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map lag
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 Re: map lag
Posted by tajgenie on Tue Nov 16th at 12:56am 2004

Um.. well i think i should say this is pretty much my first map for hl2, and i've never actually completed an hl1 map...

that said, when i made this map the first time, i had it working, and it compiled, quickly. i had problems with fullbright and a 2d skymap, but i eventually fixed those. right now, my map takes 30 MINUTES to compile, and lags slightly when running. I'm not sure why, but would a very large big open space explain it? I have some screenshots of the level at
http://id.yoll.net/mis_screenshot.html
These screens are not exactly what my map looks like now, but the proportions of the buldings are the same, and im getting the same wierd lighting effect that is on the walls as on the light posts. oh wait, theres no picture of the light posts.. i'll post that seperately. I read about why its bad to literally build a sky"box", so i did the capping thing, the cieling is reasonably low..

so i guess im asking why its compiling so slow, and if its due to the sky or the big open space. btw, it compiles slow even after removing all lights except light_env.



one more thing - would fog improve performance on a large level or decrease it?
[addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by omegaslayer on Tue Nov 16th at 2:31am 2004

How much RAM do you have? Compiling takes a great deal of RAM up for all the calculations in Vis and RAD, If you dont have at least 256mb of ram ill say that you have no right to compile, 512 is good and 1 gig is even better, the more the better.

With that said what area of compiling does it take the longest? RAD and VIS are major RAM suckers, especially VIS of you have a comlex map, and RAD if you have complex lighting.

From what I saw on your map, it might take my system 5-10 minutes to compile, but I still can only tell soo much from your scrren shotts. Perhapse you have an over excess of brushes and the VIS is calculating too many clip nodes (solve this by using clip brushes "close off" the complicated brush work. Or the RAD is taking longer on individual bushes (I know that isnt the was RAD works but its the same basic princible). Have you ever used the carving tool? The answer better be HELL NO!!! Becaus ethe carving tool is pointless, its much more efficient to build an area brush by brush.

As for the lag in your game, are you running hammer and CSS? Never do that, always exit out of hammer then run your map. And as for large open maps: HL1 wasnt good at that, but I dont know about source, Ill see when HL2 comes out 2-night . Type in "cl_showfps 1" without the quotes, if the fps are low then your suffering a system lag, and it resides in your system. There is also "+showbudget" without the quotes which shows how much rendering of different things is going on, If most bars are filled up, then its your map taht has the problems.

Fog, if dense enough, will improve performance as long as you cant see "stuff" from far away (eg the fog covers it).

I know this is alot but if you dont want to hear me ranting on about how to make maps read some noob tutorials here, or search the internet for map optimization. eg: r_speeds (which is what HL1 used as performance indicators).

If you can give me a download spot for the bsp ill take a look at it if you want.

[addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by 7dk2h4md720ih on Tue Nov 16th at 2:44am 2004

One of your problems may be overlapping world brushes. It's highly important that no world brushes overlap as it makes things far more complicated for the compiler and is poor mapping practise.




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 Re: map lag
Posted by omegaslayer on Tue Nov 16th at 2:45am 2004

ya that too..... [addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by tajgenie on Tue Nov 16th at 4:10am 2004

thanks a lot for all the info (should be very helpful), i'll work on it.

but not for awhile of course, i got hl2 to play
and midterms
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: map lag
Posted by tajgenie on Thu Nov 18th at 11:29pm 2004

Well its compiling in about 45 seconds now... I only made a couple changes... mainly changing some vertex manipulated brushes (which were initially carved to create more verticies) to some new displacement surfaces, which are soooo much easier to use and look better. I killed a few overlapping brushes and deleted one light spot. still no fog. Rad is what was running slow. I'm getting the feeling it was slow because of my computer. although, 768 of ram should be enough...

anyways, thanks. And half life 2 was awesome.
[addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by Spartan on Thu Nov 18th at 11:35pm 2004

You can have a lot of Ram but if you have too many programs running in the background that will slow the compile process down and the less resources the compile process has to use the more chance of mistakes happening in your map.



