The mysterious slowdown bug

[Guest Shido]

I've been reading some of the posts here, and I think I may have found the possivle cause to the slowdown bug. From what I can see, the bug is caused by three things working together to cause latency: First, and most important, is CPU. If your CPU is 1gb or less (*cough*getanewone*cough*) then you might want to run only the necessary programs in windows to prevent slowdown. If you are savvy like that, and can handle the risk of hosing your windows session, go into the Administrator Tools/Settings menu and turn off everything you know you'll be needing. Not disable, just stop the service.

 

The second problem lies, i believe, with two facets of the same issue: bags. If one has any type of bottomless bag script installed, and has one or many, this can cause the script to hang while it indexes the items in the bags. The solution to this is to either drop the bag, remove the mod that makes it bottomless, or get a better CPU >_>.

 

Third is the Override folder, specifically size. I'm not quite sure of the relationship, but the more files one has in their override folder the more lag can occur. If you have lots of mods installed, you're probably going to lag.

 

From what I can see, the problems all distill down to the system load generated by the scripts. Large Overrides, bottomless bags, and lots of items increase the CPU load and cause the script to hang every time it indexes your items. Since there is only so much you can do software-wise to solve this, it is generally a good idea to get a new CPU and/or disable CPU intensive services for the duration.

 

 

Sorry for the massive textblock post, but I thought I might share my hypothesis as to whats causing the lag.

 

Best of luck.

[Azazello]

All 3 points have already been deduced and discussed - ad nauseum - in this and other forums.

 

Point 1 is definitely inconclusive because I and other never had the stutter on P3's and P4's. In fact, one could make a correlation between the increase in frequency of stuttering reports and the proliferation of higher speed processors. (BTW, you meant 1 GHz processors, not 1Gb).

 

And again, why was this posted in Cirerrek's forum?

[Guest Shido]

All 3 points have already been deduced and discussed - ad nauseum - in this and other forums.

 

Point 1 is definitely inconclusive because I and other never had the stutter on P3's and P4's. In fact, one could make a correlation between the increase in frequency of stuttering reports and the proliferation of higher speed processors. (BTW, you meant 1 GHz processors, not 1Gb).

 

And again, why was this posted in Cirerrek's forum?

 

 

right, sorry. If a mod wishes to, please delete this, I hadn't realized how much it had been covered.

[Hodor]

All 3 points have already been deduced and discussed - ad nauseum - in this and other forums.

 

Point 1 is definitely inconclusive because I and other never had the stutter on P3's and P4's. In fact, one could make a correlation between the increase in frequency of stuttering reports and the proliferation of higher speed processors. (BTW, you meant 1 GHz processors, not 1Gb).

 

And again, why was this posted in Cirerrek's forum?

 

 

right, sorry. If a mod wishes to, please delete this, I hadn't realized how much it had been covered.

 

At least you gave it a shot. Honestly it's pretty mysterious to me, with a Core2Duo system, to have slowdown. I have a modestly sized Override (300 megs). I have bottomless bags, but I don't even need them to be bottomless, I don't have much stuff in them. I had the problem long before I got massive ammo/potion stacks. I've exhaustively researched installing BP-Detectable spells, and have it installed perfect. I've got a completely clean stats.ids. The stuttering is when the AI is active, and whether the characters move or not. It's BARELY noticeable when stationary, pretty much only by watching the time pendulum swing, but once the characters move you can tell, and in high action periods it's laggy. Without the AI, or with other scripts, it's smooth as can be.

 

Cirerrek, I posted in another thread farther down that uninstalling Norton fixed my problem. I thought it did, but it came back up again. I have looked through all the threads, and haven't found anyone who completely fixed the issue.

[Hodor]

With the same config as above, I tried the scripts on a almost fresh install.

 

52.3 meg override folder.

 

// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name
~SETUP-BPDETECTSTAT.TP2~ #0 #0 // Big Picture Detectable Stats, v1.2 (WeiDU)
~SETUP-ESERIES.TP2~ #0 #0 // eSeries v1.8
~SETUP-DUNGEONBEGONE.TP2~ #0 #0 // Dungeon Be Gone V1.4

 

Assigned eSeries scripts to the 5 characters. Good ole Abdel, Minsc, Imoen, Jaheria, Yoshi. eFighter, eFighter, eMage, ePriest, eThief.

