The Unsolvable "Terraria Lag"

Ok so ever since i played Terraria on high i get this weird Fast>Slow>Fast>Slow>Fast>Slow>Fast>Slow lag pattern
I have noticed it in Starbound when it rains or when it's nightfall and lot's of monsters spawn... it's even worse when it's a combo of both. I really never understood it but if so could someone explain to me why it does this and or how to get rid of it?

My suspicion is frameskip

 

The game isn't optimized right now, so it running slow at times is normal.

For starbound anyways... Terraria? Get a better computer?

 

Well actually Starbound runs better then Terraria on this windows XP machine
crazy stuff

and this makes me pretty happy to know that it runs fine now but it will run even better later

 

Whether it runs better in the future is still up to your computer specs. Because everybody has different specs the game will never be "fully optimized". You might just be using something that isn't currently compatible or powerful enough for Terraria/Starbound. There are just so many variables with PC gaming.

 

It does this because both rain and monsters generate extra things for it to calculate and do, rain more so than monsters.
Lighting is actually faster than terraria though, so it's not too bad.

 

I know that
I was talking about the fast slow effect like I said my guess it frame skips

Anyway my system fully passes minimum and I can't wait to see how they improve the FPS since it already runs pretty flawless

 

Or the dev could learn how to code a game too...
You wouldn't use a jackhammer to put a nail in your wall why do you agree to have an overpowerful computer to play a 2D game?

 

have you ever coded?

 

You do understand graphics isn't everything when it comes to how a game performs? a 2D game can be just as resource intense as any 3D game. The game just isn't optimized right now, maybe you should stop complaining and come back when it's stage 2 or 3. You get what you paid for, and you paid for an UNFINISHED game.

 

I'm pretty sure the developers know how to code a game, since we're all here playing it. The playing field of a game being "2D" has nothing to do with the computing power required to render frames at a playable speed. The correct analogy might be: Why expect a road to be designed to be fixable via hammer?

 

The game itself is well coded when it is stable, and they are reaching that point. This game does have a large number of textures that it handles, which is the cause for the large installation size. Now the game itself seems to be bound by two factors. The biggest one for me is loading frames in the world. I decided to jump off of an asteroid over an area I haven't been to since I went to the planet, and the game froze on the border of each frame while it loaded, so my falling was jerky. Perhaps loading the game onto my raid array would produce better results, but I'll just say it isn't optimized yet.

The other aspect to this game is that it looks more CPU bound. I think Dwarf Fortress is the perfect example of this. There are many techniques that can be done to improve performance, but that will come with optimization.

 

I highly agree
I'm not even playing on the version that supports windows XP (I can't wait for the next update that's when they will release the official patch that makes XP not crash ) and the game runs VERY well

When I started it up I was expecting lag city as it was the first stage of beta but to my surprise... It was great. Obviously they aren't done optimizing it but so far the game CAN run just fine without me trying to play on the lowest resolution possible.... It just has its laggy moments which I am more then fine with

 

Doesn't need a super powerful computer, but if someone lags in TERRARIA, they need to upgrade from that Potato they're using.

 

I just find it weird that Starbound runs faster then Terraria...
And in Terraria the light shading was the only thing that lagged me down.... Lol but if you look at Starbound the shading detail is 10x more detailed yet it lags less

 

It could be due to the languages. I'm actually certain it is. Terraria was developed with C# and .NET at its core, while Starbound is made primarily in C++ with specialized tools.

Think of it like this. C# is an easier language because it does more for the developer. It is why I like it. I can get more done in less time compared to C++. There is a trade off which is important. When you get get an ease of use, it means that the programmer has less direct control and the system makes up for the difference. When it makes up the difference, there is a lot of unneeded code, functionality, or processes happening that the programmer can't change easily if at all. Also a strike against Terraria is that it is made with .NET. .NET is Microsoft's attempt to create a unified tool that can handle any request a programmer may make of the Windows Operating System. This adds a great deal more complexity to the code beyond just the programming language used.

If you want to compare the base programming language, C++ has been around for many decades and has been optimized to be nearly as fast as Assembly, which is the raw instructions that a computer uses.

 

I have an I7, 8Gb of RAM and Nvidia Gforce, what exactly do you call a potatoe?
There were bad choices made for the 1.2 update which lead to laggyness in the game, period.

 

well could be a low end i7? and "nVidia GeForce" covers at least 10+ years of VGA's

 

if you are playing full screen disable vsync via config in the steam folder

 

Even a low end I7 should play this game, it has the same graphics than what was played on a SNES which was 1.7Mhz (yes Mhz) and 128ko ram.
I mean come on!

 

well i was just commenting on his vague specs ... but no , just because it's "2D" doesn't mean it shouldn't be CPU intensive, yes it's not optimized but there is far too much going on under the hood than a SNES game ...
his particular issue could be many things actually ... slow/fragged HDD ... VSYNC ... A/V Software ... etc.