20 replies to this topic

[Ieldra]

Just as the title says: with every, or almost every new area I enter, the game slows down more. Right now it's only *almost* unplayable, but it's becoming worse.

I have no idea where I should look for a solution to this problem. I'm sure it has happened before....Can anyone help me. This is a Tactical installation with a few Expert mods thrown in. Find my WeiDU.log attached.

Edit:
It's particularly bad when I enter the map with the Xvart village. I have installed the "improved" component, but the problem is more global.

Attached Files

•  WeiDU.log   75.34K   245 downloads

Edited by Ieldra, 15 August 2010 - 02:01 AM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Generally these will help:

2. Put the ambient sounds off from the BGConfig.exe, as some of the areas might have no ambient sounds and so the game tries to start them many time continuously, and so looses processing power.
4. Don't mess with the game configurations so the speed adjustment percentages stay on "normal" ratings even if you have very high end machine, as the game has own it's internal fps counter, it sometimes tries to correct the fps on it's own by lowering graphs etc. Also the games frame rate should be set to about 30, as that's the default.
6. Trying to avoid too many effects on a character(about 20 is fine, 200 is too many, and 20 000 is way way too many...)
7. De-fragmenting your hard drive might also help... as you don't have to go find the data in the pieces. (hmm, there is a joke in there, hih)
13. Repeat the step 7 again, if you think it might help.
14. Run as few programs on the background while playing as possible, if you think it might help. And scan for viruses, but do so when you are not playing the game... so don't have the Anti virus program running in the background.
15. When you quit the game, delete all the files from the Cache, temp and tempsave folders, if the game even puts any files in these. This might cause a little loading time increase, but it is worth it, cause it removes lags and assertion errors when playing the game.
16. Inventory management(no stacks that have more than about 200 items, in a bag, arrows etc.), -might also help, as in if you drop an item to the ground and or store it in a stash the stuttering might go away in a few seconds there after. And do not carry too many bags of holding and the like storage_items.
17. NPC management, some mods might cause lag if a particular NPC is in the party for some odd reason or another, so if dropping the NPC from the party and waiting a few seconds, results in the end of the lag or stuttering, you should do so. And don't forget that somebody needs to know about it, the circumstance this happens etc. good debugging info...
18. Play the game yourself! So, if needed for large battles etc. heavy AI usage requiring encounters, turn the group AI's off by pushing the glowing lantern on the bottom right corner of the screen so it's not lightened anymore, unless it's strictly necessary for 1 action or another... as it might be needed to be running... for example while you level up with a few mod installed Kits, and if possible make the characters AI to be the None, or very limited and small script, such as auto attacking an seen enemy if the character is idle in battle.
19. Complete all the quests you are given, as in a long game, some scripts that are looking IF you have this-or-that quest active, will be screaming and causing lags, if their checks are in global category and they remain true all the time... it can be very bad, but the mod doing this should be fixed.
20. For some unexplained reason, when you have played the game quite long time, starting a new game so it autosaves in ToB and importing the BG1 or SoA game in, might help to clear out some of the stutter in them, even after you go back and load the game in the BG1 or BG2 portion of the game, we have to investigate this a bit.

But if they don't, you need to find what's off, and so you the LStest mod from the FAQ for the Megamods. As that's the #21...

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 15 August 2010 - 02:20 AM.

[10th]

@Xvart Village
No suprise there. Due to DSotSC, SCS, BPv180 and afair BGSpawn you'll get around 50-100 creatures loaded at once. Everyone of those creatures has roughly 3000-4000 lines of script. That slows every PC down.
After eradicating those xvarts you'll notice the difference, because the stuttering disappears completely.

@Stuttering in general
SCS I+II are also guilty of causing it. If you happen to meet an enemy group with both mages and priests you'll get some hitches when they raise their spell protections all at the same time.

@Stuttering in other areas
Could you please name some of them? Apart from the causes mentioned above I only had slight stuttering in the cloakwood areas, probably due to that unrelenting rain coupled with all those ambient sounds.

10th

Edited by 10th, 15 August 2010 - 02:51 AM.

[Ieldra]

@Xvart Village
No suprise there. Due to DSotSC, SCS, BPv180 and afair BGSpawn you'll get around 50-100 creatures loaded at once. Everyone of those creatures has roughly 3000-4000 lines of script. That slows every PC down.
After eradicating those xvarts you'll notice the difference, because the stuttering disappears completely.

@Stuttering in general
SCS I+II are also guilty of causing it. If you happen to meet an enemy group with both mages and priests you'll get some hitches when they raise their spell protections all at the same time.

