93 replies to this topic

[seanas]

ok, so we're closer to a diagnosis, and we've got a suspect. i've got a copy of amber on my work machine; i'll take a look at it tomorrow - but if the amber mod is the one that installs the Farrahd quest, then you might want to uninstall amber and see what happens.

it's pretty clear the problen yr having is located somewhere within yr baldur.bcs - if it's happening after the Farrahd quest kicks off, then we've got a likely script block to examine.

you can post yr baldur.bcs here if you want (you may well need to rename it to baldur.txt) and i''l try taking a look tomorrow - with anyluck i might be able to post a corrected version. however, at the moment, yr best bet is to unistall amber (or drop her from yr party) and see if there's any improvement.

[zachD]

Do the NPC romances (as they occur)and the NPC plot developements change/add to the bcs file?

Current singleplayer game I have isnt seeing much for stutter atm, still havent progressed into chap 3 though. I did seem to have some stutter develope in the docks district after doing some of Jaheira's quests and some of the thief stronghold quests, but it dissappeared after I dropped 2 scroll cases..., whether was dropping the containers that helped or something else I dunno. Interestingly enough I picked up two containers of the holding type in SoS and im still not seeing any overt stutter, yet.

I still suspect its present in my game, just not overt enough to be seen/noticed while playing.

[seanas]

Do the NPC romances (as they occur)and the NPC plot developements change/add to the bcs file?

some do, yes. but it's not the size of the additions to baldur.bcs that are the issue here - it sounds like amber is looking for a variable that hasn't been set correctly.

[Himself]

Looks like I'm stuck then. I am curious why I'm the only one getting this problem though. I don't have anything out of the ordinary installed.

Its something to do with "what" was installed and the "order" it was installed. bcs can act in funny ways, some conditions could even cause a loop, so the game would ahm.. stutter real bad

[Miraz]

The offender!

http://s15.quickshar...BALDUR.txt.html

I'll tinker with uninstalling Amber, see if it's possible without screwing the game up.

[zachD]

/gets a stack of the most stinky, foul smelling tomatoes he can find ready

[berelinde]

Before you start clearing out your override folder, or taking any other drastic action, you might want to clear your cache.

I had a wicked stutter problem in a game with far less mods than you installed, was doing romances, etc., and started running into spawning problems (npcs were not spawning where they were supposed to). Someone suggested clearing my cache. It didn't help the spawning problem, but all of a sudden, my stutter disappeared.

[seanas]

now that G3 is back up, i'm able to check: and there are reports of stutter/ game lag caused by amber. the origin hasn't been identified, and it seems to not happen to every install which includes amber; but nvertheless, there seems to be an amber-related game lag issue.

try kicking her out of the party if she's i nit; or uninstalling the mod if she's not, and trying again (remembering, of course, to always clear yr cache and temp folders before each new test...)

[Miraz]

Something on the G3 forums jumped out at me:

The problem may have been item related. I took everything off the characters but weapons and armor, and the problem seems to have cleared up. I"m sending a save-game anyway, to see if you can duplicate it on your computer. It's most visible when someone in the party is equipped with boots of speed

So I went checking back through all my save games. A save from just before I step through the portal into the Planar Prison doesn't show any stutter at all. Another from just before I'm about to fight the Warden shows the stutter in full effect. And that post made me remember ... I picked up a pair of Boots of Speed in the Planar Prison, my main character has been wearing them ever since.

Kicking Amber out doesn't help the stutter, nor does taking off the Boots of Speed (or both). Before I kick Amber out and uninstall her, I'm going to try running through the Planar Prison again without picking up the boots.

Edited by Miraz, 31 July 2006 - 03:15 AM.

[berelinde]

The person you quoted there was me. In my game, it showed up after I installed Amber, but it did not go away later, cropping up in future games at one point or another and gradually getting worse. In my current game, I did not have Amber in the party at all, we did the Planar Prison quest, but did not pick up the boots.

The problem persisted all the way to Byrnllaw and through Spellhold. Finally, while troubleshooting a spawn failure, I emptied my cache. It did not fix the spawn failure. Phaere still did not show up in Ust Natha at the temple. But the stutter problem disappeared.

You will not lose anything by trying this.

