Slowdown

[boulou]

I've seen Agrippa aluding to it in another post, and this seems to happen to me on a regular basis.
When I start the game it runs smooth and fine. After a while though, play becomes a little lagged (e.g. it may take a second or two for a simple unit click). If I exit the game at this point and restart, it plays fine again.

I don't really know what is happening behind the scene (memory issue?), but I was wondering if others are experiencing the same issue. Perhaps this could be solved easily by changing some settings... any suggestion ?

[Erik Rutins]

This was an issue in the first few beta patches. What version are you running? Try updating to v1.01g if you have not already done so.

[boulou]

Erik,

I've been running any latest update available since day 1. I noticed the issue while running 1.01e. Have installed 1.01g today and will see if it is any better.

[Erik Rutins]

Hm - let me know if v1.01g helps at all.

How much memory do you have in your system?

[boulou]

I have 2GB memory so that shouldn't be the issue. FYI, I'm running XP SP2 with intel core duo 4300. Graphics card is GeForce 8800 GTS. Overall, a pretty decent config to run the game.

I've just played an hour or so without noticing significant slowdown. However, the CPU is used at least 50% constantly, even when no game is in progress (that is, just the interface). This doesn't look right, does it ?

[mbelew]

ORIGINAL: boulou
I've just played an hour or so without noticing significant slowdown. However, the CPU is used at least 50% constantly, even when no game is in progress (that is, just the interface). This doesn't look right, does it ?

That looks right for the interface. The render-loop uses similar drawing techniques as the game, and it never stops unless it gets a message from Windows.

[boulou]

ORIGINAL: mbelew
That looks right for the interface. The render-loop uses similar drawing techniques as the game, and it never stops unless it gets a message from Windows.

it may work the way it is intended, but it doesn't feel 'right' to me. Why should a simple interface consume half of my computing power for nothing except being there? Just looks like a waste to me...

[Erik Rutins]

The interface is actually using the 3D DirectX engine and is looking for player input. It consumes less than 50% on mine and in general PCK consumes very few resources for me and reduces its footprint nicely when minimized, but YMMV.

[z1812]

Hi All,

I had slowdown once where unts were moving in slow motion. I saved, closed, and restarted and all was fine.

I also find load rates for the order phase long. The reaction phase is fine but I spend as much time waiting for the orders turn to load as I do plotting moves. God knows how long it will take when maps are bigger and actions larger. I wonder have others experienced the same.

AMD Athlon 64 dual 3500, 2G ram, 256 MB video card. No problems with other games at all.

Regards John

[rickier65]

I'm playing the 2nd battle in the Mcensk campaign and it's the first time I've actually noticed a slow turn during the "Simulating turn" period - But there are a LOT of units here - more than the panel holds But I have a copy of "An Army at Dawn" by Rick Atkinson sitting at my elbow - so when it starts cranking - I go thorugh a few paragraphs.

Course, my comp is single core 3.3 Mhz with maybe 2 Gb ram and shared, on board video - so probabaly slow compared to yours.

Rick

[Erik Rutins]

Oh, some scenarios will definitely be slow to calculate. The Kursk and Mcensk ones in particular are pretty high density. That's to be expected and is not a bug.

What I'm concerned about are any reports that have things working fine and then slowing down even when not calculating after an hour or two of play. I believe we solved that issue, which was introduced during one of the beta updates, but I'm keeping an eye on it. So far, no slowdowns here on our test systems.

[boulou]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Oh, some scenarios will definitely be slow to calculate. The Kursk and Mcensk ones in particular are pretty high density. That's to be expected and is not a bug.

What I'm concerned about are any reports that have things working fine and then slowing down even when not calculating after an hour or two of play. I believe we solved that issue, which was introduced during one of the beta updates, but I'm keeping an eye on it. So far, no slowdowns here on our test systems.

Hi Erik,

it looks like this is not entirely solved from my end... I'm playing the first Kharkov scenario and again experienced slowdown after a while. It was not very significant but I could notice the difference after quitting the game.
Also, any suggestion on things I might want to try to reduce the amount of computing power used by the interface ?

Thanks.

[Erik Rutins]

Hm, this is pretty mysterious. On a 1GB test system here I am not seeing the slowdown with v1.01g. Is anyone else seeing this with the latest versions (feel free to chime in if you're lurking)?

Are there any background processes that may be running and causing these slowdowns on your system?

Regards,

- Erik

[boulou]

No process running and affecting CPU in any significant way that I can see, at least... I wouldn't bother you otherwise! [:D]
I've occasionally checked during a game in progress and it looks like it is just consuming a lot of resources on my machine.

[z1812]

Hi Erik,

The battle where I see a slowdown on order turn processing is quite a small one. 11 vehicles and 5 sqauds on the German side.

regards John

[Erik Rutins]

Ok, just to make sure we're all on the same page...

Slowdown "bugs":

1. A memory "leak" was introduced in an early 1.01 beta version. We fixed this as far as we can tell. This is the one that caused (especially on lower memory machines) a progressive slowdown of the entire game, including interface responsiveness. Exiting the game and restarting from the same save file would fix this. This is already fixed as of 1.01h.

2. The redone collision code, for one 1.01 beta version, could occasionally cause extremely long "Simulating Turn" calculations. This has already been fixed as of 1.01h.

"Normal" slowdowns:

1. Anytime reinforcements enter at the start of a turn, there is a pause as new models are added to the map. A lot of additional reinforcements can make for a longer pause. This should only happen at the start of a new turn and will not recur every turn unless every turn has reinforcements coming in.

2. Scenarios with lots of units on either side can be slow to calculate due to the complex relative spotting. The calculation time increases as the number of units with LOS to each other goes up. This shows up as additional time spent during "Simulating Turn" calculations.

Given the above definitions, could you be as specific as possible as to where and when exactly you are seeing a slowdown and whether it appears to fit any of the above patterns?

Regards,

- Erik

[boulou]

Erik,

that's clearly the first one for me... It is not up to the point that the game becomes unplayable but there is a progressive slowdown as you describe, which clears out after restarting the game.
Running 1.01h as of today...

[z1812]

Hi Erik,

My slowdown is not related to anything you have mentioned. It is simply the loading time for the orders move. Otherwise the game is fine. I just can't understand why the orders turn takes a long time to load. On bigger maps with more units this will be a problem I wonder if others are experiencing this.

regards John

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: boulou
that's clearly the first one for me... It is not up to the point that the game becomes unplayable but there is a progressive slowdown as you describe, which clears out after restarting the game.
Running 1.01h as of today...

Ok, can you confirm for me the date and time stamp on the exe and dll files in your main installation folder please?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: z1812
My slowdown is not related to anything you have mentioned. It is simply the loading time for the orders move. Otherwise the game is fine. I just can't understand why the orders turn takes a long time to load. On bigger maps with more units this will be a problem I wonder if others are experiencing this.

That sounds a lot like the reinforcement delay, actually. Is this in all scenarios/turns for you?