Clogged Furball

from Sins Forums
Ran into a situation last night I hadn't seen before: a battle so big the game got clogged up and could not resolve damage, although it did not lock up or stop.

I was playing on a custom map with three stars, each of which had just five planets. One star was me (TEC). One was Advent. The last was Vasari. Both AIs set as Hard Random.

I had wiped out Advent and colonized all of their planets. I was ranked #1 in everything except Fleet, even though I was maxed out on fleet size. Vasari (haven't played them yet) must have some way to boost their max fleet size.

My main invasion fleet tried to attack the Vasari homeworld but got cut to shreds because they had so many strikecraft and I was short on flak frigates. So I made a second fleet with about 40 flak frigates. Then both of my fleets attacked their homeworld again at the same time. I had 9 cap ships, 7 of them at Level 10. I had 55 air wings and a total of about 200 ships. The Vasari had 50 cruiser carriers, lots of defenses, and a total of about 200 ships.  I'd say each fleet represented about 1100 fleet supply.

And the game couldn't handle it at all. For a solid 10 minutes I watched to see what would happen. Battle appeared to be taking place, but I did not lose a single ship. I kept monitoring the enemy fleet summary on the side of the planet icon when you zoom out, and it kept showing the numbers of fighters and bombers fluctuating--but never dropping below 20 each, and I never killed a single ship! When I would zoom in, things looked weird--only about five percent of the craft were in the grav well--the rest were all smeared out, green (me) and red (them) interspersed, in a long line outside the grav well (but from a zoomed out perspective, they were not in space or in phase lanes but just in orbit at the planet). At this point the game was also running painfully slow, despite a cold reboot, and was painfully slow at zooming.

Eventually I tired of this logjam and moved my main invasion fleet away. Then the game was able to resolve things, and the Vasari destroyed my fleet of flak frigates in about 30 seconds, before I had time to warp them out.

So then I ran my main invasion fleet around and wiped out the remaining Vasari planets, playing cat and mouse with their very huge defense fleet, which kept chasing me, and I won the game in just another 15 minutes or so.

But it was kind of frustrating. I had the power--I should have been able to smash their main fleet in the battle I had chosen.

I've been playing like crazy since the day this was released, and this is the first time I've had the game just plain clearly get overwhelmed by fleet size. So far I haven't had a single "minidump" or other lockup. I have noticed that the game gets a bit sluggish after a few hours sometimes, but a boot cures that.

Comments?

P.S. Another question: I noticed in that game last night that when zoomed in to see a grav well, the camera would always keep moving around, often apparently in a 360 degree motion, even when I did not even have my hand on the mouse.  I turned off "shake camera" in the options, but that didn't seem to make a difference.  Is the camera supposed to move, at all, ever, if you're not actively moving it yourself?
60,691 views 64 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
By the way, I was playing with the "normal" fleet size setting.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, there've been several reports of abnormal game slowdowns, and I'm starting to see them myself at points where previously I'd be fine.

This is probably the main/biggest thread on it. It does seem to be something CPU related, probably AI changes and added calculations are starting to strangle processing power, but who knows.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
The game could handle it, your computer could not.

Not trying to be snotty, but it's your computer that isn't up to the task, not the software.

I've never experienced a slowdown in this game at any stage and I've been playing on Large fleets and have had some truly epic battles.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
NapalmEnema--what a name--you're wrong. I have a very strong gaming rig that greatly exceeds the recommended specs. I've only had this problem once so far, and only in one very huge battle. I'm used to battles involving well more than a 100 ships and no slow down on my machine at all. I suspect this is a result of new AI routines added in 1.04.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, I do think something is up. I've played random huge regularly with 9 Unfair AI in previous versions, and have never had the same slowdowns as I see now, and as people are reporting.

It may also be a side effect of the particle issue change/fix, though I don't see how that would make it worse, considering particles were fixed to 'die' when they're supposed to rather than lasing for an RL year+ :P
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
machine specs?
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I agree that something seems to have changed in 1.04, battles half the size of what would normally run fine, seems to cause a lot of slowdown.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Napalmenema, on an issue like this it's not a matter of machine specs, even if some have fewer problems with bigger machines.

