Changes in COMBATLOG.LOG mechanics

thecylus · February 2016

Cryptic changed some mechanics about creating LOG-Files. A lot of people asked me if the Combatlog will still work, if STO keeps renaming the file from time to time. I can tell you: It works, without you needed to make any changes. Just use the Combatlog as always, there will be no change for you.
Of course you need to use ACT, but doesn't every serious player use Advanced Combat Tracker?

chillee · March 2016

Who uses ACT? If you define serious player as those who hold DPS records (or tryng to achieve them)... then ACT is an anachronism. CombatLogReader (CLR) or SCM are the undisputed standards these days.

sevexpar · March 2016

Hello,

The release notes mentioned a fix for the rotating combatlog filenames. Maybe I'm blind, but where is the launcher settings options? I have looked in the ARC launcher, the STO launcher, the options tab on the login screen and the options tabs in game.

Or am I a dunce and the update simply set the flag to not rotate the filename as a default?

Thank you for your help!

Sev

innuwarrior · March 2016

Add –NoAutoRotateLogs in your launcher, everything will go back the way it was.

nickhurl · April 2016

Trying to use combatlog in last 2 weeks, I'm finding it severely affecting my frame rates, to the point where PVE locks up & I have to log out of the game & re-start. I have a normal, slightly varying frame rate in game of 55-65fps, which remains stable until I activate combatlog.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I Have an 8core 4.0Ghz processor, an MSI Radion Twin Frozr R290 4Ghz GCard & 8Gig of ram on a fairly new MSI top end MoBo, So I am a bit baffled. Must be my age!

mustrumridcully0 · April 2016

Technically, the problem of log files - and especially the combat log - is that it writes text into a file on your hard disk, and it must do so sequentially, which probably means everytime something needs to be written in the log, the game stops until it has succesfully written that part. This means your hard disk will become a serious bottle neck.

There are basically two ways to improve this:
1) If you don't have it already, get a Solid State Drive.
You must ensure that the combat log is written on the SSD, of course, which probably at the minmum means the game itself would need to be installed there. Ideally, your operating system should also be installed on the SSD. Most modern SSDs probably will come with a software that will allow you to migrate from your old hard disk without reinstalling everything, but SSDs are more expensive than regular hard disks of the same size, and depending on the size of your current hard disk, you may need to prune a lot of stuff to "fit" things on the SSD.

2) Install the game on a RAM Disk.
This is such an exotic thing to do and would probably be very impractical due to the limitations of RAM Disks, that it's probably not a good idea. But just to explain: Basically, this creates a "logical" drive in your RAM. As such, it's as fast as your RAM, which is even faster than an SSD. But RAM is volative memory and is lost everytime your computer is turned off, for example, so there are practical limitations to what can be done there. There is software to do create such disks. With 8GB RAM, you probably have not enough memory for this anyway. AFAIK, you can't just set the combat log location, youi would need to fit the entire game in your memory.

dareau · April 2016

Random question/thought?

Would a 3.0 flash drive in a USB 3.0 port be "fast enough" for this?

mustrumridcully0 · April 2016

dareau wrote: »

Random question/thought?

Would a 3.0 flash drive in a USB 3.0 port be "fast enough" for this?

Maybe yes, maybe not? There might be more to it than just throughput, also the general latency is a concern, particularly since we talk about low data volumes here. I am not a hardware guru.

Search the internet for transfer rates and latencies/access times/seek times. This might be very device specific and require a lot of research.

Changes in COMBATLOG.LOG mechanics

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