hmm; Just as a question; how many units do you generally have on the map at once? Does the lag start as a flicker "Player 2 is lagging" for a second, and then a few minutes later, they are lagging for 10 seconds; and a few minutes later, they lag right out?
Unit count; animations running, missiles, and behaviors can lead to lag. Just as some numbers; on my high end PC, 300-500 units visible at once can make me lag. 8000 buffs at once can make me lag a little, 12000 makes me lag hard. On mild computers, 200 units can be a death sentence (if they are battling) for weaker computers; 5000 buffs can be harsh on them as well. Doodads also, when used to excess, can cause lag. Some people use the "auto fill shrubs" or whatever option is in there. If you set that to anything above like, .1, you add adding too much chaos for weak end PCs. Personally, for me, if you set it extremely high, i lag from doodads alone.
If you have 100 visible units fighting, 3000 buffs, gamewide, 3000 doodads, and all of your triggers running; i can see how players might lag out due to system overload.
The only specific trigger with a high run time, is your top one there with the 100+ms run time. A single trigger with too large of a run time can be a problem; but that trigger only runs twice; and 100ms isnt, imo, bad enough to cause a game-over.
you can def. improve your performance by working with triggers; but there may be other ways as well. If you want a very simple test for doodads, backup your game; then remove 100% of your doodads, and try it; see if it runs better; if the drop rate is lower. For buffs, if you use buffs; you will just have to figure out how many units can be active at once; and how many buffs those units may have on them. If the answer is more than 3000; you should find a way to consolidate them.. judging by your screen shot; unit count doesnt look to be an issue; who knows though.
I'd say I have about 100 - 150 units on the map at once (50 fighting constantly). I have 211 total buffs and 75% of them are level 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 depending on what the player has chosen etc. That means that there are 92 unique buffs (yes, I counted them). Of course, not every buff is being used in every game, so I'd say there are 800-1500 buffs at the same time (at maximum).
Doodads also, when used to excess, can cause lag.Some people use the "auto fill shrubs" or whatever option is in there.If you set that to anything above like, .1, you add adding too much chaos for weak end PCs.Personally, for me, if you set it extremely high, i lag from doodads alone.
Do you mean foliage when you say "auto fill shrubs"? If so, I set that to 2.0 (because I wanted some more detail), which is about 15000 foliage models/actors xD
I've linked a picture of the entire map, so you can see how much detail there is.
Having a lot of buffs, especially buffs that trigger things like search effects, can really cut into your map's performance. Find ways to eliminate buffs that really aren't necessary to the value of the game or optimize important buffs to reduce the strain on system resources. You may also be able to use upgrades to replace certain buffs to further improve on game performance.
I feel like none of the things mentioned should even remotely come close to cause lag. Are you sure people are not just having connection issues or smth?
They've all told me that they crashed and then an error message popped up where they could choose to report the issue to Blizzard. I really doubt it's because of connection issues.
Before you go and gut out your hard work, try disabling the effects and see if that helps with performance. You can use the FPS counter as a general guide before and after.
Before you go and gut out your hard work, try disabling the effects and see if that helps with performance. You can use the FPS counter as a general guide before and after.
----
That would def. be a good check. How many search affects do you have going off at once; and what are the search times? For behavior periodics, you can usually get away with setting longer timers before the periodics (for aura type abilities, yeh know, search area, apply behavior) to even a couple of seconds.
If you have units that cast abilities; rather than attack; you could even set an attack to deal 0 damage; and then run the affect off the attack (rather than ordering ability casts constantly through a behavior)
It would also be worth it, just for a test, to set your foliage to a very low number. Foliage is a moving object on the map, so will contribute to lag. It is something you can easily check and change back also. Personally; to minimize lag from doodads and such; i tend to scale doodads very large; and use few of them. trees for example; should not be the size of my marine. they should be 3-4X larger than him; to show some scale. they also cover the visible area of 4 trees, while being 1 object.
Despite mille's optimism; the numbers I gave above I have personally tested with, alone offline, on battle bet, and multiplayer with a friend in game with a low-end pc to help me figure out that baseline. So, if you, or anyone, finds that their numbers are getting close to those, and you get lag issues.. well... trial and error.
It's possible, but if you're getting 180 fps on a "toaster" then performance may not be the real issue with the crashes. Try playing your game online, then look at the debugger log to see if there were any errors. This would be especially valuable if a player happened to crash during the game. You can also track the FPS during the multiplayer match (either write it down periodically or have triggers spit it out.)
I have 2 computers. One with 16 GB RAM, Intel Core i7 4770, GeForce GTX 660 (the fps test was done on this one). My "toaster", on the other hand, has 4 GB RAM, AMD C-60 APU, AMD Radeon HD 6290 Graphics.
Btw, I already did a debug check online with other players (which I mentioned in an earlier post), and there was no error.
