What makes my Graal lag?

[spydrct02]

Read it ALL or you will miss something:

I find it funny (more like eye rolling) how Doom 3/Half Life 2/other games give me a solid 60 fps no problem, yet Graal struggles to keep at it's capped 20 fps (ESPECIALLY on V2, but also on V4). I'm finding that more and more people are also having the exact same scenario as I. I'm thinking Graal needs to run more off the video card to give less stress on the processor - which can also get rid of the ugly 20 fps deal. Not to mention alt+5 isn't showing the FPS. It makes the bytes/sec (alt+4) go away, though.

I've never messed with a real Linux OS, just an emulator for it, but some are saying Graal runs significantly better in Linux? I get 10-13% CPU usage in an empty level while not moving at all, but I get 22-45% CPU usage while moving in the same level. When bitmap fonts are turned off, I get 22% while idle and 32-47% while moving. Now add about 10 idle players and that's instant 40% CPU taken up. Now if I moved, I get up to 60%, not TOO bad. But that was with bitmap fonts enabled. With it disabled, I see numbers up to 82%.

Also I'm getting the impression Graal is more optimized for slower processors, because I had someone get on his old 500 MHZ Celeron and race me across levels. Guess whose computer won? Not mine--he FLEW through the levels as if it didn't even bother loading them. I had an experience like that when I used Graal 3. I'm pretty sure Graal 3 used the video card a little bit more (if not fully) than 2 and 4 do (both OpenGL and Direct3D modes were flawlessly fast). I am saying Graal 3 ran much better than any other versions. Am I right that V3 used the video card for rendering everything? I never encountered DirectDraw in V3, while V2 and V4 use it (and to repeat myself, 3 runs the fastest out of the bunch).

[Warcaptain]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Well Windows98 had memory leaks with GDI (playerlist) but we tried to reduce the usage of GDI as much as possible so it shouldn't be a big problem anymore (at least I don't have problems with v4 on Windows98 anymore).

I use Windows XP, not 98.

[Admins]

Originally Posted by Warcaptain

I use Windows XP, not 98.

The outlook gfx are messing up? I would say you have other programs running which are doing weird stuff x-x
zwr also reported that he had problems with his sound card before he updated the driver, it took a lot of memory when running Graal.

Older computer are sometimes running better because they don't have all the bad stuff from Windows 2000 / XP. The base OS takes more RAM with Windows 2000 / XP, also it starts many services at startup, and people often have tons of things running which they never need, and since the taskbar is optimized to not display the icons of inactive services anymore many people don't even know that those are running. On Windows you basicly need a firewall which is blocking certain ports from intrusion, but everything else can be turned off.

[Raeiphon]

Solution - Use linux.

http://www.vmware.com/

Use linux under windows without knowing cygwin, and it's free! Hell, what more do you want? I can play Graal, and have Ragnarok Online along with World of Warcraft open with VMware at the same time, I have a 2.4ghz AMD cpu and 712mb of ram, it isnt all that much considering.

[spydrct02]

I am very close to trying Linux as I've heard nothing but good about it. Raeiphon, I have a Northwood 2.4 GHz processor, is that what you have too (EDIT: oops, I just looked again and you said you have an AMD)? Have you ever compared different applications in Linux vs Windows on the same machine? It sounds like you're happy with Linux, though not to spoil it, I can probably run just as many things at once as you. I doubt they'll all run full speed when run at the same time under Windows, but what about under Linux? Does it really make that much difference? I know my mom's 2.4 GHz Celeron processor runs Graal V2 like crap (12 fps average), but that could've been a mix of not ever updating her video card drivers/having some Intel integrated one. Still, Graal 2 runs off DirectDraw for rendering everything but lights, and DirectDraw seems to use the processor for rendering all of it. Though if I'm wrong, tell me. I sure can't detect signs of my video card rendering anything but lights (Direct3D) on V2 and V4 (explained in an earlier post about V3).

I downloaded the 4 CDs from the Fedora Project, but I need a few blank CDs before I can do anything--will be getting those on the weekend. I guess I'll need to repartition for this new OS so I can keep Windows at the same time in the case I'm either totally lost or want to compare performance between the two. I'm always doing something like that, so I wouldn't be too surprised if I kept Windows only for that reason.

