Lag with new client
 

All my frineds have been saying that when they installed the new client, graal got really laggy for them and like they move in single frames. It happened to a whole bunch of people and they rebooted the computers and it still lagged. Is this a bug or something? It doesnt lag at all for me but for others it does lag.

For me it did the exact opposite. I have no lag. Which client 2.3 or 3.whatever-the-latest-number-is?

They have the new one, they installed it and then was asked to reinstall it and so they did and then they cant even play the game its so laggy

Yeah i heard reports of that today, hasn't happened to me though. Its less laggy.

yeah its less laggy for me too

It runs alot smoother for me and lag is hardly noticeable, except at certain times. :cool:

2.3 client runs smoother for me than the 3.13 client. Which one are they using? They are both 'new'.

Who asked to reinstall what ?
If v3.1 is slow then please install the latest gfx driver.

I didn't find it was very laggy for me other than they people move a little weird. Or maybe thats just classic.

Ok, Misty and her mom were on GK. Her mom said that when she installed the new client, she tried going on GK and it asked for her to update after she did. So she did. It did it on both computers. It installed 2.3 and now when they go on any server, they cant even move because it lags so bad. The tiles dont load on maloria, they cant go on the gmaps on GK, shes stuck in her house pretty much cuz thats the only place it doesnt lag and we dont understand why. It is happening with Alan Steele too.

I think they should try removing graal completely from their computer and reinstalling it.

Me and misty share computers.. We have done that.. 3 times already.. >_< Nothing will do except more lag because all the graphics have to download again. And I dont have time to keep doing it.. I have to do things on gk. It's not us its the version of graal.

Are your Drivers up to date?

I just reformatted my computer and did a windows update of everything. So yes.

You shouldn't use Windows Update for drivers. You need to find the name of your hardware manufacturer and get drivers directly from them.

We aren't computer technicians. We just try to avoid anything that can harm our computer and figure out how to make it run smoother. x_X

...

You don't have to be a computer technician to install a video card driver.

I know that.. Just where to go though? That's what I meant.
The thing is.. it's not our computer. I can go on another servers..and it be okay.. a bit slow but when we get on GK. Lag hell. x_x I mean if it was our computer we couldn't play other games.. And we can without problem. It's graal itself.

Yeah I wasn't trying to say it wasn't Graal's fault. You aren't the only one having problems. I was just saying you shouldn't rely on windows update for driver updates.

I tried the new client on my computer that I've never updated the drivers on and it still works. I don't think thats the problem, and usually everyone suggests that as the course of action.

Which `new version' is lagging everyone? 2.3 or the 3.1 client?

the 2.3 is lagging them

If it's 2.3, all I can say is to upgrade your vid. card drivers. If that does't help, use the 3.1 client.

They shouldn't be forced to use the 3.1 client. It isn't finished and is very buggy.

Why not wait for them to do as people have said? It will probably fix it.

The default gfx drivers for Windows 2000 and XP are quite ****, you are lucky if games and videos are working. Especially the drivers for Nvidia are quite bad, they crash the computer often.
We will probably add something to v3 to detect the gfx card manufacturer, the gfx card driver version and display a message if its too old or may be directly opening the web site for downloading the driver.

Stefan I get some sudden frame lags between levels on gmaps. These weren't there before the update. I have the latest ATI drivers and yes my computer can handle graal.

AMD Athlon 2700+ @ Athlon 2100+ (dont ask)
256DDR Original Apacer
ATI Radeon 9800pro
Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 200gb
Windows 2000 pro

:O

This is bugging me. Im not lagging at all, but still all my freinds are and I cant play with them. Graal isnt very fun when you dont have freinds to playt with. If this keeps up, youll have a lot of people quitting.

We have three computers in the house one wont work at all , one goes frame by frame and the other works the same as before...:/ And that one was the most laggy in the past and was the worst one for playing graal. Strange.The one that wont work at all we just got it this Christmas.Today is redownload day.:)

I would suggest:
1. Download new gfx driver and install it
2. Close programs that use a lot of cpu time
3. The only thing that I could imagine causing this is the new timing Graal uses to not block the cpu for 99% of the time even if it doesn't need it. If there are other programs running which take a lot of CPU time then those might lag Graal now, although I wouldn't think that the old version of Graal could run fine while those other programs are lagging the computer. It might be possible to add an option to Graal to use the old timing (trying to steal all CPU power without caring about other programs) or automatically do that when Graal is running slow. Will release a new version next week to test that.

Here's my question Stefan...

Why should Graal make people's computers a friggin' oven? It seems to me you just need to work out the kinks in the new system. A game of Graal's calibur should NOT need to use so many CPU cycles. If this were Doom3, maybe I'd understand, but this is GRAAL, not exactly up there on the graphic scale. I can only imagine how many people get 1st degree burns on their legs when playing graal for long periods of time on their laptops... :x

you have to think though Graal3D is attached to it so maybe even though its no on its using the CPU it would but i dunno

Well for a start, the GFX are not the CPU intensive thing as thats all handled by the GFX card. Secondly, Doom 3 uses baddies with predefined logic in a compiled environment, Graal does not. Graal interprets/processes script in real time (although the B-Tree is changing that?). Thirdly... Im using stock cooling and a single added case fan, and i get at most a 1 celcius rise in CPU temperature, which I call insignificant.

Graal3D isn't "attached" to Graal 2. Graal 2 is just opening the Graal3.exe when you try to log into a 3D server; If you don't have Graal3.exe, it tells you that you have to download it first.

And that just reminded me that Graal3.exe even while on the Graal3D servers takes less CPU than Graal 2 does for me.

Graal3d is less cpu intensive than graal2d...lolz

My desktop computer doesn't rise in temperature either, but the auto-sensing fans (controlled by temperature) which normally run slow start going a lot faster to keep the heat down/stable when Graal is running. With fans that run at the same speed all of the time, it's not very noticable. But the temperature increase with laptops is extremely noticable, I actually went out of the way to buy a 'cooling pad' just so I could use Graal 2 for longer periods of time without damaging the hardware.

My fans dont adjust speed, and on Classic, Graal is only using like 2 or 3% cpu time on my AthlonXP 2600+.... I dont know, I dont exactly think its grossly innefficient.

I believe Graal 2 does (or did) use DelphiX; If you look at the samples/tutorials for that, DirectX or OpenGL, most of them take as much CPU as possible before you have anything more than some simple text or a single graphic displayed on the screen -- but those are generally bad coding practices where people continuously redraw the entire scene when it's not needed, or they have no kind of 'sleeping' taking place in the timer. I assume Stefan didn't do something like that, but it's ridiculous when you see how many people do.

First time I've ever seen that reported >_<
The new level editor only uses 2-3% of the CPU for me too, but I have even better processors than that with good video cards in my desktops and Graal 2.2.2 still uses 99% or as much is available.

Hmm, I find the new updated version great. Everything is alot smoother, and alot less lag for me.
I can even play on UN with little lag, where before it froze my Graal because I lagged so bad.

Graal 2.2.2 is not the current verion though. Since 2.3 it has been optimised to not take full CPU time.