Combating Invasion slowdown

[Fallen]

I run SF, and during the Krol invasion at certain points my computer would all but halt as the GM spammed new creatures into the room. Are there any setting I could turn off during invasions, or software related steps I can take to avoid this problem?

My computer is like a 1.2 gig, with 520 DDR ram. I have a cable modem. People on dialup weren't getting the slowdown I was experiencing. Anyone think of a few suggestions for me?

[StrayRogue]

Use wizard.

[Fallen]

Does anyone else that uses SF switch front ends when lag hits for whatever reason? It would take a bit of tweaking to get Wizard back up to par. I'll look into that, though.

[Fallen]

How about the settings for how far up the scroll bar will go, or the link system that SF uses? Could any of these affect lag? How about being linked to PSInet? Would that affect performance at all?

[Things2Come]

The scrollback history... whatever they call it.. will increase PC lag, as your PC has to store all that information. If you lower it to 1000-2000 lines, I think the default is 3000 that might help to improve your PC performance.

[Krendeli]

Mine used to be quite nice when I set the scroll back to 500.

[Artha]

You might try turning off links.

[Caede]

Turning off links (CTRL-L, I think?) will help a fair amount. Also close your inventory windows and make sure the auto-updated is off, close the room window, etc. You've probably already got most of that.

Best bet? Use Wizard. I switched to using Wizard again during some of the plant invasions last year to combat the lag and now I've basically stopped using SF all together. I think I'm regressing.

--
Caede

[Jayvn]

VIVA wizard

[grapedog]

hey, I've got a dual core 3.0ghz, 3gig ram system with maybe AIM running in the background and I got pretty severe lag last night with SF...

I just returned to the game, and SF offers a lot of stuff right up front that I am having trouble remembering how to do, or is new to me completely, that wizard doesn't offer, or offer nearly as easily...so I'm still battling back and forth between the two...I died in the invasion last night, though that was to do with a full stack of krolvin leg's and not lag.

I remember using the wizard and thinking it didn't need much in the way of improvements...

[Methais]

I run SF, and during the Krol invasion at certain points my computer would all but halt as the GM spammed new creatures into the room. Are there any setting I could turn off during invasions, or software related steps I can take to avoid this problem?

My computer is like a 1.2 gig, with 520 DDR ram. I have a cable modem. People on dialup weren't getting the slowdown I was experiencing. Anyone think of a few suggestions for me?

I don't know about SF but in the Wizard you can disable buffered screen updates which will fix that. Instead of the screen locking up and then getting a gigantic scroll all at once, it'll just scroll by really fast but won't lock up.

Wizard > SF anyway.

[Drisco]

I missed the invasion but I was still getting lag...

[grapedog]

just seems weird after playing much beefier games, to get lag in a text mud...

[FinisWolf]

I have noticed that the more windows I have open in SF, the more lag I will get.

So it would be my opinion to shut some of those windows off that you simply do not need during battle.

Perhaps export two set-ups. One for casual gaming, and another for invasions.

Finis

[Methais]

just seems weird after playing much beefier games, to get lag in a text mud...

Agreed. This is madness.
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This....is....SIMU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tolwynn]

just seems weird after playing much beefier games, to get lag in a text mud...

And just imagine the lag when they finally launch a game that has to push graphics as well. Their poor little server hamsters will have a series of aneurysms, no doubt.

[Drew]

just seems weird after playing much beefier games, to get lag in a text mud...



The number of objects tracked is comparable or greater to situations in other graphical games during an invasion. It's the same as getting non-graphical lag in any other game.

[Alfster]

And just imagine the lag when they finally launch a game that has to push graphics as well. Their poor little server hamsters will have a series of aneurysms, no doubt.

By 2025 they should have a new set of hamsters

[Celephais]

The number of objects tracked is comparable or greater to situations in other graphical games during an invasion. It's the same as getting non-graphical lag in any other game.

What? You're kidding right? Keeping track of the objects should be incredibly simple, granted every time someone says "this should be easy" to a simu employee they get the "you have no idea how arcane our codebase is", but no this has nothing to do with the lag you see in graphical games. according to his symptoms it's client side, and graphical MMOs lag client side due to graphics, not AI or some sort of object tracking issues and turning down detail resolves that, yet each object's physics are still tracked, it just draws simpler/less primatives and less particles. It's clear that there are just fundamental performance mistakes in their code.

[The Ponzzz]

What's causing the lag are LINE BUFFERS and the number of windows you have open that are receiving activity due to the invasion. Sadly, I've always known SF to bog a little with anything under 2GB of ram. It's not the best designed FE to handle what it's made for.

From the OPTIONS in the top right corner, go to advanced and drop the screen buffer from 2000 to about 1000(or 500). You can also turn deaths off and thoughts off.

Sucks, but I had to do that for awhile when I had my old desktop PC with 1GB of ram.