1. Welcome to the Starbound support forums. Please check the support FAQs before posting: http://playstarbound.com/support

Closed More lag victims.

Discussion in 'Starbound Support' started by Ixziga, Dec 12, 2013.

?

How big of a problem is in-game lag?

  1. The biggest barrier to playing the game at the moment

    64.4%
  2. Not the biggest problem, but one that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later

    25.7%
  3. A small problem, but there are many more pressing issues

    8.9%
  4. Not a problem at all. No optimizations are necessary.

    1.0%
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Ixziga

    Ixziga Space Hobo

    I know that a lot of people are experiencing bad in-game lag. I'm not reporting it as a new problem, only verifying it as one that affects many people. I'm running the game on a laptop, quad core 8GB RAM with integrated graphics on each core. It's not a gaming rig or anything but I've never had problems running games on it either. My peak framerate is about 10 fps. I've tried admin mode, openGL, steam compatibility work-around, all the main tricks. While a few made slight improvements, none of them change the fact that the game suffers from unplayable amounts of lag. There are a lot of problems that need addressing, but I think the graphical optimization is the most pressing. For me, no issue in this game makes it as unplayable as the lag does, and in alpha stage the #1 priority should be making the game playable. I simply can't play the game until future updates.

    As a side note, I've had numerous crashes complaining about bad reads/writes on stack memory. These crashes usually happen when the game is minimized.
     
    StoutyMcStoutStout and AIex like this.
  2. Doodlydoodlydoo

    Doodlydoodlydoo Space Hobo

    I've been having the same problems. I'm running a Radeon HD6670, 2.5GHz quad core, and 8G of RAM. I've run Skyrim, Borderlands 2, and other games on highest settings without issue but a 2D, pixelated sand-box is making my system seem like an old commodore
     
    AIex and Wallmartkiller like this.
  3. Bernhardt

    Bernhardt Space Hobo

    I play this on an ancient laptop, which makes it kind of okay that my FPS is usually low, but seeing that people with great specs are having similar issues, I feel that there is a real problem here (I know that people know that the game is not optimized yet, but I'm simply talking about the scope of the problem currently).

    Given that this is an ancient laptop, I can still play a game called King Arthur's Gold perfectly. It is a team-based building game, like a combination of Soldat/Worms and Minecraft/Terraria. The game has collapsible structures and generally a physics engine that is a lot more complex than the one in Starbound.

    I vote "yes" for optimizing the game in the upcoming months.
     
    ageha, AIex and Wallmartkiller like this.
  4. nightarix

    nightarix Subatomic Cosmonaut

    honestly i doubt they'll optimize it at this stage, it seems more like something they'll work on at beta stage 2 or 3. mostly because they're more concerned with features and balance then low fps.(i don't have fps problems, at least none I've noticed, but I've had slow games before so i know it's an annoying thing to have.)
     
    AIex and RvLesh like this.
  5. Eyhzat

    Eyhzat Space Hobo

    Same here. I'm sure they will optimize it as the beta goes on.
     
    AIex and RvLesh like this.
  6. Bernhardt

    Bernhardt Space Hobo

    I agree, stages 2 and 3 will be where the optimization will happen.

    I wonder how long stage 1 is planned to be. Have they mentioned anything about this anywhere? I'm thinking is it a couple of weeks or a couple of months.
     
  7. Ixziga

    Ixziga Space Hobo

    If that's the case, then the game will remain unplayable for a large number of its early supporters until beta stages 2/3. I personally hope that's not the case.
     
    AIex and The Alien Way like this.
  8. The Alien Way

    The Alien Way Existential Complex

    Been posting in every single lag thread :) Devs're gonna hate me :wut: Anyway, I run a fairly terrible laptop (2.20ghz core 2 duo 4gb ram intel integrated chipset family 4 graphics) and in most areas of the game I'm lag free.. But once I do start hitting lag, it just gets worse and worse, and follows me back up to the ship and lags me out there (upon restarting the ship and main screens never lag..) Anyway, through task manager I watched the CPU usage the game was pulling steadily grow, from between 50,000k to an initial lag spike of 300 something k, from the 300,000 all the way up to a 1,000,000+ CPU drain (probably could have pushed it higher than that if I'd kept on save/quitting and relading.. Seemed like reloading wouldn't reset the memory usage at all..) Only exiting the game entirely resets the resource drain, and it persists through all gameplay (once I hit a lag trigger) until I do.. Some certain planets will run lag-free.. So, that's my repetitive report :>
     
    AIex likes this.
  9. nightarix

    nightarix Subatomic Cosmonaut

    didn't the devs make a post that said stage 1 was something people should skip if they had an older computer? can't recall where they posted it but it said something to that effect(along with a few other things to skip a certain stage if you can't stand). so we were informed before hand about it.
    EDIT: found it http://playstarbound.com/how-the-beta-is-going-to-work/ it doesn't list recommended systems or anything, BUT it does mention "The engine won’t optimized during this stage of the beta so performance could be poor on some low end machines." in reference to stage 1. seems stage 2 is going to be the bug fixing balance and optimization stage.
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2013
  10. The Alien Way

    The Alien Way Existential Complex

    Its tough, though :D Its like saying, "Okay folks! The long-awaited Elixer of Life and Longevity is now available! It'll make you feel young again! Although, the formula is optimized for the young, so elderly people should avoid drinking it for a bit while we make it more delicious for the young first!" ;) Its not THAT dramatic, I suppose, but it is indeed hard to just pretend Starbound (in ANY form at all!) is not available to grab and hug and love, even in a semi-complete form.

