RTCED SUGGESTION: Editor reactions too slow

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 2:24 pm

While I'm probably on a very slow machine compared to most of you, I don't think that an editor should visibly drag the mouse behind or take a second for starting to scroll. I'm trying this at work on a Pentium 500MHz with 256 MB RAM. What graphics are you using? Is it necessary to be that sophisticated and detailed, I'd rather go for a functionally powerful editor than one that's all shiny and perfect in details.

Regards, PitD

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 2:32 pm

I'm on a AMD Athlon 1900 XP, 512MB RAM and a 128MB Geforce 4 graphics card. I haven't yet noticed any slowdown. But I would expect your machine to be powerful enough to not have slowdown either.

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 2:46 pm

Can you try minimising the object vault and see if that speeds things up. It appears that the vault slows things down a tad when it is open. The editor was developed on a Twin P3-700 with 384mb of ram (but only 1 processor is used by the editor AFAIK).

What graphics card are you using?

Mine is a 32mb Geforce2 mx

Also I can fix the mouse pointer issue. It is drawn twice when in windowed mode which is incorrect. Will sort that out for next version.

Running in full screen mode might speed things up also.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 3:11 pm

I tried 640x480 (before 800x600), with no different result.

Graphics card is a Matrox Graphics Millenium II AGP.

While Gambit and you surely have much newer and more powerful PCS my main issue is still: why make an editor use so much resources when the main point is about editing? As it stands now this would be a knockout criteria for me - selecting a floor or wall item takes about 1.5-2 seconds with the left mouse button pressed until the item is marked. Hope it's just a problem with what I'm doing and not the default system requirements...

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 3:26 pm

I wouldn't say it was anything you are doing, it is almost certainly to do with the editor.

There are bound to be some inefficiencies and/or bad code in there at the moment as it is the first release and was more of a look and feel test rather than a demo of the finished product.

As it stands the editor is still in the design and development stage and with the number of the suggestions coming in, it is likley to change quite a bit for the next release.

Having said that, there is no reason it should take more than a fraction of a second to select a dungeon tile and speed testing is part of this ALPHA phase. I have an old Pentium1 - 133 with a crappy graphics card and 48mb ram. I will run it on there and see what happens. If I can get it up and running on there then there should be no problem with your machine.

Cheers for the feedback,

Andy

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 11:09 pm

PITD,

I have added some efficiency to the drawing routines now so that only items and tiles that are on the screen are drawn.

Could you try also minimising the object vault and also turning off the shadows in the INI file to see if that improves things?

Can you let me know how you get on, rev.6 should be out tonight with a bit of luck

Cheers

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 11:53 pm

rev.6 has a new object vault design without tabs so the gui passes much quicker now. I will try and add a debug info button that will get you how long each pass is taking to the screen.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:32 pm

Hi Andyboy, thanks for your feedback and the new compile. I downloaded V.6 - bad result I'm afraid. The reactions are slower than before - mouse pointer is only showing up once every 60-80 pixels and not making one smooth movement.

I tried minimizing the object vault, that improved a tiny bit, here are the other options I used in the .ini file (cut some lines out for this post to shorten it):

; ========= RTCEditor Config File =========
; ----- Display Preferences -----
WIDTH=640
HEIGHT=480
BPP=16
FULLSCREEN=0
; ----- Map Size Preferences -----
MAP_SIZE_X=20
MAP_SIZE_Y=20
MAP_LIMIT=10
; ----- Tile Vault Preferences -----
TILEVAULT=DEFAULT
; ----- Scroll Speed Preferences -----
SCROLL_SPEED=32
; ========= System Preferences =========
; Tile_Toggle_Time_Limit (in Milliseconds : 1000 = 1second)
TILE_TOGGLE_TIME_LIMIT=500
; ========= User Preferences =========
PLACE_ITEM_POSITION=OFFSET
PLACE_ITEM_OPEN_PROPERTY_WINDOW=0
PLACE_ITEM_OPEN_PROPERTY_WIZARD=0
PLACE_ITEM_CREATE_REQUIREMENTS=2
; -- Optional Gfx Settings --
ENABLESHADOW=0
; ** ADVANCED SETTINGS **
PLACE_TILE_TYPE_CHECK=0
PLACE_TILE_REQUIREMENT_CHECK=0
PLACE_TILE_SANITY_CHECK=0
SHOW_HIDDEN_OBJECTS=0
PERFORMANCE_TIMER=0

What else can I try to help you find the problem?

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 5:39 pm

Can you set the performance_timer=1 and then tell me what number you are getting in bottom right (its to the right of the help bar). It might flicker a bit fast, but the general number.

Also what is the number when you minimise the vault.

Are you around on MSN at all, I should be online at around 19.45GMT allowing for trains out of London and I might be able to find out what is going on.

