Ekweuka Posted February 16, 2014 Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 This game has been lots of fun!What are the best ways to reduce lag?Of course, lag is a big setback--I know that lag is well-known and that the game is still in alpha, but I can't find any recommendations on best ways to improve gameplay experience (eg, which maps/terrains are better, recommended population count per-person and total-per-game, game settings, etc). I enjoy playing, but it becomes almost unplayable in multiplayer. Perhaps some recommendations will help retain players! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scythetwirler Posted February 16, 2014 Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 Generally, maps with fewer obstructions (trees, water, impassable mountains) will make the pathfinder's job easier. Splitting up large formations (e.g. 160 units) into 5 groups of 32 will also help performance. Avoid tasking formations to walk through a forest or a sea of buildings. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feneur Posted February 16, 2014 Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 And smaller maps generally are a lot faster than bigger as well. Water maps are best avoided at all in play against AIs as they don't support them yet. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wraitii Posted February 16, 2014 Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 You can also give your computer a little boost by reducing graphic settings. In particular try running with renderactors=false. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lion.Kanzen Posted February 16, 2014 Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 You can also give your computer a little boost by reducing graphic settings. In particular try running with renderactors=false.that one is good. Thank you for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekweuka Posted February 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 You can also give your computer a little boost by reducing graphic settings. In particular try running with renderactors=false.I assume you are referring to the default.cfg file? I can't find renderactors, the closest I can see is renderpath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feneur Posted February 16, 2014 Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 I assume you are referring to the default.cfg file? I can't find renderactors, the closest I can see is renderpath.It's available in the development version, and will be available in the next Alpha version I guess Wraitii forgot it wasn't in the last Alpha 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lion.Kanzen Posted February 16, 2014 Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 It's available in the development version, and will be available in the next Alpha version I guess Wraitii forgot it wasn't in the last Alpha but its nice shame the info for us. you guys don't forget to tell us/ users in the next alpha release . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prodigal Son Posted February 16, 2014 Report Share Posted February 16, 2014 (edited) I've also listened to some other tips:- Stuck workers/units cause a lot of pathfinder lag (works, have reduced lag by searching and moving a stuck unit).- People with slow computers or connections cause lag (multiplayer, should be true).- Long distances between player locations, like one being in Canada and one in Europe, might cause lag (multiplayer, no clue if true).- Slower game speed (like x 0.75) reduces lag (no clue if true).For me graphic settings made no real difference on lag and I have a 2008 computer with 4GB ram (I guess this helps a lot) and an old Nvidia 9600GT graphic card. Edited February 16, 2014 by Prodigal Son 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dvangennip Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 (edited) I don't think having heaps of RAM helps that much, the game won't use it. Having 2 Gb free should be enough, which is pretty common these days if you have 3 Gb or more installed. More graphics memory might help as well to a certain extent.These are the settings that I am using right now in local.cfg (never change the default.cfg file, as that might be updated on newer revisions, and user.cfg gets overwritten by the game when/after it's running). As you can see, this really is as bare as its gets. I keep silhouettes drawn to spot units behind trees or buildings (costs a small bit of performance, but I feel it is absolutely necessary to keep track of what is going on), but other than that this is the minimum. Note that this just improves graphics performance by reducing visual splendour (especially water looks less than great). Depending on your system the graphics performance may not be the bottleneck, though.renderpath = "default"preferglsl = "true"gentangents = "true"gpuskinning = falsesmoothlos = "false"materialmgr.quality = "0.0"postproc = "false"splashscreenenable = "false"waternormals = falsewaterrealdepth = falsewaterfoam = falsewatercoastalwaves = falsewaterrefraction = falsewaterreflection = falsewatershadows = falserenderactors = falseshadows = falseshadowpcf = falsevsync = falseparticles = falsesilhouettes = trueshowsky = false Edited February 17, 2014 by dvangennip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spahbod Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 Another way to reduce the lag is to limit the max population to 150. This is only possible for Skirmish and Random maps though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thamlett Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 i am totally convinced after monitoring resources on my computer while playing a direct multiplayer game (LAN) that the problem isn't with the computer (graphics, cpu, memory), it's with the engine. I will be having terrible lag, while my quad-core cpu is at 25%, my memory is at 46%, and my graphics are doing hardly anything at all (changing graphics settings makes no difference). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spahbod Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 i am totally convinced after monitoring resources on my computer while playing a direct multiplayer game (LAN) that the problem isn't with the computer (graphics, cpu, memory), it's with the engine. I will be having terrible lag, while my quad-core cpu is at 25%, my memory is at 46%, and my graphics are doing hardly anything at all (changing graphics settings makes no difference).That's because the game doesn't support multiple CPU cores yet. So only one of your CPU cores is actually working on 0 A.D. . This is intentional for now because it makes profiling much easier. In the end, we should be able to fix this particular problem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanderd17 Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 Having an old 4gHz single core processor currently runs 0ad better than a quad core 2gHz. Just because we're only using one core.Though you're right the problem is with the engine. It scales very poorly (having some O(n^4) loops and even worse). Also, irregardless of the lag, it will always use 100% of one core, as it just calculates more frames in that case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan` Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 //OFFTOPIC Is that interesting for the team ? http://apcmag.com/Content.aspx?id=2110Also, Have you tried programs like Gboost and gamebooster ? I made tutorials for those, explaining how they work, but they are in french. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekweuka Posted February 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2014 Thanks all! These tips have helped gameplay. Hopefully new players can come here in the future and get better games, like I did.Any more tips, please add! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lion.Kanzen Posted February 24, 2014 Report Share Posted February 24, 2014 Thanks all! These tips have helped gameplay. Hopefully new players can come here in the future and get better games, like I did.Any more tips, please add! it's good idea place this info in some where into the game. May be a link to know how perform the gameplay. You know the lag can be discourage me included in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan` Posted February 24, 2014 Report Share Posted February 24, 2014 What would be nice is to have an idea of what you need for the game to be played at low, medium, high, very high, and ultra settings. But we need those options first. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lion.Kanzen Posted February 24, 2014 Report Share Posted February 24, 2014 What would be nice is to have an idea of what you need for the game to be played at low, medium, high, very high, and ultra settings. But we need those options first.I Agree with that, but we need a someone do the option graphic settings in Menu game. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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