The game is incredibly slow in the third office, together with laboratories

Game Dev Tycoon bug
#8

I have the latest version I will send you my specs via email or look here:
http://forum.greenheartgames.com/t/game-progress-freezes-sometimes/6007/3

Update: I compared the game in Win7 32bit and Linux Mint Debian 64bit with the same save games.
The processing of parallel tasks in the linux version looks a little bit better than in the windows version. The progress of work / training does not stuck, but the related animations still do (slow motion). The animations to the labs and the open menu animation are slightly smoother/faster with parallel tasks in linux.
On the other hand the sound in linux stucks sometimes, e.g. when the game starts and sometimes between parallel tasks. And sometimes the animations stuck longer than in the windows version.
How can I detect if the game supports the webGL interface correctly? Or depends this problem on a synchronisation algorythm or the performance issues of JS in general?

#9

Update: My performance test in chrome/chromium (webkit) failed, it looks like the JS needs a special function of node-webkit, I don’t know. But I tested GDT with the current version 0.10.12 of node-webkit after that with the inspection function, and I detected that all elements are DOM objects. That is a hint for me that there are at least much drawing calculations for the animations which my CPU has to handle. The three node-webkit processes needs 100% of the CPU. I am going to get a dual core this week, the performance might be better with it. I don’t know if node-webkit supports any hardware acceleration for dom objects, as far as I know are these objects always software/CPU rendered. Which CPU has your test system? When I am going to set the process priority to “high” the fps are sligthly better, but then the rest of the system hangs. But I get an image of the complexity at this point and I can understand that these operations needs their calculations and JS is not optimized for very fast calculations as far as I know. Maybe you can improve some routines to make less calculations or simplify some animations … something is too much. I don’t know if the animations are too much or the parallel background calculations, I have no profiler, you have to decide. :slight_smile:

#10

I have replied to your email, hope it helps.

#11

No it did not!
My CPU is not the newest one, but I did not expected that the game has no real graphic acceleration, as far as I detected. On the GHG page is a note that this should be a system requirement, in my understanding.
The GHG page did not mention that the CPU is a system requirement and that it should be a very modern CPU. That is not fair against customers with older CPUs.
A note about the CPU requirement is useful for RAM requirement too, because the RAM speed depends on the CPU sockel type in a way. You mentioned the RAM size only.
And it is far-fetched that a customer should expect a high CPU requirement by a 2D tycoon game.

I have a very modern graphic acceleration and can play modern games with a good engine like “Oil rush” with 1280x1024 / Ultra Graphic settings without any lag. It’s a RTS with many parallel calculations for units and building processes.

The engine you use is more designed for applications than games, you may know it.
The game has relative high system requirements for a 2D game, but I know why now.

You should add a note at your system requirements that the game uses web technologies and produces higher CPU load than a comparable 2D tycoon game with desktop technologies. And you should have a note about the required CPU type, it is maybe a very modern CPU not older than 2 years?

My system has far enough RAM, the game uses round about 500 MB RAM and my system round about 1 GB, I have 1,5 GB free RAM minimum when I am playing GDT.

I helped myself with a 4400+ Dual-Core now, maybe this would help a little bit.
I am going to test it …

Update: The 4400+ gives me ~18% more performance at least. Because the second process can be calculated by the second core, the core speed is the same as before. That is better than nothing, the FPS on heavy CPU load are a little bit better than before. The game is playable that is enough for me at the moment, maybe you can refactor this part in future for more performance. The animations and parallel calculations stop if a menu pops up, that helps to keep a good performance on actions.

I wrote an article about system requirements here:

Every one can add own experiences with system requirements there.

#12

I have to report a similar issue. If i am in the third Office the game will start to “lag” after some hours. The FPS are fine but if i develope a game or just click to open the menu it will lag for like under a second.
I don’t think its because of my system:
I5 2500k
8GB DDR-1600
XFX HD6850

it looks like that a simple restart will fix the problem for a while

1 Like
#13

My conclusion on node-webkit is:
I am impressed what the engine in combination with node.js makes possible, but I see it’s limits because it’s designed for websites/applications. I am a web application developer, I know the technologies. In my opinion games with simple linear calculations and e.g. point-and-click adventures might be ok, but complex parallel calculations can cause a bottleneck for the whole application process.

@Robonator the CPU is a little bit older than 2 years, maybe my assumption about the CPU requirement makes sense …

I vote for another engine in your next game, here are some free cross plattform engines, I recommend an engine with a C language.

Lag Issues In late Game
#14

It might be a bit older than 2 Years but its still fast enough for modern games. I even overclocked it to 4.2Ghz so far.
but i guess this problem is just a bug that needs to get fixed. i didn’t experienced those lags before the latest patch.

#15

As I’ve also mentioned in a PM. We usually don’t see a bottleneck with the CPU. I’ve personally played the game on a notebook much older than two years (I think it’s 5 years old). Usually the limitation is graphic acceleration, outdated display drivers or the memory available in the graphic card and how often swapping occurs. My guess is that on your machine there is a lot of CPU fallback for some reason. If proper hardware acceleration is in place the game doesn’t require much CPU power.