They've all told me that they crashed and then an error message popped up where they could choose to report the issue to Blizzard. I really doubt it's because of connection issues.
Then it is totally unrelated to performance in any way. Such an error points towards an internal Starcraft engine error (also called "Critical Error") which can ultimately only be fixed by Blizzard, or you somehow figure out what in your map is causing the error. A critical error is basically a mistake in the Starcraft 2 engine that makes it crash under certain, rare circumstances.
As an example, we used to have a critical error in conjuntion with certain animation settings in data.
Then it is totally unrelated to performance in any way. Such an error points towards an internal Starcraft engine error (also called "Critical Error") which can ultimately only be fixed by Blizzard, or you somehow figure out what in your map is causing the error. A critical error is basically a mistake in the Starcraft 2 engine that makes it crash under certain, rare circumstances.
----
If you cap out your RAM usage, you can also have a crash error like that. Say you are running with only 2 GB or RAM on windows vista, and try to do... anything... and your RAM usage becomes 100%; you can crash out of a game.
Pathing is also a major issue for some people; if you have a very large map. All units are constantly calculating their pathing from A to B. In a map with 100 moving units which can collide with each other; every time a unit moves, another unit will have to recalculate its pathing to point B. If you only have 1 or 2 waypoints for your units; this could potentially be adding to the lag issue. "spawn at 1 corner of the map, walk to the other corner" is a lot of pathing to constantly calculate. If you have 5 markers between A and B, it only has to calculate pathing changes between each waypoint along the way.
As with everything else mentioned so far; im sure pathing alone isnt causing your problem. But if pathing is 10%, foliage is 10%,behaviors are 10%, unit count is 10%, and triggers are 10%; well, there is a 50% potential improvement!
I just took a game with one of the people who crashed every game, and it ran smoothly on his pc. He is not experiencing any stuttering anymore. Somebody else has also told me that his pc runs better in the game now.
To sum it all up, I disabled some of those triggers that ran +100 times a minute, and combined a whole bunch of them into one trigger. More than half of them consist of action definitions now, and finally, I've generated 751 foliage model/actors instead of the ridiculousness of 15000. Overall game performance has been improved, and it looks like it all works now (I can't be sure though).
Thank you all for helping me out. I've learned a lot from this.
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hmm; Just as a question; how many units do you generally have on the map at once? Does the lag start as a flicker "Player 2 is lagging" for a second, and then a few minutes later, they are lagging for 10 seconds; and a few minutes later, they lag right out?
Unit count; animations running, missiles, and behaviors can lead to lag. Just as some numbers; on my high end PC, 300-500 units visible at once can make me lag. 8000 buffs at once can make me lag a little, 12000 makes me lag hard. On mild computers, 200 units can be a death sentence (if they are battling) for weaker computers; 5000 buffs can be harsh on them as well. Doodads also, when used to excess, can cause lag. Some people use the "auto fill shrubs" or whatever option is in there. If you set that to anything above like, .1, you add adding too much chaos for weak end PCs. Personally, for me, if you set it extremely high, i lag from doodads alone.
If you have 100 visible units fighting, 3000 buffs, gamewide, 3000 doodads, and all of your triggers running; i can see how players might lag out due to system overload.
The only specific trigger with a high run time, is your top one there with the 100+ms run time. A single trigger with too large of a run time can be a problem; but that trigger only runs twice; and 100ms isnt, imo, bad enough to cause a game-over.
you can def. improve your performance by working with triggers; but there may be other ways as well. If you want a very simple test for doodads, backup your game; then remove 100% of your doodads, and try it; see if it runs better; if the drop rate is lower. For buffs, if you use buffs; you will just have to figure out how many units can be active at once; and how many buffs those units may have on them. If the answer is more than 3000; you should find a way to consolidate them.. judging by your screen shot; unit count doesnt look to be an issue; who knows though.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
@GlornII: Go
I'd say I have about 100 - 150 units on the map at once (50 fighting constantly). I have 211 total buffs and 75% of them are level 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 depending on what the player has chosen etc. That means that there are 92 unique buffs (yes, I counted them). Of course, not every buff is being used in every game, so I'd say there are 800-1500 buffs at the same time (at maximum).
Do you mean foliage when you say "auto fill shrubs"? If so, I set that to 2.0 (because I wanted some more detail), which is about 15000 foliage models/actors xD
I've linked a picture of the entire map, so you can see how much detail there is.
P.S. I really appreciate your help :)
@TheLazzoro: Go
Having a lot of buffs, especially buffs that trigger things like search effects, can really cut into your map's performance. Find ways to eliminate buffs that really aren't necessary to the value of the game or optimize important buffs to reduce the strain on system resources. You may also be able to use upgrades to replace certain buffs to further improve on game performance.
I feel like none of the things mentioned should even remotely come close to cause lag. Are you sure people are not just having connection issues or smth?
