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Lag and lag prevention

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by Wa.luigi.time, Nov 12, 2017.

?

Are you having any lag issues?

  1. Yes

  2. No

Results are only viewable after voting.
  1. Wa.luigi.time

    Wa.luigi.time Subatomic Cosmonaut

    I have posted this thread because i and many others have been dealing with massive lag issues.
    I am hoping any of you could give some advice on how to minimalize lag in Starbound.
     
  2. FoxDE2

    FoxDE2 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    A lot of games load stuff before you actually get into it. Like for instance, it may take about 1-2 minutes to load a level, but then the level is completely seamless and lag free. Maybe if they did something where everything was pre-loaded as opposed to loading as soon as you reach it, that'd help.

    To better reiterate, if it took like 2-5 minutes every time you teleported to the actual planet, but there was no lag ON the actual planet, that'd probably make the experience more enjoyable for players. I know I hate walking and getting stuck in blocks of un-loaded pixels. I'd prefer to wait before actually getting to the planet and having that not happen. I think traditionally that's how most console games work.
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2017
    Wa.luigi.time likes this.
  3. Umbrilla

    Umbrilla Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Starbound need more performance changing in the settings. The zoom function is nice, but it needs more such as the changing of quality, chunk render, parallax options, and more. This will help the kinds of players with low-end PCs, not only that, but this will also benefit players that want to run huge mods like Frackin' Universe.
     
  4. lazarus78

    lazarus78 The Waste of Time

    The game loads planets in chunks. If you encounter lag, then it is likely generating chunks you haven't been to yet. Pre-loading wouldn't really work because it would require a ton of memory to actually load it all into. Chunk loading is actually the more preferable method. Minecraft uses this method too. (Though, truth be told, I would love a way to make limited worlds in minecraft and have them load completely... Seeing things just dissapear as chunks unload is jarring.)
     
  5. FoxDE2

    FoxDE2 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I'm sure they could find a way to do both. Let it load in batches and let it load most of its content at the beginning of the planet's loading. If they found a way where they could do it so it loads in chunks AND most of the important information of the planet was already pre-loaded, then the chunks would load much faster and people wouldn't even notice it. I mean as I said, other games let you load everything before you even get to the stage so I know it's possible to do it that way. They just need to tweak the way they currently make things load.
     
  6. lazarus78

    lazarus78 The Waste of Time

    Load in batches? You mean chunks... like it already does. The chunk loading is already very fast. If you mod out the teleport delay, you will see it loads up in fractions of a second. The "most important information" are the chunks around you when you spawn. What else would be more important than the immediate world that you are interacting with at any given time?

    Loading the whole world into memory would drastically increase the requirements for the game, so that is basically out of the question off the bat. Having it generate everything before hand would be quite process intensive and would bean an initial long delay as it generates. This is also bad design because what if you never even go to 90% of it? That would mean massive file bloat for no reason.
     
  7. FoxDE2

    FoxDE2 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    True, but the problem is there's sometimes intense amounts of lag. I sometimes get stuck in the side of one of those chunks as my character hovers in midair and the enemies spawn in a seizure-like spasm as they teleport from one portion of the screen to the next like it was some kind of stop-and-go drug trip. I feel that this can be corrected by at the very least pre-loading everything on the surface and one chunk above the surface (it'd reduce the amount of requirements and it'd load only load stuff the player might actually see.) The rest of the stuff would load normally and it'd probably decrease the amount of time it takes for chunks to disappear when they haven't loaded in front of you on the surface.
     
  8. lazarus78

    lazarus78 The Waste of Time

    As I said, the loading of chunks is actually very fast. If you are running into those invisible walls it means the chunks havent even been generated yet, thus the lag. In order to "pre-load" as you say, then it would have to basically pause the game so it can generate all the necessary chunks. This would be time consuming (As in upwards of several minutes depending on your processor), taxing for even more powerful computers, and would require a lot more memory than the 1-3GB the game can already use up already, once again, upping the system requirements.

    Additionally, having the chunks loaded means they are active, so any NPCs in those chunks will actively be processed This would be another big performance hit on its own. Rain? Water physics? all needs to be processed.

    The system in place now really is the best option. A lot of things could be solved by pre-loading, like rain magically getting inside when part of your home is unloaded off screen, but it creates many other new problems that are just unacceptable.

    If anything, maybe an option to increase the number of chunks loaded around you off screen a little bit, but that wouldnt solve the invisible walls from unloaded chunks.
     
  9. Broxogar

    Broxogar Space Hobo

    I was having lag issues on singleplayer and when hosting a local multiplayer. My network is fine and handles things well.

    The fix that I found was to move my install to my SSD. It seems as though SATA hard-drives bottleneck. I know it doesn't seem like a game like this should have that issue, but that was the fix for me.

    Hope it helps.

    Brox
     

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