 

Stuttering when moving back and forth in the First room, 2nd level of Irenicus' dungeon. Map was not revealed. No equipment equipped. No bags, nothing. Stuttering was in fact worse than with my save game in the docks moving back and forth, from the post above. Maybe the same, seemed worse.

 

It's not another mod component. I doubt it's the install of the game, It's full for me, and I used the clean install tactics that are at PPG. Override folder, weidu.log, chitin.key, dialog.tlk, baldur.ini and BGMain.exe. Unless DBG messed something up, or theres something in the fixpack that stops the stuttering but some other mod that puts it back in again, it's not the mod installs.

[Miloch]

Well the real confirmation would come if you uninstalled eSeries then tried the same run without it and got no stutter. But I think enough other people have confirmed a slowdown with the scripts (and with large scripts in general) that it's probable cause at this point. Unfortunately, I don't know if cirerrek is actively maintaining or optimising these scripts anymore.

[cirerrek]

Well the real confirmation would come if you uninstalled eSeries then tried the same run without it and got no stutter. But I think enough other people have confirmed a slowdown with the scripts (and with large scripts in general) that it's probable cause at this point. Unfortunately, I don't know if cirerrek is actively maintaining or optimising these scripts anymore.

 

I'm on sabbatical from BG2 while playing NWN2.

 

I've been pretty unresponsive on this topic for a number of reasons.

 

I don't have much time anymore to play. Raising kids will do that to you.

 

I've never been able to reproduce the problem on my end although, I have not played much with the most current versions.

 

I'm neither a programer nor an IE guru. My patience for troubleshooting this kind of thing is pretty close to zero.

 

If it can be confirmed that it is the eSeries (and not just someones funky install) is the cause of the problem and someone can point me to a piece of offending code. I'll be happy to fix it.

 

Since I'm adopting this attitude and customer service is really where it is at, this really means that I should pass on the eSeries/gMinion to a worthy (hopefully more worthy) champion.

 

Any takers?

 

Job Description:

• Must be handy with WeiDU
  
• Friendly with Cam (Gibberling Status a +)
  
• Demonstrated IE Scripting Ability
  
• Have realeased a mod of some sort, preferrably AI related
  
• Must promise to update the scripts to use Nythrun's upcoming version of Detectable Effects and Champion getting all mods that use Detectable Effects upgraded to Nythrun's version
  
• Maintain the scripts at G3 for as long as Cam is willing to host them
  

 

Winner gets a relatively large Excel spreadsheet with all the spells spells, items, etc., that are scripted for the eSeries/gMinion and a list of things I was thinking about workng on before other issues drew my attention elsewhere. And anything else they want from my 'development environment' for the scripts. And oh, you are welcome to ask me questions about the scripts which I will answer to the best of my ability, hopefully in a timely fashion.

 

Thanks,

[Guest Guest]

You might want to start a new topic for this request. More people will see it. Maybe even repost it on a couple of other boards. You need exposure.

[Hodor]

In my opinion, this issue must be caused by something all the stutterers have in common. A piece/brand of hardware on their computers. A configuration setting perhaps, but it'd have to involve the AI.

 

I think it's apparent that it is not another mod. I had the slowdown both with and without DBG, so having that installed on my test should not matter.

It's not the cache.

It's not an override up to 300 megs.

It's not bottomless bags filled with stuff, or huge stacks of pots/ammo. Unless those bags/stacks affect you after dropped on the ground and moved to another area.

It only happens with the AI turned on, and eSeries scripts enabled.

I had it with the included BG2 character export, the fighter, Abdel, and pure default Immy/Jaheira/Minsc/Yosh. The only things I had installed were BP-DS, eSeries, and DBG.

It's not always a Anti-Virus program or other system process. You saw the task manager I posted.

 

This is extremely mystifying to me, and I'd REALLY like to fix it. Not even so much because it's a problem in the game. It's just a problem that needs solving.

