Engine Updates & Zoning

[Mesanime]

Just thought id mention to anyone that doesnt play on the test server, i did some testing last night with the new patch on Zone times, something ive always suffered with.

They are greatly improved from what i can tell. Whilst i appreciate that the server isnt as busy, one of my worst zones has always been Anywhere(Tir, Newland or Trade) -> ICC. It has always taken AT LEAST 30 seconds to get into ICC for me. This long zone is now gone.

I see the difference in loading things over multiple frames and for me i think its absolutely awesome. I have no problem with a few dodgy textures over a few frames whilst they load - its infinatly more usefull than locking up. I also imagine that people with faster machines will experience less dodgy textures and so this solution would seem to be advantageous to everyone.

Nice work

[Blackdog]

30secs?! Shait!
Takes 10sec max for me

[Mesanime]

Its the longest zone for me in the game - Cant explain why although it might be something to do with it being a massive outdoor area, but then there are other similar areas and THEY dont take as long.. so *shrug*

[Shihna]

I range anywhre between thirty seconds to five minute zone times on live. I was messing around on test yesterday and was only taking around ten seconds to zone. Granted there's not many people or whatever to load, but that's a huge change for me.

[Mesanime]

Cool I guess the main test (kind of ironic really considering its the test server) will be when it goes live and we see how it copes with large numbers of people/actions etc etc.

[sternrav0r]

5 seconds at most before or after 16.4 patch for me to zone into ICC. Then again I do run 2 SATA drives in RAID 0 w/ 2GB of RAM on board. My load times are silly fast.

[Proportions]

I made a testrun on the testserver and then on the live server. Made a new char , run through noob island to athen and icc and noticed better zoning and loading while running and an overall smoother gameflow. Its ofc only a small non represantive test ( almost no people around , runspeed of 10 ) but i really saw the difference. I think this is an important improvement.

[MachSchau]

i am glad you are all getting such good results from the test server.

i have noticed several things, as im sure you all have. when playing AO for several hours zoning takes longer, thus a relog is in order. normally when i dont relog zoning takes 30 seconds (just a rough idea). but this was with my old computer, still a very good computer but i have to say games like doom and HL would run choppy on it due to graphics card and possibly ram.

ive gotten a new computer recently and i was really impressed with when i would zone ANYWHERE it would take about 5 seconds to load up the zone (sometimes 4 jee wiz!). so with that i think it might be your computer, but i know some of you have really good computers and that still happens.

i have pentium D, 2.8ghz and 1gb of ram. my old comp was a pentium 3 512mb ram and maybe 1.2-1.8ghz. my current graphics card is a intel 82945g express chipset family. cant really say what i had for the old one.

[Mofo]

What made a huge difference on my old comp was the amount of ram i was using. I "only" had 1gb of ram on it and when AO+Windows+Random other progs got a total ram usage of 1gb+ AO slowed down alot. Usually happened after some zoning. ICC added most to the ram usage. But now with 2gb of ram i can go on zoning through all the zones on RK and in SL without noting difference. So that might be why u noticed a nice improvement after u changed ur comp. (512 -> 1gb ram)

And for me it is only the first zone into ICC that takes longer. Next time is like a normal zone.

[Negs]

I range anywhre between thirty seconds to five minute zone times on live. I was messing around on test yesterday and was only taking around ten seconds to zone. Granted there's not many people or whatever to load, but that's a huge change for me.

same with me, quickest is around thirty seconds, longest i've timed was 3 mins 12 seconds ((yes i used a stop watch))

[Pentane]

i have noticed several things, as im sure you all have. when playing AO for several hours zoning takes longer, thus a relog is in order.

memory leaks anyone?

[Mastablasta]

memory leaks anyone?

Generally no... check AO's memory usage. Barely climbs above a few hundred megabytes these days.

[Mesanime]

How much ram do you have masta? I admittedly have a little under the ideal amout, 772Mb, and i still find it spilling over into the swap file eventually.

[Terabite]

Those who have long zone times, Do you run compressed textures?

[Mesanime]

nope, compressed textures are off.

[Khalem]

Generally no... check AO's memory usage. Barely climbs above a few hundred megabytes these days.

Check AO's full memory usage, including pagefile usage.

[Warhead]

Generally no... check AO's memory usage. Barely climbs above a few hundred megabytes these days.

Check AO's full memory usage, including pagefile usage.

And what would that prove? There are no obvious leaks anymore like there used to be. Even after half a day of AO without relogging, the RAM and swap usage stays withing reasonable limits.

[Mesanime]

I find that when i reboot my machine and start playing, all is good. Over time the performance drops, and then it hits the Swap file. Performance drops considerably although it is still playable.

I agree that the memory leak issues from that past are not a problem anymore but it still feels like its leaking somewhere, otherwise it wouldnt fill my ram and then head into the swap file.

[Omutb]

I agree that the memory leak issues from that past are not a problem anymore but it still feels like its leaking somewhere, otherwise it wouldnt fill my ram and then head into the swap file.

Intentional leaking is called "not emptying the texture cache"

The more you zone and the more you see, the more is loaded into memory, unfortunately unlike FPSs etc you cant predict what textures you are going to see on players in an MMO.

[Psyloche]

Intentional leaking is called "not emptying the texture cache"

The more you zone and the more you see, the more is loaded into memory, unfortunately unlike FPSs etc you cant predict what textures you are going to see on players in an MMO.

Well, asian games solve that with having 3 classes, 4 armors up to top lvl, so all races and all available armors is 3x4=12 armor sets to have in memory

Problem: it is INCREDIBLE dull!! Some mmorpg's out there, got LESS ARMORS than COUNTERSTRIKE1/2 or BATTLEFIELD2!! -_-