My machine has 2 GB of RAM, a 3 GHz Pentium D Dual Core processor, and an nVidia 7800 GTX with 256 MB of video RAM. That is beyond the recommended specs for this game and far beyond the minimum specs. I'm running WinXP, Svc Pack 2.

I've also got my machine set up intelligently with a bare minimum of services running in the background, etc.

This machine is about two years old. When I bought it, it was fairly awesomely beyond the average at the time. It's still solid and should be good for another year or two.

Don't tell me it's a machine problem if I'm beyond the recommended specs. The recommended specs are: 2.2 GHz dual core CPU (I'm way above that); 1 GB RAM (I've got double that); and 256 MB GEForce 7800 or higher (I meet this requirement).

I don't have any way to test it, but I'll bet people with much more uber rigs are still having the problem. You might want to check out the parallel thread in the Technical forum.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
send me your save file, if I run it without issue on my machine without a slowdown, then it's your machine. :)
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
There's a save file already posted in the thread I linked to in reply #2 (unless the link is broken now) that various people experienced large slowdowns with. ;)
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
Honestly, with a 256mb graphics card, some slowdowns with massive battles should probably be reasonably expected. I'm not going to press the issue anymore, but I have a 768mb DDR3 graphics card and haven't ever seen a hiccup with this game.

Granted not everyone can have 'state of the art' hardware, but I'm just saying that a 2 year old rig with a fairly dated graphics card having issues isn't really 'the games fault' in my opinion.

-Peace
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Would it help you to know that I'm seeing slowdowns on an 8800gtx 768mb? ;) I'm not trying to beat it into the ground that it's something in the code, but it's looking likely because our hardware didn't change between patches, but performance did :P

All current user testing seems to indicate that it's the CPU that's getting strangled, not the GPU, in any case :)
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Honestly, with a 256mb graphics card, some slowdowns with massive battles should probably be reasonably expected. I'm not going to press the issue anymore, but I have a 768mb DDR3 graphics card and haven't ever seen a hiccup with this game. Granted not everyone can have 'state of the art' hardware, but I'm just saying that a 2 year old rig with a fairly dated graphics card having issues isn't really 'the games fault' in my opinion.-Peace
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Yes it is. There are minimum specifications for a reason.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I think people need to get past the idea that 'slowdown' is the problem here. Its not. You can expect the graphics to slow down if your hardware can't keep up.

But I think its reasonable to expect that combat still work on any system that meets the required specification, even if its going at 5 frames per second. The problem the OP had is that ships stopped doing or taking damage.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Napalm, You're completely missing my point. My machine is ABOVE the RECOMMENDED specs. Do you understand that?

Incidentally, one of the ballyhooed features of this game in many reviews is that it is friendly to lower level machines. If the game really takes a machine that is FAR beyond the RECOMMENDED specs, then the game has a problem.

The game says 256MB of video RAM is RECOMMENDED. I've got that. It doesn't say it needs a 768 setup like you have. Either it should run on a machine that is ABOVE the RECOMMENDED specs, or they should forthrightly state that the engine now requires much higher specs.

And did you read my story? I didn't get a lockup. I didn't get a "slowdown." I got a weird clogged furball where NOTHING was resolved after 10 solid minutes, even though the machine was not locked up, and the battle was apparently taking place.

And have you ever had any giant fleet engagements with 500 ships and more than 100 air wings? Are you sure?

I don't see any point to sending you a save game to run on a machine that is so far beyond the RECOMMENDED specs, even if I had one. But for what it's worth, I don't think I have one from right before I sent the two fleets into the battle.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
Yes it must be my mistake. Your two year old machine (and the average life expectancy for a PC to still be considered 'current' is three years) is sure to be able to render anything and everything you throw at it. Heck, run Sins in windowed mode while playing Crysis at max settings! :)

I'm done with this thread, if your machine can't handle something, it just can't handle something. Don't shoot me, the messenger.

They cranked something up in the 1.04 patch that causes a machine to 'work more' and it is using more processor/ram/video to do it. That's what happens when you tweak the AI and it starts putting up more of a fight. Now when those super huge battles take place and there are a ton of calculations taking place, your machine isn't up to the task...