[seanas]

BGHead's suggestion re: cache and temp folder cleaning is always a good one; but i'd like ot point out that it's extremely unlikely that game lag would be caused by an item: the item would have to be calling a script, pretty much - and unmodded boots of speed certainly don't do it.

it's almost certainly a scripting error: the thread i was thinking of in amber is this one, which indicates that there's a global not being set. i dont know the specifics of that script, but it could easily be the case that until that global gets set, the script in question will keep initiating: causing massive lag.

if the amber romance was underway at all (and i have to repeat: i know nothing about the amber mod), then you might want to do a

CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("M#AmberRomance","GLOBAL",5)

and see what happens.

[Miraz]

No joy. Cache emptied, no effect.

I won't bother going through the Planar Prison again then, if it's definitely a scripting problem. You know more of these things than me .

I'll try setting that global, and if that does nothing, I think I'll ask on the Amber forums.

Edited by Miraz, 31 July 2006 - 04:44 AM.

[Miraz]

Thanks for helping so much guys, and for exploring every possible option. Setting that global did nothing, so I think the Amber forums are my only hope now.

[berelinde]

What a bummer.

Meira and Darios are wonderful, helpful people. I'm sure they'll come up with something.

[Miraz]

I have very limited understanding of how scripts work (outside of a few basic tutorials on scripting) ... but considering how something in baldur.bcs is definitely causing this, is it not possible to edit out scripts in baldur.bcs until I find the one which is causing the stutter? NI could do that, right?

[GeN1e]

If you are certain that some file is causing problem for you, then NI is the way to go. Remember however that without understanding how it works (I mean not NI) you can make for yourself much more troubles than you have already had.

Sorry for my english.

Edited by GeN1e, 31 July 2006 - 01:32 PM.

[maximus2001]

Are Boots of Speed still a possibility? Last game I think I had 4 or 5 boots of speed from various mods(upgraded from item upgrade mod to boots of the hornet, combo of avoidance/speed boots). While they moved fast, the stutter was in full effect including Edwin without boots. At the time carried only one bottomless bag with about 50 items.

[seanas]

Are Boots of Speed still a possibility? Last game I think I had 4 or 5 boots of speed from various mods(upgraded from item upgrade mod to boots of the hornet, combo of avoidance/speed boots). While they moved fast, the stutter was in full effect including Edwin without boots. At the time carried only one bottomless bag with about 50 items.

the only problem with the boots of speed suspicion and the bottomless bags suspicions is that i'm not having problems with either. as i said, there's not script attached to boots of speed, so i can't see how it's possible for them to cause stutter - and in my BP-BGT-TDD game (day 143 atm) i've not had any problems with boots.

nor have i had any problems with bags either: and we're carrying two bags of holding, the wolfsack, a scroll case and a gem bag. the ways the bags can cause lag are two-fold: one is having them overstuffed. by this, i serously mean 1000+ arrows or sling bullets (the game engine counts each arrow or bullet as one item - so it's easy to accidentally stuff yr bags) (and similarly, if yr party at carring 65,000 arrows in their quickslots - this is the same as overstuffing bags). the other possibility for lag caused by bags is if you've got a mod that's checking all yr items all the time - and there have been reports that the gradual drow disintegration from BG2 tweaks and G3 Tweaks was causing this - then having lots of stuff hidden in bags will make these checks go so much slower, causing lag.

the usual causes of lag, however, aren't overstuffed bags: they're NPCs or mods that make errors in their scripts. an example: i have Fade hacked up so that she appeared in Gaelen's house, not Aran's, and i have changed all of her dialogues to reflect this - but i hadn't altered AR0300.bcs (the docks area) which had a check to initiate a Fade dialgue, but the dialogue reference was now to the slums area (AR0400). as a result, when i entered the docks, my game slowed to a standstill: the docks script kept finding this valid state to do something, but there was no matching thing to do - so it kept returning true but never updating. game killing lag - but only in the docks. similarly, when you enter Chapter 3 in BP, most outside areas in Athkatla start running multiple checks for random encounters/ ambushes - causing lag whilst outside in Chapter 3. (and yes, it's on my list of bugs to fix for the next BP release). in both these cases tho, the lag is specific to a particular area, or group of areas.

to have script-related general lag (ie lag in all areas - and i'm relying on yr powers of observation that you are having general lag, and not specific lag that yr not paying close enough attention to) it's either got to be in a script that's always running: baldur.bcs or player1.bcs (i think); or an in-party NPC script missing a non-area-specific trigger. there's a suspicion that multiplayer gmaes lag badly: if you've got lag and yr in multiplayer: move yr save to the single-player save floder and try again. better yet: start a new single-player game and see if it lags.