@BasharTeg: Go
Dammit! I have a lot of skillshot abilities that use search effects in a behavior >.< I guess I have to rework those.
@Mille25: Go
They've all told me that they crashed and then an error message popped up where they could choose to report the issue to Blizzard. I really doubt it's because of connection issues.
@TheLazzoro: Go
Before you go and gut out your hard work, try disabling the effects and see if that helps with performance. You can use the FPS counter as a general guide before and after.
Quote from BasharTeg:
@TheLazzoro: Go
Before you go and gut out your hard work, try disabling the effects and see if that helps with performance. You can use the FPS counter as a general guide before and after.
----
That would def. be a good check. How many search affects do you have going off at once; and what are the search times? For behavior periodics, you can usually get away with setting longer timers before the periodics (for aura type abilities, yeh know, search area, apply behavior) to even a couple of seconds.
If you have units that cast abilities; rather than attack; you could even set an attack to deal 0 damage; and then run the affect off the attack (rather than ordering ability casts constantly through a behavior)
It would also be worth it, just for a test, to set your foliage to a very low number. Foliage is a moving object on the map, so will contribute to lag. It is something you can easily check and change back also. Personally; to minimize lag from doodads and such; i tend to scale doodads very large; and use few of them. trees for example; should not be the size of my marine. they should be 3-4X larger than him; to show some scale. they also cover the visible area of 4 trees, while being 1 object.
Despite mille's optimism; the numbers I gave above I have personally tested with, alone offline, on battle bet, and multiplayer with a friend in game with a low-end pc to help me figure out that baseline. So, if you, or anyone, finds that their numbers are getting close to those, and you get lag issues.. well... trial and error.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
I just ran multiple tests with and without foliage on the map.
With foliage the fps goes from 170 (no combat) to 100 (combat) on extreme settings
Without foliage the fps goes from 180 (no combat) to 120 (combat) on extreme settings.
Personally, I'm beginning to think that the crashes are graphics-related, although my toaster could handle the game even with a debugger.
@TheLazzoro: Go
It's possible, but if you're getting 180 fps on a "toaster" then performance may not be the real issue with the crashes. Try playing your game online, then look at the debugger log to see if there were any errors. This would be especially valuable if a player happened to crash during the game. You can also track the FPS during the multiplayer match (either write it down periodically or have triggers spit it out.)
@BasharTeg: Go
I have 2 computers. One with 16 GB RAM, Intel Core i7 4770, GeForce GTX 660 (the fps test was done on this one). My "toaster", on the other hand, has 4 GB RAM, AMD C-60 APU, AMD Radeon HD 6290 Graphics.
Btw, I already did a debug check online with other players (which I mentioned in an earlier post), and there was no error.
Then it is totally unrelated to performance in any way. Such an error points towards an internal Starcraft engine error (also called "Critical Error") which can ultimately only be fixed by Blizzard, or you somehow figure out what in your map is causing the error. A critical error is basically a mistake in the Starcraft 2 engine that makes it crash under certain, rare circumstances.
As an example, we used to have a critical error in conjuntion with certain animation settings in data.
Quote from Mille25:
Then it is totally unrelated to performance in any way. Such an error points towards an internal Starcraft engine error (also called "Critical Error") which can ultimately only be fixed by Blizzard, or you somehow figure out what in your map is causing the error. A critical error is basically a mistake in the Starcraft 2 engine that makes it crash under certain, rare circumstances.
----
If you cap out your RAM usage, you can also have a crash error like that. Say you are running with only 2 GB or RAM on windows vista, and try to do... anything... and your RAM usage becomes 100%; you can crash out of a game.
Pathing is also a major issue for some people; if you have a very large map. All units are constantly calculating their pathing from A to B. In a map with 100 moving units which can collide with each other; every time a unit moves, another unit will have to recalculate its pathing to point B. If you only have 1 or 2 waypoints for your units; this could potentially be adding to the lag issue. "spawn at 1 corner of the map, walk to the other corner" is a lot of pathing to constantly calculate. If you have 5 markers between A and B, it only has to calculate pathing changes between each waypoint along the way.
As with everything else mentioned so far; im sure pathing alone isnt causing your problem. But if pathing is 10%, foliage is 10%,behaviors are 10%, unit count is 10%, and triggers are 10%; well, there is a 50% potential improvement!
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
It looks like I've solved the issue!
I just took a game with one of the people who crashed every game, and it ran smoothly on his pc. He is not experiencing any stuttering anymore. Somebody else has also told me that his pc runs better in the game now.
To sum it all up, I disabled some of those triggers that ran +100 times a minute, and combined a whole bunch of them into one trigger. More than half of them consist of action definitions now, and finally, I've generated 751 foliage model/actors instead of the ridiculousness of 15000. Overall game performance has been improved, and it looks like it all works now (I can't be sure though).
Thank you all for helping me out. I've learned a lot from this.