I have plans to release a small patched EXE tonight for a couple of other suggestions, I will build in some performance checking things so that we can get to the bottom of this.

What the editor does is hold every Icon in memory and all its rotations. As the object vault gets bigger, I guess this will start using up more and more memory. I will look into putting together some diagnostic information in a log file that can be switched on and off by the INI file and drop a load of info out of it from the editor.

This editor should be able to run on anything, I cant think for the life of me why it is being so slow.

Sorry for any inconvinience and we will get to the bottom of this.

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 6:18 pm

This editor should be able to run on anything

Will it run on my old Casio calculator?

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 6:55 pm

I will be porting a version for casio calculators and later on the VIC20 and C64 later in the year

On a more serious note, PITD, is that a P3-500 you are running on, I have one at home but it does have a Matrox G400 (32mb) in it, how much memory does your Millenium have?

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 10:03 pm

PITD:

I have the editor running in 800x600 fullscreen on a P2-400 laptop with 64mb of ram and a MagicMedia256AV (NeoMagic Compatible) video card with 2.5mb of onboard ram and it works at an acceptable rate.

Certainly not nearly as slow as what you were saying. So I am confused.

This laptop is running Windows XP Pro as well so you can imagine the paging it is doing to keep up with it all, but it doesnt slow down to an unacceptable level.

Strange. Let me get this diagnostics in and we will see what we can find.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 11:58 am

Hi andyboy,

technical data first, I'll let you know the results of the wanted tests later on.

Graphics card: Matrox Graphics Millenium II AGP, Chip type: MAG-2164W R0, 4MB memory size

Harddisk: PII 500 MB

MSN: Am on all day from 9 to 5 MET (at work), seldom at home though. Have just added you to my contacts and will have a look from time to time if you're on.

Regards, PitD

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 12:04 pm

Hi again,

the timer replies are 850-880 (with the vault open) and 720-750 with the vault minimized. All other options in the ini file are the same as described in yesterdays post.

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 12:21 pm

Holy Hell. 720ms-750ms !!!

The development machine runs at 15-20. No wonder you are experiencing slow down. Its taking almost a second to run through the main loop!

Could you check out what version of directX you have running on the machine, it must be at least 7.

I will get some people to do some performance testing and see if I can find anyone with similar speed problems.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 12:34 pm

DirectX version is 8.1 (4.08.01.0881). I performed all DirectX test, looking especially into the video part ones - completely successful.

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 5:44 pm

Didnt do any work last night (went out instead). But back on the case tonight and this weekend.

Im hoping for rel.7 to be this weekend. Knowing me, it will be sunday at about 11.50pm or something.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 10:18 pm

No problem. The computer at home is even a little slower ;o) But it might be interesting to test it here in any case, see if a different graphics card or other settings effect the editor.

Regards, PitD

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 11:01 am

Hi andyboy, just to nonplus you - I tested v0.7 on my computer at home (~600 MB, 128 MB RAM, S3 Savage Graphic card), the milliseconds were 15-17 (object vault closed) and 21-23 (ov open). Reason escapes me... maybe there is a problem with Matrox graphic cards?

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 11:46 am

Can you email me the RTCEditor.LOG from the machine that is really slow?

Cheers,

A

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 4:29 pm

Sone. This was only a very short log - getting in, some mouse movements and then out again. If you need me to perform specific actions, let me know. All the settings were the same as for the last tests.

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 12:03 am

Have emailed you back PITD.

That graphics card doesnt have a lot of available memory before the editor even fires into graphics mode (under a meg). Is there something else that is using it that may be taking up the space.

The editor loads under a meg of pictures (so far) into video memory.

Latest drivers?

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 9:08 am

Very interesting. This is my computer at work which should not be using more than a tiny fraction of graphic card memory since I hardly use any graphical tools at all. I'll check for the drivers and repeat the experiment. Thanks for the clue, this sounds like it might be a direct hit.

Regards, PitD

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 11:03 am

Hooray!

I installed the latest available graphic drivers (not too new, since this card does not get updates any more) and had a performance of ~180 (vault open) and ~160 (vault closed). Still painful.

After enhancing the frequency to 75Hz I got down to ~30! And after resizing to 800x600 (from 640x480) I reached ~20 (including shadows). MUCH better now. Thanks, that is quite better to work with.

Regards, PitD

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 11:10 am

That's interesting -- I never knew that changing the monitor refesh rate (frequency) would affect a program's speed so radically.

What refresh rate do you use normally? 70-75 is fine for a stable non-flickering picture on a CRT. Anything higher is usually wasted.

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 11:55 am

Wooohoo.. Nice work PITD. I was worried about this problem as it works all over the place. Good call .

I found this that might be of interest to some.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/video/modesRefresh-c.html