Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 21 to 36 of 36

Thread: Engine Updates & Zoning

  1. #21
    Sort of zoning, has this update fixed door lag at all?

  2. #22
    i dont have a definitie answer, but heres some deductive logic. Hopefully.

    Door lag came from loading all the stuff in the rooms beyond. The old code made the game load everything it had to in 1 frame iirc. This is no longer the case.

    As a result of that I would say, that if door lag isnt fixed altogether, it certianly wont rear its ugly head in anything like the way it did before. The rooms beyond will load of multiple frames and you shouldnt grind to a complete halt anymore.

  3. #23
    Pretty much sums it up yes, some drop in fps, but no total freeze.
    "Do not try and catch the hamster... that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth... There is no hamster, only a deadbeat rollerat..."

    [Social] Means: I don't think we removed any bosses because of bad pathing...there wouldnt be any left if we did :P

    AO Character Skill Emulator and Character Parser and AO Implant Layout Helper

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Mesanime View Post
    i dont have a definitie answer, but heres some deductive logic. Hopefully.

    Door lag came from loading all the stuff in the rooms beyond. The old code made the game load everything it had to in 1 frame iirc. This is no longer the case.

    As a result of that I would say, that if door lag isnt fixed altogether, it certianly wont rear its ugly head in anything like the way it did before. The rooms beyond will load of multiple frames and you shouldnt grind to a complete halt anymore.
    This is what I have never understood about AO. Any other game I have ever played loads the entire play field by the time you are in it, objects in the distance get bigger as you aproach them, rather then "popping" into view while you already see many objects behind them already.

    I used to get much better performance in AO with this same system, I would zone into an area and spin around with no lag or stutter. Then at some point the developers added a feature that the game wouldnt draw landscape untill you were facing it, and as you spun about, buildings etc would "fade" into view. Well at some point after that fading in was replaced with popping in, and each object seems to have it's own view distance, cities for instance I can see across a PF, while a simple sign pops into view when I am 20m from it, while other objects like npc's can pop at 10m sometimes, and 30m other times.

    I think the point is, they have tried so many things down the road that AO is now the game equivilant of a rusty old pick-up truck that has off-colored spray paint on the rust spots, duct tape holding the seats together, rope holding the bumper on and a screw driver stuck in the carburator to keep it running. It's sad.

    I was hopeful when these patch notes came out, but now that I see what they are really doing, I realize there is likely to be more stuff broken and more features removed/toned down/turned off then ever before. Good example would be animations in the distance skipping frames. Imagine watching players/npc's that the further they get away from you the less they do, they simply slide across the landscape in freeze frame. It's a typical band-aide lazy solution I have come to expect.

    Sorry, just how I feel, but that should bother you because I am a paying customer. Dont ask me why, i cant answer that at this time.
    why Why WHY ?!?!?!

  5. #25
    Yes, one of the reasons for this patch is the elimination of door lag. That, and making it less of a pain to run into areas with a high concentration of people (BTW, I like the term bore lag, who came up with that?).

    As for AO getting old and patchy: It's got something to do with AO being written by 30+ different programmers, and that's showing here and there, true. But to speak as someone who knows the patchiness from the inside: It's been getting a lot cleaner on the inside (partly because we're not that many programmers anymore), and every now and then, that reflects on the outside. Like this patch, which started its life as a bit of a cleaning-up operation. And that makes it possible to make some of the long-standing hacks obsolete. As an example, indoor dungeons have pretty much stopped the popping you describe, because we're being smarter about pre-loading stuff.

    We wish to do this for the outdoor areas as well. 16.4 is a step in that direction, but there's another part of the code that requires attention before we can. And as the person that made the fading of buildings disappear, let me say I'm sorry about that, but something in that code crashed a lot, and I have just never gotten around to replacing it - I was hoping I wouldn't need to, because said code should have been fixed by now.

    In general, I feel 16.4 is a great patch. It looks even better on the inside than it does when you're "just" playing it. Really :-)

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Enno Rehling View Post
    In general, I feel 16.4 is a great patch. It looks even better on the inside than it does when you're "just" playing it. Really :-)
    It'll be a great patch once you stop living up to your forum title
    "Do not try and catch the hamster... that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth... There is no hamster, only a deadbeat rollerat..."

    [Social] Means: I don't think we removed any bosses because of bad pathing...there wouldnt be any left if we did :P

    AO Character Skill Emulator and Character Parser and AO Implant Layout Helper

  7. #27
    Im coder by profession too, and around my workplace we have name for the effect you're describing Enno, you may have heard of it All code suffers from the "Elastic Band" effect.