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
I'd say that sets some kind of record for simultaneous missing the point and condescension.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
I set the bar high.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
They cranked something up in the 1.04 patch that causes a machine to 'work more' and it is using more processor/ram/video to do it. That's what happens when you tweak the AI and it starts putting up more of a fight. Now when those super huge battles take place and there are a ton of calculations taking place, your machine isn't up to the task...
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That makes it the software's problem, you moron.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
They cranked something up in the 1.04 patch that causes a machine to 'work more' and it is using more processor/ram/video to do it. That's what happens when you tweak the AI and it starts putting up more of a fight. Now when those super huge battles take place and there are a ton of calculations taking place, your machine isn't up to the task...That makes it the software's problem, you moron.
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No, they met customer demand for 'better AI' which puts the game at a higher threshold for 'machine specs' than what was on the box. As it was released, it was running great on his machine and others - so the software was great and the machine 'recommended' specs were fine and dandy.

Cries for 'more and better AI' came around and all of a sudden it has with this patch and now on massive battles with the AI doing more routines it is outpacing some older machines. So it's still hardware, moron.

They are even talking about greater AI patching later on that will take advantage of higher end machines more thoroughly, what does that tell you? Or that they released this patch as it is without running into this issue, what does that tell you? It tells me that they are running on more up to date rigs and didn't encounter this problem, once more making this hardware, not software, moron.

But thanks for your .02 cents, here's a .01 back for the effort.

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
Play nice folks :P Don't turn this thread into a flame.

The fact is, nobody can speak on this with any authority other than IC folks, because none of us know exactly what was done and all we have is guesses and observations.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
No, they met customer demand for 'better AI' which puts the game at a higher threshold for 'machine specs' than what was on the box. As it was released, it was running great on his machine and others - so the software was great and the machine 'recommended' specs were fine and dandy.

Cries for 'more and better AI' came around and all of a sudden it has with this patch and now on massive battles with the AI doing more routines it is outpacing some older machines. So it's still hardware, moron.
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Badly optimized code is the software's problem you clueless fuck. Supreme Commander, which ran like complete shit if you built anything more than fifty units, wasn't a hardware problem - it was a software problem that they fixed after patches.

Secondly, someone who bought the game right now with either the minimum or recommended specs would be unable to play the game at all on one, and barely be able to play on the other.

Third, Ironclad has said that the game is supposed to be accessible to a broad range of hardware. It isn't. In fact, I posit that there is no computer in existence right now that can smoothly run a 10 player 5-star large game of Sins. I can run Crysis at Very High smoother than I can run Sins.

They are even talking about greater AI patching later on that will take advantage of higher end machines more thoroughly, what does that tell you?
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That they're full of shit? I have a 3.6GHz QX6700 and the game becomes unplayable halfway through. Large games are already impossible to finish as it's pretty much a guaranteed minidump once the AI's max out their fleets. I have one core that just grinds away at 100%, and nothing I can do about it. In fact, if my processor can't do it, I doubt any reasonable consumer-grade processor could.

Unless they're going to go through and multithread the game, which I doubt, there's no hardware that will be able to run the future AI either.

I thought you were leaving this thread. Take your idiocy elsewhere. Nobody cares what ridiculous shit you're spewing.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
I decided to stick around when I got insulted, also I'm bored at work.

Will you be my e-friend?
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
Napalm, It's not unusual for a game to eventually patch itself into a need for higher specs. But good grief. This game just came out a few weeks ago!

I have been running with all graphics set at their highest level. I think I'll experiment tonight by trying to recreate that big battle, moving the graphics settings all down several notches.

But I don't believe it is a graphics problem. I mainly play zoomed way out, monitoring battles using the fleet displays on the sides of the planet icons. Do you suppose the game forces the video card to calculate every last video possibility even when not displayed? If so, I wonder if that couldn't be fairly easily suppressed.

But I suspect it's a bug that can be corrected. I hope so.

And you didn't answer my question: are you *sure* you've had battles in 1.04 with more than 500 ships and more than 100 air wings?
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
I thought you were leaving this thread. Take your idiocy elsewhere. Nobody cares what ridiculous shit you're spewing.
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The minute you start your post off with insults and cussing, it invalidates any other points you may or may not be trying to make because it immediately puts a label of arrogant individual onto you..