    Guess I just feel like some elements of the optimization are more "game-breaking bug" than "phase 2 material".. I've already posted about fifty times about early optimization, and I don't really want this to be the 51st :> Already came to grips with my doom, and am playing Terraria while waiting (184 hours so far, was 111 when I started "waiting" :p ) Absolutely stunned by how much amazing content that 1.2 patch added, especially the dye slots/dye maker NPC..
     
  11. nightarix

    nightarix Subatomic Cosmonaut

    honestly, while i do feel for the ones still on XP and experiencing this issue, especially as i had only upgraded to 7 a couple months ago and would've been in the same boat if they had released during summer. updating to 7 a.s.a.p is probably a good idea, considering XP's security updates will be ending sometime next year. edit: specificly microsoft updates will end for XP sp3 and office 2003 on april 8th 2014.
     
  12. The Alien Way

    The Alien Way Existential Complex

    Oh, I'm XP-free :p Haven't used XP since.. '04, maybe? My sad lag is coming from other places :> I don't really want "optimization", exactly, just some more graphics options toggles (Vsync, particle count, maybe texture quality, animated backgrounds, lighting flicker/quality, things like that).. Thought that optimization dealt more with refining the code and removing redundancies and stuff like that..
     
  13. nightarix

    nightarix Subatomic Cosmonaut

    refining game code tends to improve the game's speed and reduce lag, so in a round-about way optimization does deal with lag.
     
  14. deadonarrival

    deadonarrival Intergalactic Tourist

    I have tried all of the workarounds as well and have had little success. I run a decent system and play games that are very hardware intensive. The game starts ok for me when I am on the ship but when I beam down, the framerate drops abysmally. I have noticed that when I beam down to a garden world, the rain starts up. When the rain finally stops, the framerate improves. Usually this was acceptable but now I am on a different world and the framerate doesnt pick up after the rain stops. Framerate is the number one barrier thus far. I could deal with anything else (crashes, bugs, character wipes) except for framerate issues. I love this game and have watched its development intently. You guys have ushered in a new era in indie gaming and just gaming in general. I know this is the beta version but I would have loved to give feedback other than this but as it is now, the game is unplayable.
     
  15. Hipolipolopigus

    Hipolipolopigus Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Getting a constant 60 FPS (V-Sync, presumably), but mobs, falling items and terrain generation will often slow the game right down (Without touching the frame rate) since v.OK. Definitely not a system spec issue.
     
    AIex likes this.
  16. Kobting

    Kobting Space Penguin Leader

    The problem is people are getting fps lag on high-end good computer. It's not just low-end old computers that are getting the fps lag.
     
  17. The Alien Way

    The Alien Way Existential Complex

    I feel like most of the "major problems" are either getting smoothed out or well documented at least, and now this low fps/lag issue is gaining strength in the community :) Maybe we'll see some help for this sooner rather than later :> We can only hope.. I've been sinking time into Terraria to pass the time, but sadly its having a decent share of laggy/twitchy issues at the moment too :p CAN'T ESCAPE THE LAG, AAAARGH ;)
     
  18. YoKid

    YoKid Poptop Tamer

    Same problem heere. My computer isn't the greatest either but it can run games of similar capactiy just fine.
    My problem however is that as soon as I fight a mob/NPC my framerate collapses. Even when setting of a huge avalanche of gravel/fine sand it doesn't lag as much as when fighting. It's a wonder that I could beat bosses with that low frame rate.

    Now that Im in level 3 and the monsters deal huge damage, I NEED to react to and avoid attacks, as well as timing and aiming mine and with such a low frame rate, it isn't possible so I quit. Im looking forward to the "playable" version in stage 1/2
     
  19. Silverforte

    Silverforte Spaceman Spiff

    I don't understand how we're supposed to test the game properly when most people (especially online) can't play it for more than 3-5 minutes before planets fail to render.
     
    AIex likes this.
  20. Rivinhal

    Rivinhal Star Wrangler

    Me either. And I don't quite understand why the devs think that balance is more important than optimization at this point. Balancing in (and lets be honest here) an alpha phase, and optimizing in beta? It makes no sense, and is pretty backwards lol. I just hope they realize that they're approaching this backwards and start working on optimization and leave balance for later... (Though lets be honest here, so far they've showed no signs of doing so, so it looks like a lot of people are just going to be left out until optimization starts.)
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page