Is it possible to install Linux through Windows? I remember it not allowing me to degrade to Windows 2000 from in the OS, so I had to use DOS. I also remember it giving me the blue screen when using a bootable floppy disk to make it start the install process. Not sure if it still does it, nor do I want Windows 2000.

[Admins]

My experience is that Linux with all features turned on (KDE and such) is similar to Windows2000 with all features turned off (no special services running), in terms of speed and RAM usage. Programs like Firefox and Graal RC2 work a little bit faster. Installation is much easier than with Windows, although I guess that many people never installed Windows2000 or XP. Most Linux distributions also have a way to easily upgrade to the latest Linux stuff without breaking installed things.

Graal takes more resources on Linux because it is using OpenGL, so if you run Graal on the same computer it should be faster than v2 but is eventualy slighly slower than v4 on Windows (depends on the graphics card).

I have not a lot of experiences with installing Linux over an existing Windows, most of the time I do partitions with the Linux installer (reserving a boot partition of 50-200 MByte, making one partition for Windows, on for Linux), then install Windows, then install Linux.

[Magadal]

Originally Posted by Stefan

The music usually doesn't require more than 1 or 2 % of the cpu time, except you have a buggy sound driver. Sometimes when switching to a new music file it can freeze for a few milliseconds.

I can understand that things are not always working perfect, but please be fair x-x

You should do something with that...GK lags for me like hell when I use music...got an onboard sound card.

[Admins]

Originally Posted by Magadal

You should do something with that...GK lags for me like hell when I use music...got an onboard sound card.

Have you tried to install a good sound card driver ?

[Magadal]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Have you tried to install a good sound card driver ?

If I install any sound card driver, nothing happens...but I got a sound card somewhere :o will test it soon...

[ReBorn_Spirit]

The only issue with Linux is the fact that not everyone can really update their GTK without spening a whole day on it.

[Admins]

Originally Posted by ReBorn_Spirit

The only issue with Linux is the fact that not everyone can really update their GTK without spening a whole day on it.

Depends on the distribution, e.g. on Ubuntu you can do

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

and sometimes get 500 Megabyte of updates (they release a new version each half year, and mainly security fixed in the middle)

[Warcaptain]

I will repost once I have a bit more evidence of the problem.

I know that after using graal for hours and hours every day I lost a lot of Physical Memory..

I usually end up with less than half of what I started out with.

[Admins]

Originally Posted by Warcaptain

I will repost once I have a bit more evidence of the problem.

I know that after using graal for hours and hours every day I lost a lot of Physical Memory..

I usually end up with less than half of what I started out with.

Wow you have a Windows that runs more than a few hours :o
If you have less memory after running a program then it is either the OS or the driver I guess, they are supposed to unmap all memory taken by a program when it closes.

[Scorpion_504]

The problem with the lag is not the connections or the computer, its the way Graal was scripted. Let me give you an example. Everytime you see somthing new and somtimes old on Kingdoms, the server downloads the image onto your computer. This constant dwnloading is causing the lag you get evertime you go to a new level. If you don't believe me, walk around the main island. Kill some badies too, that will help the explanation. Now, after about 10 minutes, hit F2. Let me tell you what you will see:

File download: human2_handspell_charge.gani (size: 2710) done
File download: human2_brush_use.gani (size: 13764) done
File download: human2_axe_pullout.gani (size: 5017) done
File download: human2_pickaxe_pullout.gani (size: 5011) done

Basically, you will see tons of those. Now think to yourself. Those files are being downloaded to YOUR hard drive. This is causing lag on your hard drive. If this game was scripted better, it would not download the files to your computer. They would be set on the server.

I am not questioning how good Stefan is, all I am saying is that the way Graal was scripted is pretty unprofessional. I shall still play Kingdoms though.
-Firedemon

[Rick]

Originally Posted by Scorpion_504

If this game was scripted better, it would not download the files to your computer. They would be set on the server.

I am not questioning how good Stefan is, all I am saying is that the way Graal was scripted is pretty unprofessional. I shall still play Kingdoms though.
-Firedemon

So you want to walk around on Kingdoms not seeing any content at all?