@Stuttering in other areas
Could you please name some of them? Apart from the causes mentioned above I only had slight stuttering in the cloakwood areas, probably due to that unrelenting rain coupled with all those ambient sounds.

The strange is, it doesn't really seem to matter, except for special places like the Xvart village. For instance, I leave the area with the tombs SE of Nashkel for Bluebell Wood (an area added by Stone of Askavar), and there's no change. I complete exploring the area, then I leave that area for the Excavation site. Immediately after entering the game slows down a bit and that doesn't change in any way if I kill everything there. From that point onwards, the game is reduced to that slower speed in every area I visit afterwards, even if it ran perfectly well in the same areas earlier on.

OK, here's an addition to that example:

I am the Excavation site area. The game is already slow. I speak with Captain Brage and get teleported to the Temple of Helm in Nashkel. The lag increases dramatically. I leave the temple, the lag stays (I visited Nashkel earlier without any problems). I return to the Excavation Site and the lag still stays. The game has become unplayable now. Needless to say, the general hints didn't help.

Edited by Ieldra, 15 August 2010 - 03:28 AM.

[10th]

The strange is, it doesn't really seem to matter, except for special places like the Xvart village. For instance, I leave the area with the tombs SE of Nashkel for Bluebell Wood (an area added by Stone of Askavar), and there's no change. I complete exploring the area, then I leave that area for the Excavation site. Immediately after entering the game slows down a bit and that doesn't change in any way if I kill everything there. From that point onwards, the game is reduced to that slower speed in every area I visit afterwards, even if it ran perfectly well in the same areas earlier on.

Weird. But I don't have Stone of Askavar installed. If it occurs in every area you have some possible causes:
- baldur.bcs
- dplayer3.bcs
- dplayer2.bcs
- one of your party member's scripts

Of course it could be something totally unrelated to this.

10th

[Jarno Mikkola]

Of course it could be something totally unrelated to this.

That's why the LStest mod that's used to detect every response the scripts make includes every script in the game... of course it breaks the game while it's installed because the CLEAR_ALL_ACTIONS in the cut-scene scripts never becomes true, but you can always just uninstall it to continue the game, or copy the game folder to another directory and have two games, one with and the other without the mod installed. As it's install takes a while to complete.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 15 August 2010 - 04:05 AM.

[Ieldra]

It's definitely a script problem since the cursor doesn't stutter when the game is paused. It also isn't NPC-related as far as I can determined, since it happens even if remove everyone.

I'll try the LSTest

Edited by Ieldra, 15 August 2010 - 03:54 AM.

[Ieldra]

All right. LSTest gives the following results:

Repeatedly running all the time, starting with some time near the end of Chapter 3, is block 56 of EKRESRES.BCS:

IF
	True()
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		NoAction()
END

I deleted the debug code for this quote. I don't know how much time this costs, but it seems to take up more time than several area scripts running at the same time. I wonder if it's the many conditions this script checks instead of the non-action that causes the slowdown. Anyway, this is a script from Full Plate and Packing Steel, why should it run all the time?

Next, when I go to the Excavation Site and save the Captain, then, back at the Temple, two more scripts start running: Block 1 of ARA100.BCS and Block 9 of DW#2GCL4.BCS. The latter is apparently area-related, for it stops running when I leave, but ARA100 keeps running regardless of where I go.

Block 1 of ARA100.BCS is

IF
	OR(2)
		Global("CharlestonMoved","GLOBAL",0)
		Global("HelpGallor","GLOBAL",2)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		TriggerActivation("DoorA101a",FALSE)
END

Am I right in supposing that trigger activation should happen only once? The code is from BGT/Base.

So, while I can interpret the code I don't know the intricacies of scripting. How do I fix this? I guess I can use NI to change the scripts, but I get the impression EKRESRES shouldn't be running at all. What should I do?

[10th]

The ara100.bcs stops triggering if you do Charleston Nib's quest. Moreover you should ask over at gibberlings3 about the problem with ekresres.bcs.

10th

[Ieldra]

Ok... now is gets REALLY strange:

I disabled that script by removing the action that creates the creature that runs it. There was no perceptible change. Then I restored the old state. But: suddenly one of my old saves, which showed a perceptible slowdown earlier, didn't do so any more. I used a newer save and moved my party to the same place, so now I have:

(1) An older save in the Tombs area, running two scripts repeatedly, one of them EKRESRES.
(2) A newer save in the Tombs area with the same party as in (1), running only EKRESRES repeatedly.

And (2) is perceptibly slower than (1).

What should I make of this? The slowdown, it seems, is not script-related and not config-related, and I doubt things like HDD defragmentation can have such a drastic influence. What is left?

BTW:
Who is Charleston Nib and where do I find him?