    As time goes on, the code gets bigger sometimes, and changes alot with bug fixes, changes in functionality and other dodgy hacks This brings with it a stretching effect, and you can only get so far before it snaps.

    Maintenence, like what you describe in your post is the only way to prevent that, and whilst possible, it is a hell of a job

  8. #28
    The true test of this would have to be from Newland Desert to Hope. Each time you zone the game tries to load every little shack and box in there, plus the playercity just beyond its walls. I hate doing missions on my engineer simply because all of them are either in the middle of nowhere or are in Hope
    [[ RYUAHN | 220/21 Opifex Trader
    == Proud Member of Core ==
    [[ ALASTROPHE | 220/15 Solitus Martial-Artist

    Quote Originally Posted by Raggy View Post
    There is literally nothing wrong with {Shutdown Skills} in it's current incarnation. What should be being looked at is the reason why it's needed so much. E.g, the incredible amount of Alpha being thrown around and the fickleness of Evade profs.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cratertina View Post
    I walk in to BS... could not perk people... with 3704 AR and 300 AAD drain... NT facerolled me, shade instagibbed me, after a few minutes I just decided not gonna bother.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Mesanime View Post
    Im coder by profession too, and around my workplace we have name for the effect you're describing Enno, you may have heard of it All code suffers from the "Elastic Band" effect.
    We usually call it WTF.

  10. #30
    Well Enno I hope it does indeed come out well, looking forward to performance increase.

    As for the buildings fading in, I didn't mean to say I liked that, I hated it, what I meant was I had no lag issues before it, and once it you removed it is when I started seeing the studder and lag spinning around when entering a zone, even when there are no players and npc' present. The game simply ran much smoother for me back then.

    On the character animation over distance, please dont do this unless you can make it optional. I believe you said that you couldn't make it optional at this point, so just leave it out I love how you can see every creature going about it's business in AO, I dont want to see that change, and I am pretty sure the change wouldn't be well recieved by the masses, especially if its just for a couple fps... if it were for 20-30 fps sure.

    Well I hope it works out, and you can make me less of a skeptic.
    why Why WHY ?!?!?!

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Enno Rehling View Post
    We usually call it WTF.
    lol

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Enno Rehling View Post
    We usually call it WTF.
    That's odd, we usually call it that too...
    "Do not try and catch the hamster... that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth... There is no hamster, only a deadbeat rollerat..."

    [Social] Means: I don't think we removed any bosses because of bad pathing...there wouldnt be any left if we did :P

    AO Character Skill Emulator and Character Parser and AO Implant Layout Helper

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Mesanime View Post
    nope, compressed textures are off.
    I've found that zoning takes a lot longer if you've disabled compressed textures.
    I'd advise you to enable compressed textures unless you've got a really, really old graphics card that can't handle it. I had some issues with compressed textures in AO in the past.. but that was years ago.
    May your RD always kick in between death and reclaim.
    Honest Businessmen and women: The Mockers
    I eat Grid Armor nanos. *BURP* Hungry again!
    Power Users run Anarchy Online from Linux.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaghelion View Post
    I've found that zoning takes a lot longer if you've disabled compressed textures.
    I'd advise you to enable compressed textures unless you've got a really, really old graphics card that can't handle it. I had some issues with compressed textures in AO in the past.. but that was years ago.
    "Compressed texture use less memory space, but loading times will increase".

    Thats what it says about compressed textures, and ive always found it to be true. I turned them off because i zone slower with that option on, just like it says

    I appreciate your thoughts though, thanks.

  15. #35
    I havent actually tested compressed textures in some time.
    However on high end systems it's not impossible that it may be faster. Consider that the slowing down statement was made many many many many many many many years ago when the hardware landscape looked different from what it does today.
    Lord "Khalem" Trevallien -=- Fixer Kingpin, proud officer and Loremaster of Ancarim Iron Legion
    Sir "Eoemar" Trevallien -=- Supreme Creator
    http://ao.shadow-realm.org/ - The Shadowlands Library -=- http://ai.shadow-realm.org/ - The Alien Invation library
    http://bebot.shadow-realm.org/ - BeBot - An Anarchy Online Chat Automaton
    http://aodevs.com/ - Anarchy Online 3rd party developers resource

    "Frustration is not a good emotion when it comes to playing games."
    -- Former AO Game Director Marius Enge

  16. #36
    That is a good point, and tbh i have already turned em on, just to try 0.o

    Cant do any harm right?

Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •