View Issue Details

IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0005197Valley 1Bug - GameplayMar 30, 2012 1:57 pm
ReporterTNSe Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Status assignedResolutionopen 
Product Version0.540 (Beta Series 2) 
Summary0005197: Frameskip causing unpredictable results.
DescriptionIt seems like when the game starts skipping frames due to CPU starvation, collision detection breaks down.

- You run through pickups
- Counciousness shards pass through you

I do not believe this is an issue that is of high priority to be fixed, but just something you should note as a known issue.
TagsNo tags attached.
Internal WeightDiscussion Only

Relationships

related to 0005445 resolvedChris_McElligottPark Stuttering/dropped frames when entering new chunk 

Activities

TNSe

Nov 20, 2011 2:31 pm

reporter   ~0017552

- AI sometimes misses you entirely (like you weren't there)
- It becomes REALLY hard to use Storm Dash properly

Chris_McElligottPark

Nov 21, 2011 9:26 am

administrator   ~0017554

What sort of framerate are we talking about? Also: have you turned off dynamic skies to get yourself a better framerate?

TNSe

Nov 21, 2011 9:49 am

reporter   ~0017556

How do you enable showing of Framerate in AVWW?
Its not about low framerates, its mostly about skipping frames when the CPU is busy working with background tasks.
My framerate is fine if the only think I am doing is AVWW, but once I start watching livestreams and have webpages autorefresh in the background, things get icky.
Thus the "frameskip" being an issue.

Chris_McElligottPark

Nov 21, 2011 10:02 am

administrator   ~0017557

I see. You can see the framerate as part of the debug info when you hit F3, although there's a lot of other stuff that it will then show, too.

We've had folks routinely playing on about 6fps internally to test that, and weren't seeing this issue there, hence my wondering what sort of horrible framerate you must have been seeing, heh.

For this sort of larger skip, honestly I'm not sure that we'd be able to do anything about it. First of all, we've not seen it. But secondly, what you're really talking about is having a bunch of other stuff going on in the background and degrading the game experience, and the game experience is then... degraded.

Personally I tend to have two dozen programs up in the background while I play, and about 3-4GB of RAM in use not by the game, and I don't see the issue. That said, it's all stuff that is using CPU and RAM, not much that is using the GPU; watching livestreams or similar would be particularly disruptive to any game because they are both fighting over the GPU. I might try to duplicate this at some point by running some youtube videos or something while I'm playing, but it's not a high priority honestly because having the computer able to run something as heavy as streaming video in the background is a perq, not a requirement, for a game in my view.

The one potential fix I can think of for this (not the storm dash one, which is more or less un-fixable, but the collisions stuff) is to tighten up the auto-correct interval on position updates. Right now it's set to about 60px, so you never go through background tiles, but you could definitely skip over things that are smaller than that, like shards, pickups, some enemy projectiles, etc. The problem is, that sort of fix involves doing twice as much CPU work for collisions, as it then has to check all the collisions every 30px of space rather than 60px.

Given that this only happens under the circumstances you note at the moment, that's what makes me really not enthused to implement that, as I feel like it could degrade the experience for folks who have old computers that are able to play it at a really low framerate without these issues that you're seeing with background videos.

TNSe

Nov 21, 2011 10:23 am

reporter   ~0017558

I agree with you entirely, and I only reported to make sure that its on the "known issue" list if someone down the line reports the same.

The most annoying part is the difficulty of getting off the Storm Dash properly :P

I'll check my FPS and report back.

TNSe

Nov 21, 2011 10:42 am

reporter   ~0017559

Config:
1440x900x32bpp Windowed mode on ATI Radeon HD 6670 @ 1680x1050
Cloud quality 11.
Rest on default

I am currently playing video from:
http://pro.majorleaguegaming.com/live/starcraft_2?slug=scRed
Using Opera 12.00 Alpha w/Hardware accel enabled (opera:gpu)

Strategic view: 8-9fps
Settlement management: 7fps
Ingame: 20-30fps depending on action
Settings window: 47-50fps

Closed video stream
Strategic view: 50-55fps
Settlement: 23fps
Ingame: 50-70fps
Settings window: 61fps

Chris_McElligottPark

Nov 21, 2011 12:01 pm

administrator   ~0017560

Okay, thanks for the added info! That's really everything we could ask for on that.

tigersfan

Jan 27, 2012 3:25 pm

reporter   ~0018261

Is this something that anyone is actually still seeing? Or have some of the performance fixes helped this?

laughing_man

Jan 27, 2012 3:32 pm

reporter   ~0018265

I can confirm it is happening to me. Not sure if it is related to this issue:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=5445

Chris_McElligottPark

Jan 27, 2012 3:35 pm

administrator   ~0018267

In that case your framerate must be generally low, meaning that dynamic skies really need to be turned off on your machine -- on older GPUs, that accounts for 90% of the graphics load, and you can get far better performance without them.

TNSe

Jan 27, 2012 3:44 pm

reporter   ~0018272

I still get this occationally. Sometimes I fall through platforms due to untimely lag. Spells sometimes miss, pickups fly through me. It is a performance issue on my computer for sure, but I changed video card now. It is related to background tasks I am sure.

Chris_McElligottPark

Mar 30, 2012 1:04 pm

administrator   ~0021675

Still seeing this? I've not heard anything more about it.

TNSe

Mar 30, 2012 1:57 pm

reporter   ~0021680

I need to test it out. I stopped using the Beta version of Opera 12.00, and that seems to fix it (They enabled hardware acceleration of web content, and it seemed to impact everything else negatively.)

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Nov 19, 2011 1:40 pm TNSe New Issue
Nov 19, 2011 2:31 pm tigersfan Internal Weight => Fix Before Major Release
Nov 19, 2011 2:31 pm tigersfan Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Nov 19, 2011 2:31 pm tigersfan Status new => assigned
Nov 20, 2011 2:31 pm TNSe Note Added: 0017552
Nov 21, 2011 9:26 am Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0017554
Nov 21, 2011 9:49 am TNSe Note Added: 0017556
Nov 21, 2011 10:02 am Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0017557
Nov 21, 2011 10:23 am TNSe Note Added: 0017558
Nov 21, 2011 10:42 am TNSe Note Added: 0017559
Nov 21, 2011 12:01 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0017560
Jan 27, 2012 3:25 pm tigersfan Note Added: 0018261
Jan 27, 2012 3:25 pm tigersfan Internal Weight Fix Before Major Release => Discussion Only
Jan 27, 2012 3:25 pm tigersfan Status assigned => feedback
Jan 27, 2012 3:32 pm laughing_man Note Added: 0018265
Jan 27, 2012 3:34 pm tigersfan Relationship added related to 0005445
Jan 27, 2012 3:35 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0018267
Jan 27, 2012 3:44 pm TNSe Note Added: 0018272
Jan 27, 2012 3:44 pm TNSe Status feedback => assigned
Mar 30, 2012 1:04 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0021675
Mar 30, 2012 1:57 pm TNSe Note Added: 0021680