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Artifact hunting lines are totally unoptimized
farranor
Member Posts: 559 Arc User
While playing lots of Risa events today, I started getting frustrated with unusually long load times. When I load sector space, ESD, or almost any other map, loading the map takes 5-10 seconds. Loading Risa is currently taking one to two minutes, and while it grinds along, the load screen will occasionally turn black, or stop updating the screen entirely (even the showfps display gets frozen), or show my desktop. Eventually, though, it loads.
And sometimes - not always, but sometimes - do you know what I see in the first few moments of the map loading?
Do you know what I see?
I only realized it after seeing it a few times, but these red lines are the scan lines that are drawn on the ground when looking for temporal artifacts. You scan, the lines appear, they disappear.
But no, they don't disappear. They are still there. They are simply shoved a few z-layers down, below the floor textures. This is the sort of classic mistake that I expect to see from beginners working with graphical toolkits for the first time. The lines aren't even actually set to an invisible or undrawn state - they're drawn beneath the surface, so you can't usually see them, but they're still there, taking up resources. Humorously, any of these lines that occur inside the resort building (less common than outdoor lines, of course) are literally under the rug.
I just hope there's some mechanism in there for clearing them occasionally, or Risa will soon be unplayable (beyond the already-long load times).
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this wasn't the only example of poor optimization on this map. This is why Risa runs the way it does. Can we get someone to look into this?
P.S.: This screenshot is a frame from a video I took (after about two dozen runs of "switch character, load character" with no results, or less spectacular results). I can post the video if anyone is interested in a more detailed look at this phenomenon.
And sometimes - not always, but sometimes - do you know what I see in the first few moments of the map loading?
Do you know what I see?
I only realized it after seeing it a few times, but these red lines are the scan lines that are drawn on the ground when looking for temporal artifacts. You scan, the lines appear, they disappear.
But no, they don't disappear. They are still there. They are simply shoved a few z-layers down, below the floor textures. This is the sort of classic mistake that I expect to see from beginners working with graphical toolkits for the first time. The lines aren't even actually set to an invisible or undrawn state - they're drawn beneath the surface, so you can't usually see them, but they're still there, taking up resources. Humorously, any of these lines that occur inside the resort building (less common than outdoor lines, of course) are literally under the rug.
I just hope there's some mechanism in there for clearing them occasionally, or Risa will soon be unplayable (beyond the already-long load times).
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this wasn't the only example of poor optimization on this map. This is why Risa runs the way it does. Can we get someone to look into this?
P.S.: This screenshot is a frame from a video I took (after about two dozen runs of "switch character, load character" with no results, or less spectacular results). I can post the video if anyone is interested in a more detailed look at this phenomenon.
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@crypticspartan#0627
It definitely goes away before Fleet MOTD loads into the chat window, but it's an artifact of something.
Here's hoping there is a fix incoming soon. Like tomorrow and not letting this dragging out until normal maintenance on Thursday.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
Exactly. This is something that requires emergency maintenance, not leaving it to fester until Thursday.
@sqwished @crypticspartan#0627
My character Tsin'xing
@markhawkman Sure thing.
My character Tsin'xing
And now, red lines:
Red lines are now a common occurrence, they are much denser, they are on screen for several seconds before the map is playable, and it takes three and a half minutes to load Risa.
I generally avoid grinding event stuff like Omega particles and such, but this time I was going to really give it a try with grinding lolnuts for EC... but this map is unplayable. By next week it'll take ten minutes to load. The week after that, 15 minutes. By the time people are hoping to finish up their Flying High metrics grind ("free" ship, yeah right), it'll be up to 20 minutes. If people keep playing and doing the temporal artifact mission after the minimum 25 Flying High playthroughs and trying to, y'know, play the game, it'll probably get to upwards of half an hour.
Just to load the map.
Hire me. I'm local, I'll learn whatever language the game engine uses, I work well with others, and I have great attention to detail.
[img][/img]
I managed to capture this just before my game client crashed whilst "Attempting to flush the buffer". Also whats not shown in the screen shot, is that a number of npc in the distance, namely those standing on the board walk appear to flicker.
The problem isn't so much the lines are sometimes visible, so much as they aren't clearing, but remaining under the surface terrain, thus bogging everything up and increasing the loading times.
All fixed!
That's pretty much what we've been saying. It's sticking around and not clearing.
@kapla5571 /applauds
I saw something like that yesterday but couldn't replicate nearly so fantastic a result while recording. Thank you.
It looks like a bloodbath took place. lol
A bloodbath is what we'll have in a few weeks' time when people can't log in to Risa to work on their Vorgon project. >.>
You were probably lucky. Loading risa from character selection screen takes 5 minutes or more for me.
A lot of video games with static water do that, its easier then just making water volumes.
But yeah laoding into risa takes forever when it reaches 94-95% (I go have a cup of water go to the loo whatever and can get back to watch the loading screen..) Also a very strange thing I have noticed is at the transporter pad when you look at the finish barner the fps goes thru the roof to about 70-90 and when you look exactly in the opposite direction it drops to 20-30 during both times of day..
Adu-Uss Firefox NCC-93425-F (LVL 65 FED AoY ENG) UR/VR MKXV Fleet Intel Assault Cruiser (July 2016)
Jean-Uss Seratoga Ravenna (LVL 60 FED Delta ENG) UC/R MKVI Bajoran Escort (April 2018)
Dubsa-RRW Mnaudh (LVL 50 FED allied ROM Delta ENG) Warbird (May 2018)
Marop-IKS Orunthi (LVL 50 KNG Delta ENG) BoP (May 2018)
Kanak'lan-TRIBBLE (LVL 65 DOM Gamma ENG) TRIBBLE (June 2018)
\o/
With any luck, they've fixed the actual problem and reworked the artifact scan lines entirely rather than, say, adding "flush red lines" to the weekly maintenance downtime.
You're in luck! We fixed the actual problem.