large Advent vs Advent fleet battles are unplayable

from Sins Forums
so there are now multiple reports now of the game basically seeming to freeze when you have two large Advent fleets fighting. if you let the game run and not quit in frustration the next minute in game time takes over half an hour, at a frame every couple minutes.

my guess is this is a problem with the AoE casting abilities of the Guardians and Subjagators, as when there's many of these ships is when the problem happens, even with all of the graphics settings turned to low. something needs to be done to streamline the calculations with these ships, or its pointless playing as Advent on larger maps.

three links ive found so far:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/307465

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/307669

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/307931
technical
7,581 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

This actually happens to me with Advent vs TEC too so I don't think it has to do with Advent vs Advent specifically but it wouldn't help things of course.

You could be right about the problem having to do with the AOE calculations. I'll try some things out and see if it really is a problem with the AOE ships.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
i don't have this extreme freeze when playing advent vs. tec but when i loaded that savegame with those 2 advent fleets it also became unplayable slow.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Try manually decreasing the particle fx count in your user.setting file.

XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting\
Vista: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting\

I think its related to the power of your system. With Advent vs Advent at both upgraded fleet cap >2000 it had a CPU value of 10 ingame and was fine. If players above 25 CPU value are in the game, it lags for every player too (sync).

Of course Advent uses most of the graphical beaty of this game - thats why i like to play them - particle effects and AOE effects everywhere.

Open user.setting using Notepad (don't use Wordpad or Word) and modify MaxParticleCount 6000 to something lower (try 4000).
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I'm pretty sure the biggest hitters are probably the Progenitor Mothership's Malice ability (and the Guardian's Shield Projection ability.

I don't usually have any performance problem when it's an Advent fleet versus another faction's fleet (although some of Vasari's abilities can be a bit of a strain). But versus another Advent things can get pretty bad (played a free for all once that everyone slowed down during because two of the Advent's were going at it, kind of crazy you could tell when they were fighting due to it).
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
what do you mean by "CPU value" ?
i decreased all particle values to 1000 with absolutely no effect on visuals or performance.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Try manually decreasing the particle fx count in your user.setting file.XP
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It's not a graphics issue because it happens whether you are watching the battle or not. Try this Advent vs Advent save game file that was posted in another thread to see for yourself: http://files.filefront.com/here+they+comesave/;9996051;/fileinfo.html
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
This might explain why in the middle of a Huge 10-way FFA, played offline, Sins suddenly ground to a 1-FPM crawl.

I reloaded from my save game, five minutes prior to the problem. Same thing happened.

I tried again. This time I made sure I was zoomed out all the way, to ensure the major battle I was about to engage in didn't overwhelm my overclocked 8600 GTS.

Same thing. I checked my active processes. Bingo! Sins was using well over a gig of RAM, more than half of my CPU cycles, and I'd somehow accumulated a 1.5GB pagefile beyond my 2GB of memory.


For the devs, I still have that autosave if it'd be useful.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
http://files.filefront.com/here+they+comesave/;9996051;/fileinfo.html

my save game from the thread I created, try it out and if you can get the fight to run smoothly please tell me how.

KP
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
This might explain why in the middle of a Huge 10-way FFA, played offline, Sins suddenly ground to a 1-FPM crawl.I reloaded from my save game, five minutes prior to the problem. Same thing happened.I tried again. This time I made sure I was zoomed out all the way, to ensure the major battle I was about to engage in didn't overwhelm my overclocked 8600 GTS.Same thing. I checked my active processes. Bingo! Sins was using well over a gig of RAM, more than half of my CPU cycles, and I'd somehow accumulated a 1.5GB pagefile beyond my 2GB of memory.For the devs, I still have that autosave if it'd be useful.
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Sounds like a problem that the 8600 serries has period. I get this massive slow down issue when I play games like Crysis and FEAR as well, if I exit and reload the game, I get another few minutes of play before the slow down occures.

This is actually making me go out and buy an ATI card. Nvidia has been promising to fix this issue for over a year now.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I checked my active processes. Bingo! Sins was using well over a gig of RAM, more than half of my CPU cycles, and I'd somehow accumulated a 1.5GB pagefile beyond my 2GB of memory.For the devs, I still have that autosave if it'd be useful.
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It sounds like you have a dual core CPU like me in which case Sins is actually using 100% of one of the cores, which is the reason for the massive slowdown.

Sounds like a problem that the 8600 serries has period. I get this massive slow down issue when I play games like Crysis and FEAR as well, if I exit and reload the game, I get another few minutes of play before the slow down occures.This is actually making me go out and buy an ATI card. Nvidia has been promising to fix this issue for over a year now.
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I'm sorry, but have you actually read any of the posts in this thread? The person you have quoted stated as I have many times that this is not a graphics issue, as it happens when you aren't even watching the battle and the fact that Sins is using 100% of the CPU.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I have similar problem. Ill try new game on large map, but without Advent. Will see if it helps.

chuck: Fix the first link url.