Very low FPS with FSX@War objects broadcast

[edakridge]

We gave the v1.1.7 a test today. When FSX@War objects were broadcast either by the server or another player, the FPS got very low (2-10 FPS) when in the vicinity of the objects.(5-10nm) This is with ONLY the server or the one player running the FSX@War program, not because of duplication of objects. Peter, I know that you are working hard to make this work and we appreciate it.

[Peter]

Check the Monitor window, I suspect you'll see a lot of output there, possibly the exception 3 warning. I'll see if I can reproduce it.

Peter

[Cougar FFW04]

Hi,

Where did you try ? We tested internally 1.1.7 in the Balkan theater and didn't notice FPS drop. Could you please give details about what you did and who experienced FPS drop.

Please note that major FPS drop is expected during catching mecanisism (~30sec depending on the computer) when you launch FSXatwar.
The problem might be that for the player not runing FSXatWar, the catching mecanisism does not exist and this may trigger FPS drops when he is approaching plateforms with a lot of simobject not already in the cache.

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[edakridge]

We were running and broadcasting FSX@War pack 1 on a server computer. No one else had the program running. Once any of us got within about 20 miles of the Libyan coast FPS would drop to between 2 and 10 FPS.

[Cougar FFW04]

Hi,

How long was the FPS drop ?

[Peter]

With an FPS drop, go to the menu and select View|monitor. Then tick the 'save logs' option at the bottom. You'll then be able to view the logs (the button opens two log file, log.txt and log-previous.txt. Make sure you look at log.txt for the current log and you should be able to see what's causing the slow down.

My only guess at the moment is that you have different scenery to the server that you're getting the objects from, and it's putting them below ground. That's just a guess through, without more information.

Peter

[edakridge]

OK, tried it again today with 1.1.8. The results were better, but similar. FPS dropped to 9-10 when in close proximity to the target. I ran a monitor log this time though. A whole lot of simconnect exception #1.

Link to log: http://www.mediafire.com/file/d8d4ua440v1hbdp/log.txt

[Blue]

I was flying with 2 other friends using CCP to place targets. It worked very well but one of our guys experienced low FPS. I looked at the object windows and noticed that all effects show up but did not go away. I would assume that objects adding and not being removed accumulate and start impacting performance. Assuming that is the case, I would think using guns with 412 bullets each would add a considerable amount of objects.

Hopefully this helps.

Blue

[Cougar FFW04]

Hi,

When FSXatWar is started, one of the first action is to spawn ALL the FSXatWar SimObjects for caching and avoiding as far as possible miro-freeze later. I might be wrong but I think that FSXatWar catching mecanism could induce problems with JoinFS but I must check more carefully and look at the code. In particular FSXatWar must delete some SimObjects for various reasons and I think this does not work with JoinFS.

@Blue : You are right, the effects might be also part of the equation...
Depending how JoinFS spawn the Simobjects, they might trigger the damage/destroy effects unnexpectedly and this would result in major FPS drop.


I will discuss about that with Peter as soon as we have finished internal JoinFS testing.

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[Peter]

A large part of the problem may be to do with how I handle object deletion. At the moment object data is sent over the network. As soon as the data is received a new object is created in the simulator to represent that object. However, when an object ceases to exist on the owner client and data is no longer sent, the receiving client does not delete the object until after a certain period - currently 30 seconds. What I need to do is ensure that objects are instructed to be deleted across the network, rather than leaving it to expire naturally.

Once I've implemented that, any other related issues may become clearer.

Peter

[edakridge]

Understood Peter. To clarify one point that Cougar made: The other day when testing, we set the server at Lampedusa and when players spawned in they reported seeing the buildings smoking. When a building was destroyed, it took approximately 30 seconds before others saw it as destroyed. Therein could lie part of the conflict, as each simobject consists of 3 models. (OPS,DAM, and DES)

[Cougar FFW04]

Hi Peter,

A large part of the problem may be to do with how I handle object deletion. At the moment object data is sent over the network. As soon as the data is received a new object is created in the simulator to represent that object. However, when an object ceases to exist on the owner client and data is no longer sent, the receiving client does not delete the object until after a certain period - currently 30 seconds. What I need to do is ensure that objects are instructed to be deleted across the network, rather than leaving it to expire naturally.

Once I've implemented that, any other related issues may become clearer.

Is the object deletion "fixed" in 1.1.9 or does it still expire naturally ?

Thanks

[Peter]

Hi Cougar,

No, but it will be fixed in 1.1.10, which is out tomorrow morning.

I've also prevented the Tacpack placeholder objects from being automatically broadcast. This should also help improve the situation.

Peter

[Cougar FFW04]

Hi Peter,

Nice. Looking forward to test it.
Thanks.

[edakridge]

Just flew a test with 1.1.10. Very favorable results. I was broadcasting the objects as I was flying and my partner was receiving them. Both of us saw damage to the objects when they were attacked. FPS was not an issue. Now for a question to both Peter and Cougar. Would it be better to run FSX@WAr like that or with each member running his/her own copy and not broadcasting. One thing that we did note is that the objects did not exist outside of about a 35 mile radius of the "Host" aircraft.

[Cougar FFW04]

Hi edakridge

Thanks for the report.
Please see this : http://pmem.uk/joinfs/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=327

Happy flying