It's happened.... hitching problems found and fixed (mostly still WIP)
SamusDroid
Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Disclaimer: Don't be eating, drinking, or standing when you click this spoiler.
I've solved it, I finally found he cause, and a fix.
Results to far: No hitches, 10 second load times on a fresh start, people's minds blown, no more getting murdered when switching builds.
All because of DDS files, and a few extra models taking up load time. If you can, please test this, and report findings here, based on questions on mod page. Basically when load times was giving everyone times, it was giving them the times it took to load the actual material file which is not preached, NOT the DDS texture files that are loaded when the material loads. So yeah, you notice a hitch, it only said something like 0.01 seconds and you are like WTF!?!? When really it loaded a material file which loads 4-5 more high res texture dds files. So, what if you were to precache all these dds ffiles on load?! This is the result. Somehow when it should be taking longer to load more files, it's actually reducing loadtimes by like 1/3.
To test this mod, subscribe to the mod, enable it in game and then restart the game. Load a listen server and type load times into console (`). Notice first encounters and load times for each side, report findings to here when out finish.
Things to report:
Was load times faster?
Did you have any hitches? If so list them here or upload a lis of the console with the long load time.
If you had any load time =15 report it here as well. Or ANYTHING that made you hitch.
Any other comments or things you noticed
Reported 1/3 default lload times.
Results to far: No hitches, 10 second load times on a fresh start, people's minds blown, no more getting murdered when switching builds.
All because of DDS files, and a few extra models taking up load time. If you can, please test this, and report findings here, based on questions on mod page. Basically when load times was giving everyone times, it was giving them the times it took to load the actual material file which is not preached, NOT the DDS texture files that are loaded when the material loads. So yeah, you notice a hitch, it only said something like 0.01 seconds and you are like WTF!?!? When really it loaded a material file which loads 4-5 more high res texture dds files. So, what if you were to precache all these dds ffiles on load?! This is the result. Somehow when it should be taking longer to load more files, it's actually reducing loadtimes by like 1/3.
To test this mod, subscribe to the mod, enable it in game and then restart the game. Load a listen server and type load times into console (`). Notice first encounters and load times for each side, report findings to here when out finish.
Things to report:
Was load times faster?
Did you have any hitches? If so list them here or upload a lis of the console with the long load time.
If you had any load time =15 report it here as well. Or ANYTHING that made you hitch.
Any other comments or things you noticed
Reported 1/3 default lload times.
Comments
EDIT: Also I don't have an SSD.
Mod delete other thread?
EDIT 2: HUGE DEVELOPMENT, READ THIS POST:
forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2167703/#Comment_2167703
However.... i can load any NS2 map from a fresh start in under 10 seconds...
In other words:
I AM LOADING ANY NS2 MAP FROM A FRESH START IN UNDER 10 SECONDS!!!
WTF IS GOING ON?! AHAHAHAH THIS IS GLORIOUS
*All hail Samus! All hail Samus!*
See near end of video when I fire the rifle.
≖_≖
That said, his fix passes consistency checking
Edit: While I do get the "Precacheing" spam which seems to appear simultaneously so I don't actually get a scroll effect, I do NOT see the scrolling "loading" spam that Ghosthree3's first video shows. Maybe the mod isn't quite running properly?
No, no it doesn't. It will error you saying lua\Loading.lua failed consistency check. Watch the console while you join a server. Also notice how you DON'T load in 10s.
@sotanaht see above.
THE ONLY WAY TO TEST THIS is to remove consistency checking from yout %appdata%\natural selection 2\consitencyconfig.json file and then start a listen server. It DOES work then though, see my video up top.
Ok I'm not ENTIRELY sure how to do that but I have played with the file to the best of my limited knowledge. I know the mod is loading at least partly because it comes up on the list of server modifications when I start the map (which I am now doing with the console command you used), it does not say "...will be disabled", and it provides the precacheing spam which does not happen when I join a public server (that blocks the mod).
Regardless, so far the mod has had no effect, and the message log in my console does not quite match that of your first vid so I'm fairly sure something is broken on my end.
Just download this file, https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/176653127/ConsistencyConfig.json
Place it in the %appdata%\natural selection 2\ folder. It should ask to overwrite, if it doesn't, wrong folder. You COULD open the file in notepad and get rid of everything between the brackets ( [ and ] ) that follow the "check" code but I've blanked the whole file for you.
EDIT: Again, only works if you load a local server. Type map ns2_summit in console or go to the start server tab in play and load it in on summit.
EDIT2: Very important
Ok, I have done several tests. IF you enable this on your client and restart the game, you will see the console spam of it precaching stuff, that's cool, except I believe it gets unloaded on map start. IF you start a server with "map ns2_summit" it will respam it and load in VERY quickly. However, even if you join a server that has the mod, and you have the mod enabled, it will NOT spam it. This tells me that it's actually being loaded as part of the server loading routine, NOT client loading (also when it DOES spam it on the map command, it spams it well before "real" precaching). So, the theory is sound, but execution needs a tiny bit of modification so it loads at the correct time, ie. when you're loading a map/during real precaching, not at game start or server start.
EDIT3: @sotanaht What you probably saw was the spam from when you load the menu, NOT actually during while loading. Try the method I've listed above in this post, and in my first video, for a proper "test" of it.
except your name is SamusDroid
I see you got no excuses now when I spit you to death..
but seriously.
Amazing work!
Yeah if this fix actually ends up going through and working properly (we're not done yet, samus only worked on it for like 30 minutes lol) then he's done much more for this game than any other single person has in a looooong time.
EDIT: Not to say no one else is doing work...but this takes the cake.
I think you have no idea what the developers at UWE do for the game. Not saying its not great what samus does, but i would feel offended as a uwe developer reading your comment, because its simply not true.
I did say that I know they do work. But as a player, I've been waiting for better load times and the removal of hitches for over 30 builds. It has been my number one frustration with the game. Yes I hate the current balance (which is now Sewlek's job and he isn't who I'd truly call UWE even if they did employ him recently), and more maps would be kind of cool but I'm not desperate for them. Performance has been my number one issue for quite some time, so I don't retract my statement, this is the biggest improvement (for me anyway) that has (well hopefully will...) happen in a long time. Let's just hope it's actually as promising as it looks.