Edited by Ieldra, 15 August 2010 - 11:02 AM.

[10th]

Charleston Nib is the archeologist in the excavation site area.

10th

[Ieldra]

So, nobody has an idea what could cause this?

To repeat, the situation is that I have two saved games:

(1) Location: Tombs area E of Nashkel, after ending chapter 3. One quest script named DW#-something running, and EKRESRES.BCS running a block containing only NoAction() repeatedly. No perceptible slowdown.
(2) Location: Tombs area E of Nashkel, some time later, finished some quests but added no others. Only EKRESRES.BCS running a block containing only NoAction() repeatedly. Noticable stutter.

This is in the same game with exactly the same configuration options set, the same set of mods. For all practical purposes, the savegames should be identical except for a few finished quests and two areas more visited. Counting only scripts, game (1) should be slightly slower than (2) instead of noticeably faster. And to make things even stranger, when I loaded game (1) earlier it did show noticeable stutter as well, but that vanished for some completely mysterious reason.

[Jarno Mikkola]

EKRESRES.BCS running a block containing only NoAction() repeatedly.

Well you can --change-log(how, the answer #6 here) the 'ekresres.bcs' file and archive(make a .zip, .rar or .7z from*) and attach the files* it gives into your game folder:
They'll be; ekresres.00001.bcs, ekresres.00002.bcs, ekresres.00003.bcs... and change-log.txt . After that, we'll see which mods have changed the files, and who should fix the issue in their mod.

[Ieldra]

I have already established that this script is not the cause of the slowdown.

FWIW, it's a script introduced by Full Plate and Packing Steel to cap certain kinds of damage resistance at 90% or 100%, and it's used by no other mod.

But since it's present in both of my saved games, and does exactly the same in both, and only one of them shows the slowdown, it can't be the reason. There isn't any other script running actions in the slowed game, and both run on the same config. So what is left?

Edited by Ieldra, 16 August 2010 - 04:25 AM.

[Ieldra]

Just so, it's gone. The game runs at its usual pace again. And now that it is gone, it is gone for most of my saved games. No idea why. Here's what I checked and proved not to have an influence:

(1) It doesn't't depend on my system configuration, CPU speed, RAM, virtual memory, GPU, hard disk space or fragmentation etc. I optimized my system and had the system monitor running, and every part of my system still has reserves when running a BWP-modded BG2 with everything than can possibly affect performance like SCS, Infinity Animations etc. Defrag didn't change anything.

(2) It doesn't depend on concurrently running other software, virus checkers, firewalls etc.. There was no change when I turned them off and ended all unnecessary tasks.

(3) It doesn't depend on script actions. I checked that with LSTest. It may depend on script condition checking, I have no way to test that.

(4) It doesn't depend on BGConfig settings, enabled/disabled ambient sound, cache size, pathfinding nodes, hardware and graphic settings etc.. I used different settings when the phenomenon was still present and there was no change at all.

(5) It doesn't depend on the number of creatures present on the current map, the number or kind of creatures/NPCs in combat, whether they have SCS scripts or not. If the phenomenon is present, these things make it a lot worse, but not unless it's noticeable even without these elements.

One suspect I forgot to check while the game was slowed is the cache folder. I didn't think of it because some saved games showed the slowdown, others didn't. Or so it felt at the time. Now that it's completely gone I know all saved games showed it in different degrees, and now it's gone for all of them. I also changed my saving behavior: now, if I make a regular save, I always create a new one and delete the old one instead of overwriting the old one. It probably doesn't mean anything, but stranger things have happened...

This is just FYI for anyone who has similar problems. I hope if the phenomenon occurs again, it will turn out to be the cache folder that's responsible. If not, I'll be stumped.

Edited by Ieldra, 17 August 2010 - 11:54 PM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

One suspect I forgot to check while the game was slowed is the cache folder. I didn't think of it because some saved games showed the slowdown, others didn't. Or so it felt at the time. Now that it's completely gone I know all saved games showed it in different degrees, and now it's gone for all of them. I also changed my saving behavior: now, if I make a regular save, I always create a new one and delete the old one instead of overwriting the old one. It probably doesn't mean anything, but stranger things have happened...

So before you went with the solution 21, you should have done the 15.

15. When you quit the game, delete all the files from the Cache, temp and tempsave folders, if the game even puts any files in these. This might cause a little loading time increase, but it is worth it, cause it removes lags and assertion errors when playing the game.

"I told you."
Am I good, or am I good.

[Ieldra]

LOL. I did read the list, I just overlooked the item. I'll tell you you're good if the phenomenon happens again and the culprit turns out to be the cache folder. But pardon me if I'd rather not have it happen again.