More lag that makes me want to kill someone

[Tarachnul]

And every thing in my comp is THE BEST you can get. THE BEST! So you can see why I have a hard time wondering why other people don\'t lag .And I do?

excuse me while i spend the next 3 years trying to stop laughing at your...how shall i put this?...ignorance...yes ignorance is a nice not entirely unkind word to use...because unless you update your computer like every minute you will NEVER have the best of ANYTHING....

Nah, you need 2GB of ram and an athlon 64 like me to run the game good

 8o...i run it with a pentium III 650 mhz, 512 ram, and an iNvidia GeForce 4 at 128 mb ddram...and lag well...the load times are long...ish...but i think i MIGHT have lagged once...maybe twice the whole time ive played the game...


ok now to the issue at hand specify how your lagging...fps...etc...give specifics (not THE BEST) and maybe we can help you

sorry if i sound like a smartass im afraid i cant help being what i am....

-Tarach

[Tharizdun]

I have noticed a bit of lag once for a few minutes in ordinary game-play, but that is only after being on Crystal Blue for many hours, and my PC is not high-end at all. ( 1.67GHz Athlon XP, 512 MB RAM, Geforce4MX ).

Looking down at Hydlaa from the top of the big tower and pivoting your view around, yeah that will lag things a bit, but you expect that when you are redrawing and recalculating lighting and shading of the dozens of buildings in view at any one time. The complexity of graphics operations does not come close though to modern comercial FPS\'s like Quake and Half-life - if your computer is sufficient to play these at acceptible speed & resolution then it should handle CB well, even though the CrystalSpace engine is certainly not as optimised for rendering as the commercial game engines are.

I suspect the majority of the lag is network ( throughput or latency ) related, and not something you really have any control over from your desktop, regardless of what hardware you have available, assuming you meet a reasonable minimum configuration.

Congestion upstream at your ISP is probably a cause, or downloading in the background while Planeshift is active. From memory the client - server communication uses UDP packets, which is less forgiving of lost packets than TCP, but is suited for real-time data, like your characters (x,y,z) position, velocity and acceleration, and pending actions (attack, chat, and so on ).

The planeshift server ( laanx.fragnetics.com ) itself does not appear to be too heavily loaded in a general sense, see the stats links on the left pane of the main page at http://laanx.fragnetics.com/.

Freeing up as much RAM as possible before launching Planeshift ( by shutting down other applications and systray applets ), and keeping your harddisk defragmented ( planeshift opens up .zip data files as its running, this is disk-access intensive, especially when in complex sectors adjacent to many others, like Hydlaa ) is probably the best thing you can do to keep lag down without investing in additional hardware or higher speed internet connections.

[Ragnar-GD]

Originally posted by Cybio Kingfist
After quitting planeshift for about 5 weeks because of the lag I used to have I tried reinstalling today and found out I still have it. I don\'t see how it can be taking up all my memory and it only does this when I have planeshift active.

On the risk of being picky: You use the word \"lag\" in the wrong context, and this confuses people.

Don\'t bother asking about RAM-usage: This is the way things are nowadays. One gig Ram is necessary since Halflife2 and DooM3 for a good game, and I don\'t complain. If you have less, the PC starts swapping, and that causes \"freezes\", and such.

Perhaps you should look for the \"preload all maps\"-switch in your settings, and disable it. Yeah, you probably did that already... :-)

What you would want to say is \"Why do I have such a high CPU-load?\"

And now *this* is a good question.

Normally, such a value comes from a programming-technique called \"polling\", usually for getting keystrokes from the keyboard, or input from any kind of device, maybe even from \"polling\" info from the internet. Who cares...

I consider this a *bug*, even if it is (most probably) bad programming originally.

I have a machine with slightly about 2GHz, and it still runs 100% CPU. I\'m operating servers on a daily basis, and I know it must not be, and I already and succesfully ordered software running on \"my\" servers to be reprogrammed when they showed this behavior.

Please, please, Devs, do something about it. :-)

[ramlambmoo]

Normally, such a value comes from a programming-technique called \"polling\", usually for getting keystrokes from the keyboard, or input from any kind of device, maybe even from \"polling\" info from the internet. Who cares...

I consider this a *bug*, even if it is (most probably) bad programming originally.

I have a machine with slightly about 2GHz, and it still runs 100% CPU. I\'m operating servers on a daily basis, and I know it must not be, and I already and succesfully ordered software running on \"my\" servers to be reprogrammed when they showed this behavior.

