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Fixed Jerkey Performance Throughout the Game

Jason

Jason

Buccaneer
Storm Modder
I have noticed that the graphics get kind herkey - jerkey. This usually happens when there are a lot of characters around or a lot going on.
 
Levis said:
How do you mean?
Click to expand...
It just a sense or feeling ,I don't have an English word for it. For me it is like the
graphical quality is not so good as before. I can feel it in my eyes, and it makes
me a little dizzy too.;)
 
It seems to me that the action is not so smooth at low frame rates as it used to be. Now when the frame rate drops the action gets choppy and hard on the eyes. It is like there are micro stutters at hi frame rates that get bigger as the frame rate drops. POTC did not have them before as my POTC 3.3 install is smooth even at low frame rates.

As for the stuttering when entering an area I see frame rates in the 22-25 fps range which makes it too stuttery to play. So far I have not been ambushed then but am afraid of what might happen then.
 
Indeed the game DOES seem stuttery al throughout.
It gets better after the first ten seconds in a location, but even then it isn't ideal.

I'm wondering if we should restore the Beta 3.4 skill system with only the performance enhancement included.
Then we could try to get the new system working for Beta 5.

As it is, it seems to have a rather huge impact throughout the game and I don't know when it might all be back to normal.
But until it is all steady, we can't release Beta 4 to the public and I really want to have a properly playable version available again.

Won't be a fun job to restore it all though. Could easily spend the whole weekend on that. :modding
 
Last edited:
This thread split from the Mod Release - Build 14 Beta 4 Internal WIP For Testing | PiratesAhoy! one.
We'll really need to decide what to do with this one as I do believe we should have a playable version available ASAP.

There are already several people deliberately sticking to older versions because the new ones just aren't up to speed, despite the 100s of fixes that we DID include.
We need to get everyone on the same page again or it will be very hard to continue making progress.
 
Reverting the skill system won't fix it. It only does things at the start.... The jerkyness all round the game can't be because of it. I found some functions in the land interface which I might be able to tweak so it boosts performance again....
 
Levis said:
There is a toggle in case the lag is to much. I didn't notice that much but it could be its more for other people.
It depens on the location too. which location where you at?

We could do without because characters where just randomly assigned stuff and it didn't make sense at all.
There where characters at level 3 with skills at level 10 but not perks etc.
So every character is set up right now. This is why the first time you load an location it takes longer. after that it doesn't need it anymore...
Click to expand...



If the lag/jerkeyness is caused by skill & perks assignment for NPC's ( people wandering around - traders - guards etc) when player enters a location.

While it is good to have the NPC's with appropriate skills - I am not sure that we need to go so far as to allocate them perks ( Abilities) since if you want them to be more competent at their function then a higher skill level should be sufficient. And while a Level 3 character with all skills at Level 10 is a bit strange :yes - a level 3 storekeeper with only commerce at say Level 8 and all the other skills at a default level for Level 3 ( say 2 or 3 ) would not be unreasonable.

So what effect would there be on the lagging if the perk allocation to NPC's was removed - would it reduce it sufficiently to make it much less noticable. :shrug




:drunk
 
It would only help on the lag in the first 10 seconds. After that nothing more happens there untill they get some xp...
 
If I recall, this laggy performance throughout the game was introduced somewhere in the last few weeks.
The Beta 3.5 WIP had it at sea, but we know now why that was and that has already been addressed.

So I can think of two potential causes:
- My attempt to improve the function performance to restore the smoothness at sea once more
- @Levis' work to give all NPCs in the game a sensible amount of skills.

As far as I can think of, nothing else should be so large to have a noticeable impact through the whole game.

A few days ago, I made a ZIP that strips down my work on the skill system to the absolute bare minimum.
It can be found here: Unconfirmed Bug - fort firing bug | PiratesAhoy!
Perhaps people can try that one and see what difference that makes.
 
I just wanna say now the system finally seems to function right I have time to optimize it. I mean just look at the last week how much I improved it already.
Here is a new version:
Needs Testing - Leveling: Sudden Huge Amounts of XP Gained | Page 20 | PiratesAhoy!
I think this will tackle some of the complaints about the jerkyness at the start.
In early game this should work quite well now. But in later game it might increase loadtimes a bit between area's. I will see if I can work on that a bit more but I would need some data first to actually know if this is a problem. Seeing most of the normal characters should be initialized by then. It's only monsters getting a high enough level which are moved to the loadtime, but by then I think it shouldn't be a problem.

I will try to make another update today which hopefully tries to optimize some of the other functions which are called on land a lot.
 
Thansk for continuing to work on this, @Levis! Hopefully we can narrow down where all the recent concerns come from and get them addressed once and for all! :cheers
 
If I understand recent feedback correctly, this may be "Fixed".
Just in case, I'm marking it as "Needs Testing".
 
still trying to improve performance on locations with many fantoms. but we're talking about max 5 seconds which are a bit slower then usual.
 
@Levis about this section of code:
Code: 
  if(rank>1)
   {
     if(AllowCharacterPostInit() && rank < 15)
     {
       AddToPostInitQueue(chref, rank);
     }
     else
     {
       AddXPtoChar(chref, "", CalculateExperienceFromRank(rank)); //Bypassing multipliers and shared experience
       FinishCharInit(chref);
     }
   }
What is that rank check of 15 for?
Could that potentially mean that the jerky behaviour would return in the later game? :confused:
 
Pieter Boelen said:
@Levis about this section of code:
Code: 
  if(rank>1)
   {
     if(AllowCharacterPostInit() && rank < 15)
     {
       AddToPostInitQueue(chref, rank);
     }
     else
     {
       AddXPtoChar(chref, "", CalculateExperienceFromRank(rank)); //Bypassing multipliers and shared experience
       FinishCharInit(chref);
     }
   }
What is that rank check of 15 for?
Could that potentially mean that the jerky behaviour would return in the later game? :confused:
Click to expand...

The rankcheck is to prevent the jerky behaviour in later game. If a character is higher then level 15 he will be calculated during the loadtime instead of the runtime.
 
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