@Robonator we upgraded to the latest version of node-webkit in 1.3.13 which also meant upgrading to a newer version of chromium. In our tests this improved performance a lot on most systems but I guess it could have different effects on others. I’d suggest you try updating your display drivers to see if this helps at all. If it doesn’t I would appreciate if you could describe the slow downs in more detail.

#16

Drivers are always up to date :wink:

Well the stuttering starts in the third office. and like i said when i am develping a game and many “bubbles” are flying over the screen the game starts with mini stuttering. its not as bad as you get it when you play with low fps but its still annoying.
if i try to move my camera or open a menu i get some kind of mini freeze, for like 0.1 - 0.2sec.
i dont know how to explain further since english is not my native language :smiley:

1 Like
#17

@Robonator
the description fits to my problem too, exactly.
The rest of the game works well, so my hardware does it’s job, just the third office has a problem.

@PatrickKlug
Ok, the bottleneck was an assumption, because I don’t know any other way, how this problem might occur, because the rest of the game works well. I had a question about hardware acceleration you use, and how I can detect if it works well. First I asked about WebGL, but I detected DOM objects, so how the acceleration works in detail? That might be interesting for the wiki article about hardware requirements too. I detected in my projects that many objects e.g. in a canvas have a negative effect because they are software rendered, and that a WebGL accellerated canvas is much faster, but which technique do you use?

I have an automatic driver update for nvidia, and my graphic acceleration is modern / fast. It is just an entry-level card of the newest generation, but it fits to my older CPU speed. And the best example is “Oil rush”, an one year old RTS game, which has a modern engine and runs with Ultra settings without any lags. The game “Starcraft 2” has the same genre type than “Oil rush” but is more complex and has a lot more CPU calculations. These have an effect on the FPS too, especially with the newest game extension, but it works quite well with with my new dual core and I get 60 FPS with my own performance settings and 30 FPS with middle quality settings. The last nividia driver update (2013-07-01) had a performance effect of max. +20% on games in combination with my card.

Update:
In relation to my newer experiences and the statements of Patrick I updated the System Requirements article with a more positive wording about engine and requirements, the CPU requirement is 5 years or younger now.

#18

I am working with node-webkit in another project currently and I have found the “Profiling” feature in the developer tools. I will record a CPU / memory usage profile for a more in depth analysis of the performance drop on my pc when I have some time.

UPDATE – Result GDT profiling

I have recorded a CPU profile with my old save game in the last office and many developers / development activity. I see my conjectures validated, the game needs much CPU calculation for the drawing processes (it’s called a.draw {…} by easeljs). And as far as I can see, easeljs offers no real solution for hardware acceleration, it uses a canvas renderer* only. I will stand back away from my first suggestion to use e.g. a C engine for the next game, because I have made my own experiences with node-webkit. I have posted some information about how to get the best graphic performance with best hardware acceleration in node-webkit in this news channel http://www.indiedb.com/engines/node-webkit/news and here are some related source code files which will give an impression of how to use it https://github.com/mctteam/mct/tree/master/lib/display
(it has a fallback to canvas to avoid compatiblity breaks, but of course, that is less interesting)

*canvas renderer: It does not use the cores for 3D acceleration like a WebGL renderer, the canvas might have an acceleration but it is not activated in all cases!

Did I mention my idea about graphic options yet? It might be useful to reduce the draw function load in the game by adding e.g. alternative animation modes with less effects. The bubble animations e.g. are completly needles, you can e.g. add simple counters …

2 Likes
Lag Issues In late Game
#19

I am having same slow down when developing game and running one or both labs at the same time.

CPU: Intel Core i7 980x
Video: XFX Radeon HD 5970 black edition
Mem: 6Gb 1600

#20

Everyone has, many don’t notice it, on good systems like yours and mine (3,7GHZ 2500k with gtx670) it is only mildly annoying, not complains worthy.
But it looks like MartinKelm found the problem? Lets hope the devs can make use of his information. Although its been quite a while…

#21

Everyone has, many don’t notice it, on good systems like yours and mine (3,7GHZ 2500k with gtx670) it is only mildly annoying, not complains worthy.

I can’t agree with that. I got a I5 2500k on 4.3Ghz and now a GTX 680 and its awful. I got massive delays and stuttering as soon as i do something like a click or moving the camera.

I was happy today to see a 80Mb Update but just Mod-Support and new languages :confused:

#22

Hey, what resolution are you using? and can you post a screenshot of you in the third office please?

#23

1920x1080
Here is the screen:

#24

can you try switching in and out of the r&d lab by using your cursor keys and see if the performance changes in any way?

also, please try to disable sound (turn it off in the settings) and see if this helps.

#25

It doesnt matter if i change to it via mouse or with the keys, its starts stutterung horribly.

I tried turning off the sound but that doesn’t change anything. It helped in an way earlier version of the game but not now anymore :frowning:

#26

My game works fine, no lagg, etc. i have a very good pc…
Im trying in a notebook, a little old and works fine too…
Maybe is your PC, try to update all your drivers with “Driver Booster”

#27

Driver are up to date. btw it also runs so bad on my laptop and that isn’t that bad either
( I7 3612QM, 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333Mhz, GTX 635M)