Please, please, Devs, do something about it. :-)

I think what you\'re talking about is the game constantly checking if you\'ve pressed a button or clicked or moved your mouse, correct?  Well you want it to respond straight away when you do, dont you? 100% CPU usuage isnt as bad as 100% RAM usage- in fact most games are programmed to use 100% CPU.  Thats just a fact of programming.

[steuben]

Originally posted by ramlambmoo
 100% CPU usuage isnt as bad as 100% RAM usage- in fact most games are programmed to use 100% CPU.  Thats just a fact of programming.

*sets the way back machine for 1994*
hmm. computer games then were relying on complete cycle usage for timing and playability. things haven\'t changed much.

[Ragnar-GD]

Originally posted by ramlambmoo
I think what you\'re talking about is the game constantly checking if you\'ve pressed a button or clicked or moved your mouse, correct?  Well you want it to respond straight away when you do, dont you? 100% CPU usuage isnt as bad as 100% RAM usage- in fact most games are programmed to use 100% CPU.  Thats just a fact of programming.

<*putting on the programming-scholastics hat*>

...in the times of event-handlers within operating-systems of today, polling is not necessary any more...
(forgive my abuse of the english language)

<*putting it down again*>

...that is what I learned and believed. Of course, I\'m a bit religious about programming-styles after seven years of C/S-programming (my former life, before I became a systems engineer), so ignore my rightousness...

[ramlambmoo]

<*putting on the programming-scholastics hat*>

...in the times of event-handlers within operating-systems of today, polling is not necessary any more...
(forgive my abuse of the english language)

<*putting it down again*>  

Event handlers- the program you are running still has to check wether it has recieved notification of an event, ? (unless it were built into the o/s).  Inherently, one way or another, a program has to check for messages.  I know in higher level languages event handling is used, however this is just a programming technique, and dosnt inherently change the way the program receives notification.  It just saves you having to code the polling,  As is my understanding.

[Dilapodated]

I wasn\'t even going to sign up for this forum, much less post here...But the nubs here have made me do it...

You claim the \"best of the best\", and spit words like 2 gigs of ram on an A64? If you put 2 gigs of ram on an A64 then YOU SIR ARE AN IDIOT!!! Due to how the A64\'s memory controller operates, putting in 4 sticks switching the memory command rate to 2T, which essentially drops your ram speed/bandwidth HARDCORE! If you bought 2 1 gig sticks, then the timings WILL be 3-4-4-8, at 3-4-4-8 the A64\'s performance is actually SLOWER than it\'s p4 equivilant, as the A64 LIVES FOR LOW TIMINGS! 2 gigs on an A64 is SLOWER than 1 gig no matter how you slice it, and by a BIG margin. Also, NO game uses more than 1 gig...NONE.

Next, DDR2 SUCKS in it\'s current state, as tccd ram modules like GSkill LE\'s OWN any ddr2 on the market. Why\'s that? The memory timings again, that faster speed don\'t mean anything when it\'s taking more clock cycles per operation to do the same as GOOD ddr....

That said, here\'s MY rig, which might I add pulls 70 fps on the Doom3 timedemo at 1600x1200...That\'s right 70!

2.5 ghz A64 3500+(overclocked to that 2.5, it was 2.2 at stock)
1 gig PDP Patriot XBL at 2-2-2-5 timings(again, the best)
dual 120 gig Seagate barracudas in a Raid 0 config
6800Gt overclocked to 440/1250
Gigabyte NF4 K8NS939 Ultra
......
Now READ BEFORE YOU TRY AND CALL SOMEONE OUT ON SOMETHING THAT YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT!

[Tarachnul]

first of all all that yelling isnt really necessary i mean i rant upon occasion as well but as in this case your WRONG! i wouldnt recommend it.

an A64 can definetly handle more than 1 gig of ram...but if you choose to beleive it cant...your not going to believe me anyway...so im just going to wait and see if you realize the error in your statement...

-Tarach

[Dilapodated]

it CAN handle it, but the on-die memory controller is SPECIFIED to run at 2t when 4 sticks are used together...Read up on it at amd.com.  1 gig with an A64 is MUCH faster than 2 gigs, due to 2 gigs switching over to a command rate of 2T instead of 1T. I can show you benchmarks with both 1 gig and 2 gig if you\'d really like to see with your own eyes, but I would think a TINY bit of reading will tell you I\'m FULLY correct. With 2 gigs on a A64 it drops the performance by quite a bit compared to 1 gig, thus meaning 1 GIG IS FASTER ON THE A64, and there\'s NO improvement on it with 2 gigs as NO GAME OUT uses more than 1...Not even doom 3 on ULTRA SETTINGS!

I BUILD THESE SYSTEMS FOR A LIVING!

