with nothing else running. Probably not significant, as i assume thats just poor multithreading, but still.

quote:
Check that the very high Swap (blue region) happens without the video recording attached. The high Swap is quite weird, perhaps you need to use Fullscreen or something, because sometimes I get high swap while tabbed out.

Here's a screenshot taken at about to same time in the replay, in fullscreen: https://imgur.com/a/uOs42Fu

And here's one in windowed. seems about the same: https://imgur.com/a/A1fyrxc

Tried Switching between windowed, borderless, fullscreen, and then checking the debug to no avail.

quote:
Check '/luarules profile' as well, since sometimes you synced lua might be a bit high.

Don't know how to disable the player names on the right side, as well as the chat covering up the text. https://imgur.com/a/x6vD8hQ

quote:
Send your infolog from the game. There could be something crashing and trying to restart. You should be able to watch the replay then do this: https://zero-k.info/mediawiki/Reporting_Bugs

And here's the infolog of me opening zk, watching the replay up to 15m (when it starts falling behind) taking the screenshots above, and then submitting the report. https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/CrashReports/issues/110280

quote:
Your computer specs will be in the infolog, but you could also post them here for simplicity. I had a look at what BAR is doing regarding multithreading, and it seems to do the same as ZK

Specs are: 16gb ram, Ryzen 3 3200g cpu, gpu is cpus integrated graphics.

Definitely not a gpu issue, as I can play BAR at low-medium settings just fine. and I'm playing zk at below lowest preset, minimum.

quote:
Try removing multithreading. Go to your ZK folder, find springsettings.cfg, and add PathingThreadCount=1 and WorkerThreadCount=1 as new lines to the bottom.

Will try this tomorrow, have to sleep.

Same for copying my BAR settings to zk.

Let me know if you need any more information.





+0 / -0
during my modding i noticed two things that caused incredible lag to the point of bricking my pc. its probably not useful but ill say it anyway incase. letting gauze cannons keep noExplode = true could sometimes result in a bullet living forever and creating endless increasing impact effects until crash.. although rare gauze bullets can survive at odd angles forever. but unsure if this is 100 % due to modified weapon stats (can be reliably recreated with a tweak)

and secondly increasing the fire rate and aoe of detriment / starlight could result in the black scorchmarks bricking my pc.. they semed to not like overlapping.

both these issues are most likley just caused by my mods but also indicate two effects that caused extreme lag when multiplied.

if you want i can provide you with tweaks that isolate those. i multiplied allot of things but those are the biggest / only causes of lag i found.. especialy the black scorch mark decals
+0 / -0


4 months ago
When did you last play BAR? We are constantly updating the engine in parallel with BAR, so if you last played over two weeks ago, then the issue may exist in BAR for you now as well.
+1 / -0
4 months ago
Interestingly the high swap is not present in BAR. here is a video i took swapping between the games watching a little of a replay, After copying the BAR settings to zk as you said. (here were my zk settings: https://pastebin.com/uDT6bR1f and here are my BAR settings: https://pastebin.com/31W0Cb8A )



Purpose is to show the difference in performance between them, despite having the same settings. But you can clearly see shadows in zk in the recording, even though shadows are not present in BAR. i checked the springsettings and it seems to be auto setting them to 1 for some reason? i just tried again copying the BAR springsettings (which have shadows set to 0) to zk springsettings, and after launching they were still set to 1. so might not be a 1-1 comparison due to this. Neuter is ticked in the developer settings. I could record a video of copying the settings to zk, showing that neuter is toggled, then watching a replay to show that some settings didnt change, if you want.

In BAR you can see swap usage in the video, however that is only because of the recording software. here is a screenshot with it closed: https://imgur.com/a/TgiHynA

Here is one in ZK with it closed for comparison: https://imgur.com/a/QmoNrqT

And one with luaui disabled, for the github issue: https://imgur.com/a/rKEMoK0

+0 / -0
Ah it looks like shadows are being set ingame too, for some reason. Try this
  • Untick Simple Settings in the ingame menu.
  • Go to Settings/Misc and tick Advanced Settings.
  • Go to Settings/Graphics/Map Detail and set "Shadows cast by" to "Nothing".

You could also type '/shadows 0' ingame, just as a test.

Why are the unit models visible in from far away in all your ZK videos and screenshots? Rendering all that is probably more than you can afford. Did this only happen after the BAR settings? There might be some incompatibility there. Type '/disticon 120' to get a more normal distance.
+1 / -0
4 months ago
The Shadow fix worked great.

Also did some testing with copying the bar settings, and it runs pretty well now.

I actually didn't notice the icons not working, and after checking screenshots in my 2nd post you can see that the icons were working, but after there are no icons. so it broke when copying bar settings.

It was actually these 6 lines from the BAR springsettings that i copyed over, that broke the icons. Even with the icon distance at 120.

UnitIconFadeAmount = 0.1
UnitIconFadeStart = 12000
UnitIconFadeVanish = 12000
UnitIconScaleUI = 1.05
UnitIconsAsUI = 1
UnitIconsHideWithUI = 1

Probably only one of the lines broke the icons, but removing all of them did the job.
+0 / -0