What is the Best Ways To reduce LAG

Yo guyz,

I have been wondering these days, i want to really hardly mostly ever since i started mapping, to know what are the ways that reduce lag in maps that are laggy with less than 20 fps and stuff like that, i really am searching for ways that really works, and you may have tried that yourself.

Thank you!!

:dorky:

There are many techniques for increasing the framerate of your map, here are a few I've found useful:

• Turn any smaller brushes that don't have much effect on visibility into detail brushes, or even LOD brushes (i.e. door frames, columns, supports, etc.).
• Look at the layout of the map. Is there any way you can break it up, so less is rendered at one time?
• Add area portals to doors and doorways, and window area portals to windows.
• Try using hint brushes to aid VBSP in splitting leaves in a more logical manner

I seriously think someone should right a user friendly tutorial for using hint brushes in HL2.

Yes as i have no idea how to use them myself and it would greatly help!!!!

I would be a slave to the guy who writes that!

Yeh i know hint thing is so hard to do, i tried reading alot of tutorials, but it just didnt fit right, i just hope and wish that this site would explain in a much better and clear way :biggrin: ...

And if you have any point_spotlight, make sure you turn dynamic light off (in the flags tab).

There really cant be a user friendly HINT tutorial. becuase HINT
arn't some magic trick that will always fix problems, inface they can
cause HUGE problems or do nothing at all.

But I love to make tutorials so I will try it out.

I've been thinking a lot about those HINT brushes because in my current
map, I have a very long corridor which I suspect will need to be split
appropriately. It makes sense, too, that you pros might have
difficulty popping out a tutorial for something with such quirkiness.

Would it help if those of us wondering about HINT brushes could put
together a crude top-down view of our map for better illustration of
the different rooms and spaces therein? I'm merely thinking of
how best for those of us with questions to get answers. If you
could see the space(s) we're dealing with, it might help.

One could be written about the correct uses and how it works, like what situations e.g. large areas or small areas.

Have you tried turning a majority of your brushes into func_detail?

Also try running vis on full, you will get better FRAMES (not LAG) than
if you did it on fast (fast is only to test out a map, not meant to
accurately simulate how a map is played).

While hint brushes might help, in your n00b hands it might cause more dammage.

If you decide to potentially damage your map with hint brushes, use
this link:
http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?doc=1043477348-95410300

Personally, I'll wait until I have a more-or-less completed map and see how it runs before daring.

Ok could someone enlighten me as to how you display glview?

what is a 'hint' brush and what does it supposedly do?

Look it up, this is a subject that could fill pages and pages or text.

i learned to map, when there were no "crutches" such as hints and so forth.

my advice. try trial and error. learn exactly what makes the frame rates drop.

start with your hardware. is it substandard? if not, then assume its your mapping habits.

mapping habits will be your biggest hurdle to overcome, because if you are like most of us, you will always assume that you cannot do better. that "THIS" is as good as it gets. WRONG!

learn to map smaller, making areas with 1/2 of your intended size. examine each compile to note what went wrong, and why. COMPILE FREQUENTLY!!!!

learn how architecture effects frame rates. learn how scale effects frame rates. learn how distance effects frame rates.

lastly, and with the HL2 engines capabilities... learn what entities effect frame rates. a bunch of toilets and radiators being flung around will definitely effect them.

/ 2 cents.

here are three commands i use -

mat_leafvis 1 - use this to see your VIS leafs, if they are too large
or of its just a couple for the whole map - you definitely want to
split that up. If you get leafs that are awkwardly shaped - you want to turn things into func_detail.

mat_wireframe 1 (need to turn cheats on first with sv_cheats 1) to see
what is being rendered, to look and make sure area portals are working
right by looking at doors and seeing if the stuff behind them is being
drawn or not (no, it shouldnt be drawn)

+showbudget shows what's happening with your system resources -
if you see its using most of your resources on rendering those 5000
garbage dumpsters you put in, you may want to consider reducing those..
a lot.. in fact, get rid of them all! Whatever it takes to make your
map play well! (leave one if you cant live without it ;D)

Im working on a hint brush tutorial if anyone cares, it should be out by mon. (after revisions)

Cool, ill wait till your tutorial if finished, and thank you all for your help, and if someone knows other ways to reduce lag, please post it here !!!

Thanks