Shield block lag

[Vakna]

Whilst constructing my capital ship, I've noticed extreme spikes in FPS lag every time I place more shield blocks after reaching about ~1m blocks. The lag is getting spikier and spikier the more I place, and also started for some reason giving me a "shields are down" warning when I'm placing more and every single time it's having to recharge the shields back up from zero, never seen this before.

I'm running an i5-3970 quadcore overclocked to 4.4Ghz - and it's maxing all four cores out at 100% load everytime I place a shield block, I find this hard to understand since I've done far more demanding things that haven't put my CPU under so much stress.

Any way I can fix this?

 

[Vakna]

Also.. what is wrong with my ship, higher shields than the shield limit, wat?

 

[der_scheme]

You are not alone:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/how...ass-thrust-power-shield-etc-calculations.438/
http://starmadedock.net/threads/how-do-some-players-use-reallyyyy-manyyyyy-shields.431/

Also, there's no shield limit that I know of.

 

[Vakna]

No I mean the shield displayed on my ship are higher than it's current max capacity, it is displaying 9.31m out of 9.26m. Weird?

Also, I checked the RAM stats, I'm nowhere near hitting my RAM limit according to the game, it's just maxing out my CPU and causing the FPS to drop massively everytime I move a shield block - which is pretty crazy since my CPU is a damn good one.

Also, could a mod move this to Game Support?

 

[Claru]

No I mean the shield displayed on my ship are higher than it's current max capacity, it is displaying 9.31m out of 9.26m. Weird?

Also, I checked the RAM stats, I'm nowhere near hitting my RAM limit according to the game, it's just maxing out my CPU and causing the FPS to drop massively everytime I move a shield block - which is pretty crazy since my CPU is a damn good one.

Also, could a mod move this to Game Support?

Moved.

 

[dark_J]

Whilst constructing my capital ship, I've noticed extreme spikes in FPS lag every time I place more shield blocks after reaching about ~1m blocks. The lag is getting spikier and spikier the more I place, and also started for some reason giving me a "shields are down" warning when I'm placing more and every single time it's having to recharge the shields back up from zero, never seen this before.

I'm running an i5-3970 quadcore overclocked to 4.4Ghz - and it's maxing all four cores out at 100% load everytime I place a shield block, I find this hard to understand since I've done far more demanding things that haven't put my CPU under so much stress.

Any way I can fix this?

same here this has been a problem since 0.14+ was released and the same goes for everything the more blocks you place the laggier it gets. also I noticed animated blocks cause more lag than none animated blocks just a heads up.

 

[Keptick]

I've also noticed this, it may be attributed to the moving textures on the shield block. Does it still lag when you look away directly after?

Here is a relatively similar topic, you may find some useful stuff in there:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/how-do-some-players-use-reallyyyy-manyyyyy-shields.431/

 

[Vakna]

It's definitely not a texture issue, lag isn't affected by looking in any particular direction, and my graphics card isn't breaking a sweat.

It's also lagging like a mother every time I load up the game with my ship in it, capping my CPU at 100% load, takes about a minute or so for the ship to fully load and then another minute or so for the lag to subside - for some reason my shields and energy are dancing between empty and full for a while before stopping.

I tried increasing the amount of RAM allocated to JVM's by using the -Xmx<RAMamount> line in the java runtime parameters, but it didn't actually do anything and Starmade is still using it's base amount of RAM, is there anyway to increase this in the launcher options? I don't think it's a RAM issue since the RAM isn't capping, but it couldn't hurt to have more available.

I honestly don't understand it, been years since I saw a game lag this badly, I have a pretty powerful system and can run anything the gaming industry has to offer at max settings comfortably - except Starmade, apparently. :\

 

[AndyP]

You can adjust the ram in the first launcher part (the one the news used to show up),
hit options in the top menubar, then click on memory settings.

For the other part, may you check your fps?
In case it is far over 200 its a good idea to enable vsync, or fix framerate, to reduce the load on the GPU.

