[Rendar]

So. After recent testing and deciding that this was actually a thing. We've sort of figured out a major cause of frame lag/lag in general.

Remember how we said that Weather/Night time caused a lot of lag and no one really believed us? The difference is visible in game, but here.



Outside of Dormeho (this applies to every area that I have been to with the night-time overlay). The lag is real. CPU usage is through the roof for this game. Just SL2 is eating up 40% ((50%+ if I'm in an area with weather effects going on as well)). Before you ask, no. My PC is actually pretty decent. I can play a good chunk of 3d games ranging from League to something like Dragon Age 2. So, that isn't the issue. Even if it were. Every player that I have talked to about this experiences the same sort of frame lag/lag in general from this.

So. Let's go into a house, namely my own character's player house.



The CPU usage dies down almost instantly. Nearly a fourth of what it is outside. This is reallyyyyyyyy not okay.

So.. what now? Well. After some recent chats with players on OOC. The overlay for 'night' actually shouldn't be blue. Which. uh. Is what I've always seen. It's meant to be blackish grey. Sooo after fenagling with BYOND settings and relogging. Turns out the preference to have "hardware acceleration" on makes CPU usage a lot less taxing on the computer. It can be found by going to BYOND SETTINGS > Preferences > GAMES and toggling it on. If, for some reason, it's already on and still lagging. Try it the other way to see if that alleviates the problem.

Honestly, this is about the best I can offer on that lag front because holy hell did it make my SL2 playing a helluva lot better.

[Zakizo]

The game runs terribly for me in these areas whether it's on or off, and weather is easily the worst offender. I can tolerate night lag, but weather makes me afraid that my computer is going to data dump itself. I'm sorry to say that... it hasn't really been worth it. At this point I'd take weather "indicators" like Iahsus' indicators over the current system.

[Neus]

What render mode are you using?

[Rendar]

You'll have to explain what that is (or how to find it considering my lack of knowledge on the front).

For me though, it has gotten better after turning Graphics Hardware for mapping on. Nothings that weird-blue tinge anymore and it's down to 10%~ roughly at all times.

[Mivereous]

Might have something to do with Towns and Interiors (non-house) having to share large Z layers, as well, whereas housing just has to share with whatever other houses are active at the time, or otherwise nothing. Larger Z layers would cause more usage, as they're rendered even if they're off the visible screen. That would explain why going into a house (a Z layer where maybe 10 houses are allowed, only maybe 4 in use?) would cause less usage.

[Zakizo]

I dunno how to check for render mode either. I'm not very BYOND-savvy, sadly.

[Neus]

Yeah, you'll want to use hardware mode, otherwise the game doesn't use your GPU to draw things. I can see why that would cause considerable CPU usage in weather or during animations because it has to draw more images per second that way. Anyway, Zakizo, BYOND pager -> Gear icon -> Preferences -> Games. Make sure the hardware option is ticked.

[Egil]

Even with the hardware options ticked, I'll have to relog 2-3 times between every reboot in order to be able to move on the overworld and in towns without horrible lag.

[Autumn]

I can attest to having to log in multiple times to get it to render correctly, every day I have to log in anywhere from 2 to 5 times to get the lighting to render correctly.

[Zakizo]

Neus » Sat Jan 30, 2016 4:08 pm[/url]"]Yeah, you'll want to use hardware mode, otherwise the game doesn't use your GPU to draw things. I can see why that would cause considerable CPU usage in weather or during animations because it has to draw more images per second that way. Anyway, Zakizo, BYOND pager -> Gear icon -> Preferences -> Games. Make sure the hardware option is ticked.

Oh, that. Yeah, I tried with it on and off, both still crippled my frame rate after a short time of playing on both the overworld and towns, and make it unbearable to stay in any town where weather is actually happening. It's gotten to the point where 9 times out of 10 (probably a small exaggeration because I don't actually count), unless completely necessary to endure it to get where I need to go, I avoid entering areas experiencing weather entirely because I know that I'll be forced to relog just from passing through... though often I find I need to relog anyway just from passing by a place on the overworld that's experiencing weather, since it also appears on the overworld map. The area overlays in battle like mists and whatnot don't seem to bother my client at all, so it's strange.