 

Could it be a Windows service I have disabled? I disable many, and I haven't had problems in other games. I thought I had fixed this before, on a previous install of Windows, with some different hardware on my PC. I had uninstalled Norton Anti-Virus, and I could have sworn it ran smooth as silk, with AI on, after that. But now, I don't have Norton, and it's bad to stuttering.

A driver issue?

I have a hard time believing these things, because it's only an issue with the AI scripts on.

 

I'm starting to lean more to the idea that everyone has it, but most people don't notice it.

[Miloch]

Yes, you repeated all the points you made above, but you didn't confirm whether it goes away if you uninstall eSeries and try some of the same things. I would guess it does but I don't like guessing when it comes to testing. I don't like testing either, but that's a different story.

 

The game AI scripts by default are a mere few lines of code. Due to the nature of the AI, when you have it on, the scripts pretty much run all the time and they run pretty fast and intensively. When you expand the scripts from a few lines to hundreds of lines of code, and you put such scripts on all your party members, and possibly other creatures, what do you expect? There will likely be slowdown/stutter issues, and they will vary by machine power. We've seen it with eSeries, we've seen it with Yovaneth's sgSeries, we've seen it with SCS's Smarter Mages - although the latter issue decreased quite a bit when DavidW optimised the scripts to skip irrelevant blocks or not run at all until conditions are right. Though those scripts were for enemies, so they're a bit easier to optimise (you just don't let them run until a PC comes close). But I would suggest maybe doing similar optimisation for these scripts. As you can see above, the author doesn't have the time for the optimisation, so all you can do is either hope someone else does or try to learn something about how the scripts work yourself, which you can do by studying them and the materials available on this site and others.

[cirerrek]

Yes, you repeated all the points you made above, but you didn't confirm whether it goes away if you uninstall eSeries and try some of the same things. I would guess it does but I don't like guessing when it comes to testing. I don't like testing either, but that's a different story.

 

The game AI scripts by default are a mere few lines of code. Due to the nature of the AI, when you have it on, the scripts pretty much run all the time and they run pretty fast and intensively. When you expand the scripts from a few lines to hundreds of lines of code, and you put such scripts on all your party members, and possibly other creatures, what do you expect? There will likely be slowdown/stutter issues, and they will vary by machine power. We've seen it with eSeries, we've seen it with Yovaneth's sgSeries, we've seen it with SCS's Smarter Mages - although the latter issue decreased quite a bit when DavidW optimised the scripts to skip irrelevant blocks or not run at all until conditions are right. Though those scripts were for enemies, so they're a bit easier to optimise (you just don't let them run until a PC comes close). But I would suggest maybe doing similar optimisation for these scripts. As you can see above, the author doesn't have the time for the optimisation, so all you can do is either hope someone else does or try to learn something about how the scripts work yourself, which you can do by studying them and the materials available on this site and others.

 

There is a cutoff in the eSeries so that the majority of the scripts aren't running the entire time, just some top level stuff that needs to happen outside of combat.

 

Question that come to mind. Note I'm not promising any detailed troubleshooting, just throwing out some questions/ideas.

 

Does everyone that use the scripts have slowdown problems?

 

I'm talking outside of major battles and certain battles where there is so much going on that the game just bogs down?

 

It is only on Macs or PCs or both? Seems like both from the info here.

 

Hey, look on the brightside, at least your characters don't 'teleport' while jogging down the street. In NWN2 sometimes the the characters just pop to a new location down the street when things bog down. Also you get to see characters 'slide' into combat, their feet don't much they just sort of ooze over to you.

 

Testing is tedious business. It is all about isolating the bit of code that is a problem, which means a bunch of of DisplayHeadStrings() need to be added to segments of the scripts. That is if it is actually a problem with the scripts and not the game engine or your rig. The last two are even harder to figure out and fix.

 

Does it have anything to do with the scripts being compiled with WeiDU rather than NI? I've got version before and after.

 

External components, such as Detectable Spells? Don't install it. Do the slowdown still happen?

 

P.S. I'm listening to some Wolfmother, an Aussie band. Modern day, Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, Ozzie Osbourne sound. Pretty good stuff.