And yes, groups of blocks seem to recheck each block on adding blocks to them.
This is really cpu intensive at some point.
There may be optimization needed on this, but so far this is the price for (nearly) unlimited scalability.

- Andy

 

[Vakna]

I always apply fixed framerate to 60 on any game - you can't physically notice a framerate above that anyway, so it's useless. In any case, my GPU isn't breaking a sweat at all, even with framerate fix turned off and running at silly high FPS - I have software that monitor's my GPU and CPU status.

Thanks for the RAM info though, I'll see if increasing that does anything.

 

[zorozeenee]

I have the same issue, despite the massive amounts of complaints given, to my knowledge their still isnt a solution. Even after getting 64 bit java and updating drives i got nothing. If someone has a solution please post a reply to this post.

 

[Orphaniel]

For the record, I've just finished putting a whole pile more shields on the Ravenlord with no issue.

So either it does not affect everyone, or my computer is just such a beast that I don't notice (very possible)

 

[Vakna]

For the record, I've just finished putting a whole pile more shields on the Ravenlord with no issue.

So either it does not affect everyone, or my computer is just such a beast that I don't notice (very possible)

It's really weird, because I'm running one of the best CPU's for gaming money can buy, and it's still capping at 100% core load whenever I try to add or move a shield block on my ship and causing huge lag spikes.

 

[dark_J]

It's really weird, because I'm running one of the best CPU's for gaming money can buy, and it's still capping at 100% core load whenever I try to add or move a shield block on my ship and causing huge lag spikes.

same this issue must be fixed by the time it gets released or I will never play starmade when it gets released lol.

 

[Vakna]

same this issue must be fixed by the time it gets released or I will never play starmade when it gets released lol.

I keep hearing there is a lot of block physics optimisation coming for next patch, maybe that will help.

 

[dark_J]

I keep hearing there is a lot of block physics optimisation coming for next patch, maybe that will help.

I have the beta build and there is no difference what so ever with cpu usage.

 

[0ldSkull]

Here's a solution: Stop placing more shield blocks.
At that magnitude you are getting an additional capacity of about 5 points per block, and additional regen of .05/sec. What is the point?
To put that in better perspective, each additional block is increasing capacity by .0000005% and regen by .0000004%.
Deliberately (excessively) pushing the limits of the game, or your computer, and then complaining about it really doesn't seem to serve any purpose. A suggestion for implementing a solution would be to adjust the shield curves so that additional blocks provide zero additional benefit before reaching this point.

 

[Vakna]

Here's a solution: Stop placing more shield blocks.
At that magnitude you are getting an additional capacity of about 5 points per block, and additional regen of .05/sec. What is the point?
To put that in better perspective, each additional block is increasing capacity by .0000005% and regen by .0000004%.
Deliberately (excessively) pushing the limits of the game, or your computer, and then complaining about it really doesn't seem to serve any purpose. A suggestion for implementing a solution would be to adjust the shield curves so that additional blocks provide zero additional benefit before reaching this point.

Your solution is not a solution, it's a personal opinion backed by irrelevant math, I'm not debating the value of adding more shields, I'm asking why it seems to be a problem for me. It's not pushing the game's limits because people have gone further without lag, and I refuse to believe one of the best CPU's in the industry is getting beaten by this. It's a code optimisation error, that's all.

 

[zorozeenee]

Your solution is not a solution, it's a personal opinion backed by irrelevant math, I'm not debating the value of adding more shields, I'm asking why it seems to be a problem for me. It's not pushing the game's limits because people have gone further without lag, and I refuse to believe one of the best CPU's in the industry is getting beaten by this. It's a code optimisation error, that's all.

And this issue has only persisted after 0.14. It was perfectly fine before. Something in the code that schema changed or added in 0.14 has caused this.

 

[AndyP]

Cross-linked this to a new issue created about this.

Bug 232#: Functional blocks placed in larger scales are really CPU intensive

There were improvements, but not enough and this should be addressed before release I think.

'watch' the issue in the tracker, to get immediate updates about it. =)

- Andy