failing that: the options are limited to overfull override folder (but this should no longer be an issue with weidu mods) - if yr override folder is greater than 1GB, then this might be the cause, or having yr graphics and sound settings too high (the solution is easy: lower the settings and/or lower yr screen resolution. if yr playing on anything higher than 1024x768 by the way, that's the source of yr problems).

failing these, we're left with either undocumented incompatibility (not impossible), or undocumented user error. sadly, experience tells me the latter is the most common cause of lag. the only way to identify the undocumented incompatibility at this stage is to test: start removing mods one by one, and after each uninstall, empty yr cache and temp folders, load up a saved lagging game, and see if it still lags. if no: you have a suspect (the last removed mod); if yes: remove another mod and repeat the test. then, once, yr at the point of removing everything other than the big mods, do a completely fresh install: delete everything, use freshly un-rared mods, make sure you follow the instructions, document yr install process, and test a new game at each stage of the install process as often as yr patience lasts. if you get a complete reinstall done and you cant identify the lag but the lag is no longer there: congratulations! if you get a complete reinstall done and you cant identify the lag but it's stll lagging: then sadly, yr shit outta luck.

[erebusant]

I'm becoming the believer in the incompatible mod theory. My last install started lagging at a particular ponit in my game and nothing resolved it. My current install I no longer get the lag. I only have a bag of holding and a gem bag and a potion bag, and the only stutter I ever get so far is just after going through an extensive dungeon and I have thousands of arrows/suits of armor, etc, etc; As soon as I sell the stuff though the stutter goes away. You can compare my WeiDU logs from my previous game to my most recent install in the Mega-Install thread. I'm pretty convinced that the game lag issue (or a significant portion of it) is to be found there.

[seanas]

how can i resist a compare n contrast?

i compared the two weidu logs attached to this post, working on the assumption that the 070306 install was lagging.

only the lagging install used:
~SETUP-BD-TOB.TP2~ #0 #0 // Baldurdash Fix Pack for ToB, v1.5 WeiDU
~SETUP-BD-TOB.TP2~ #0 #1 // Textupdatepack -> Baldurdash English Text Update Pack for ToB, v1.4 WeiDU
~SETUP-TDD.TP2~ #0 #1 // TDD Character Kits
~SETUP-CTB-CHORES.TP2~ #0 #0 // Candlekeep Chores, v2.0
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #18 // Restored Minor Dialogs
~SETUP-D0TWEAK.TP2~ #0 #1 // Corrected Summoned Demon Behaviour
~SETUP-D0TWEAK.TP2~ #0 #2 // Corrected Demon Animations
~SETUP-D0TWEAK.TP2~ #0 #20 // Slower Walking Speeds
~SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // PnP Spell Progression Tables
~SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2070 // Druids Use Cleric Level and Spell Progression

working on the premise that my install is not lagging and i have installed these components, the following are unlikely to be the cause of lag:
~SETUP-BD-TOB.TP2~ #0 #0 // Baldurdash Fix Pack for ToB, v1.5 WeiDU
~SETUP-BD-TOB.TP2~ #0 #1 // Textupdatepack -> Baldurdash English Text Update Pack for ToB, v1.4 WeiDU
~SETUP-TDD.TP2~ #0 #1 // TDD Character Kits
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #18 // Restored Minor Dialogs

also unlikely to cause lag, as they're just 2da alterations:
~SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // PnP Spell Progression Tables
~SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2070 // Druids Use Cleric Level and Spell Progression

equally unlikely to cause lag due to rarity of in-game use:
~SETUP-D0TWEAK.TP2~ #0 #1 // Corrected Summoned Demon Behaviour
~SETUP-D0TWEAK.TP2~ #0 #2 // Corrected Demon Animations

this leaves, as possible suspects (in conjunction with other, otherwise 'clean' components, at a guess):
~SETUP-CTB-CHORES.TP2~ #0 #0 // Candlekeep Chores, v2.0
~SETUP-D0TWEAK.TP2~ #0 #20 // Slower Walking Speeds

so: those of you with lag, can you try removing these components if you've got them installed; clearing yr cache and tmp folders, and trying a saved game?

altho it might be time to break out some quantitative data analysis software and search for common features...

Edited by seanas, 01 August 2006 - 06:21 AM.