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 Re: map lag
Posted by tajgenie on Thu Nov 18th at 11:40pm 2004

Yeah, i know about how ram works. I didn't know it could cause errors though. Interesting...
[addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by Spartan on Fri Nov 19th at 1:29am 2004

? quoting tajgenie
Yeah, i know about how ram works. I didn't know it could cause errors though. Interesting...

I just wanted to point it out for you. I know your not stupid or anything.





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 Re: map lag
Posted by tajgenie on Fri Nov 19th at 6:09am 2004

no worries
[addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Fri Nov 19th at 6:24pm 2004

RAD has always been the compile step that takes far longer than all the others. I've had maps where the RAD process takes 10 times longer than BSP and VIS. You just need to have patience





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 Re: map lag
Posted by ReNo on Fri Nov 19th at 8:03pm 2004

Depends on the map to be honest, I've had plenty of maps in which VIS was the killer, not RAD.
[addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by Orpheus on Fri Nov 19th at 8:14pm 2004

? quoting ReNo
Depends on the map to be honest, I've had plenty of maps in which VIS was the killer, not RAD.

ditto..

[addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by Spartan on Fri Nov 19th at 8:21pm 2004

ditto ditto



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 Re: map lag
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Fri Nov 19th at 8:49pm 2004

I don't see how that's possible, considering my example was the Snarkpit map. Course it may be that you people don't design maps with low r_speeds and visblockers!



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 Re: map lag
Posted by Orpheus on Fri Nov 19th at 8:58pm 2004

? quoting Yak_Fighter
I don't see how that's possible, considering my example was the Snarkpit map. Course it may be that you people don't design maps with low r_speeds and visblockers!

true, but if you have more things to see, than light sources to compute i suppose that makes a difference.

but seriously, i have had a couple where vis was much worse than rad.

[addsig]



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 Re: map lag
Posted by toxic-mapper on Wed Oct 19th at 3:23pm 2005

hi guys im new to this website...anyway i got the same problem like he have and i cant fix it,ti needs about 3 or 2 hours to finish compileing and im not ready to wait this long because ill get bored,anyway i need some one to help me...and i need to know how to make a hint brush please some one tell me pleaseXD :] actualy the portal flow was the laggy one.




Quote
 Re: map lag
Posted by omegaslayer on Wed Oct 19th at 7:00pm 2005

Okay you rezurected 3 different threads (one of which wasnt a question, but an answer to a thread 9 months OLD!) please only post in one thread next time. Granted you ARE doing what we want you to do, just only rezurect one thread for 1 problem, not two.

Answer to yoru problem:
Post your compile log, let us see whats taking the longest (BSP, VIS, RAD) because you didnt give much to go on when you said "ti needs about 3 or 2 hours to finish compileing". It might be that you have a leak in your map (judging from your poor spelling you have no idea what that is, nor do you know what to look for). And that is causing a long time in the VIS compile process, or maybe it even that your dont have a leak and you have a complex map thats taking vis a long time to compile, turn stuff into func_detail without creating a leak is the simplest way of doing stuff.

OR maybe you did everything correct and its RAD thats taking the longest. Believe it or not RAD (lighting) does take a long time to complete. An experienced mapper will create complex lighting that will take a long time to calculate.


PS: for hint brushes thats a whole differnt topic, do a search for a tutotial on the intenet and teach yourself (we only help people who help themselves - like GOD)



Posting And You



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 Re: map lag
Posted by tajgenie on Thu Oct 20th at 6:15am 2005

I'm sure this almost certainly belongs in a new thread, but hey, I'm a rulebreaker.

The recent replies to this thread caused me to get 2 email notifications. But thats supposed to happen. Thing is the email said:

Subject: Snarkpit forums: Reply to ""

and the body:

This is a message notifying you about a reply to your topic "". Read it 
here:
		http://www.snarkpit.net/forums.php?forum=6&topic=2424


Just thought the admins would like to know is all. If this post really bothers you, delete it, I honestly don't care.
Fin.





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