[Harkin]

Originally posted by Dilapodated
it CAN handle it, but the on-die memory controller is SPECIFIED to run at 2t when 4 sticks are used together...Read up on it at amd.com.  1 gig with an A64 is MUCH faster than 2 gigs, due to 2 gigs switching over to a command rate of 2T instead of 1T. I can show you benchmarks with both 1 gig and 2 gig if you\'d really like to see with your own eyes, but I would think a TINY bit of reading will tell you I\'m FULLY correct. With 2 gigs on a A64 it drops the performance by quite a bit compared to 1 gig, thus meaning 1 GIG IS FASTER ON THE A64, and there\'s NO improvement on it with 2 gigs as NO GAME OUT uses more than 1...Not even doom 3 on ULTRA SETTINGS!

I BUILD THESE SYSTEMS FOR A LIVING!

Ok, dude... you just came in here and got way off topic. For one I don\'t care what you have to say abot timings as I run PS fine on my low-end machine, and for one don\'t have no where near 1gig of RAM.

Next as to the fool who called me elitist, what are you an idiot? That you have no background knowledge of me, so don\'t try to call me something I am. I\'m sorry if I try to make people understand simple concepts, but it seems you have a problem with that? Now fine, you think I that I think that everything he says is wrong? Well by reading what he said I can see that most of what he said was false. Now you who I by your reasons, seems to be elitist as well, go take your A64 and go.

By the way, CPU usage measured in windows task manager is relevent, that means if next to a program it says 100%, it maybe actaully 100% or it could just mean it is devoting 100% of the processor to that program. Example: If you move your mouse fast, quick, and wildly enough you can get your CPU to peak any where around 75%, now I don\'t expect it to take 75% of my processor to control mouse movements, do you?

[Ecolem]

1st: 512 mb ram, 128 mb Gforce card, 45 gig HD(not a prob) and 374 kb connection(avarage) so all up...hardly ever get lag unless theres like over 100 ppl in place.

2nd: sorry for this being a bit off topic but how do you get you Windows Task Manager ON TOP of you full screen games like PS(or Enemy Territory )??

Thx:)

[ramlambmoo]

By the way, CPU usage measured in windows task manager is relevent, that means if next to a program it says 100%, it maybe actaully 100% or it could just mean it is devoting 100% of the processor to that program. Example: If you move your mouse fast, quick, and wildly enough you can get your CPU to peak any where around 75%, now I don\'t expect it to take 75% of my processor to control mouse movements, do you?

Woah, you\'re pretty good... i can only get around 30-35%.  But then my computer is a little bit better, i cant really compete against it trying to use its system resources up with the good \'old mouse workover.

I wasn\'t even going to sign up for this forum, much less post here...But the nubs here have made me do it...

I feel not signing up would have been the best option, especially not actually posting- you have what the best machine in the world but you havn\'t discovered how to turn caps lock off for more than 30 seconds?  Go back to playing doom with your 70 fps, and we\'ll all  alot happier, unless you can trying being a bit more sensible and calmer on the these boards.

[Dilapodated]

It\'s funny how people can attempt to go off on me, when all I did was simply point out that ya\'ll should do some research before trying to give someone else hell. The other guy who my statement was aimed towards was tellin people about 2 gb on an A64, when I know damn well how much 2 gb kills performance on an A64, thus I told him why, and essentially was doing a service as such. NOWEHRE did I say my system was the best, I simply was pointing out that 2-2-2-5 1t timings ARE something to aim for with an A64 system...Learn to read and you\'d know that.


 Yes, I was off topic, but so was the guy who posted about his 2gb a64, as well as you guys now.... Pot and the kettle kids, pot and the kettle.

Also, here\'s how to differiate lag types, for the original poster. If you see stutters, or what appears to be frameskips, it\'s due to your system. If it\'s your processor or videocard it\'ll be slow all around,if it\'s memory then it\'ll run smooth with pauses, and if it\'s your i-net connection people will move very odd(appear to be teleporting). There, now I\'m not off topic, so get off my nuts!

[Harkin]

So adding 2GB of ram on a A64 is bad? No it isn\'t, you may say so with your timings, but not everyone can do what they don on just 1GB of ram. I know that the 2GB on the A64 is better than MY timings. Seeing as I use DDR2100, about the slowest you can get and way more expensive than DDR2700. So adding that 1GB of ram won\'t make any difference playing this or any other game.

Extra: on windows systems you have System Idle Process, always using the extra % not being used by other programs, 99% while I\'m just typing here, but it doesn\'t add to the core CPU usage because it isn\'t doing anything.

To get WTM on top of the game, put the game in windowed mode and open it up. You can also do Options->Always on Top, but I think that is default.