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Very, very slow


ElderRitter

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I realize that others have already mentioned that the game runs slow for them, but I just need to make sure what I'm dealing with is something I can't do anything about. Anytime I confirm the actions I've put in for the day I usually end up waiting about a minute, sometimes two or more, while the game processes random events or the results of the day. Even selecting the relations or cliques tab can take a minute to register. This lag happens even when I try to select my actions during the week, the pop up action menu takes nearly as long as everything else to bring up. Swapping to the inventory screen from the calender takes forever to complete the switch, followed by a delay for the movement of whatever items I'm moving. The way things are it can take me more than 20 minutes or more to make it through a single week of the game.

Is anyone else currently experiencing anything like this? I'd read others who had been having issues like this, but truthfully even the 30 second lag I had seen someone else mention would be an improvement over what I've currently got going on. I've checked my computer's system specs and processing speed and memory wise I should be able to run the game just fine. I'm really not sure anything can be done but I figured it could not hurt to ask.

Despite the slow down I still love the game, and while it has helped me get some of the reading done for my classes, I can't help but think that its a bit crazy that I can accomplish reading assignments in the lag time while I play. Can't wait for the next year! Though granted I've not yet made it through year one.

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Kensagi;

 

Unfortunately, the database is huge, and processing turns take your CPU's fullest attention. The lag between changing from Inventory etc. is a good candidate for optimization, though, and we are looking at that.

 

Thanks, and we hope that you continue to enjoy the game- hopefully soon we'll have some help for you. :)

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Kensagi;

 

Welcome to the club, I have the same problem as yours (haven't finish my first month though, thinking of this), I really know that they can make much more improvement for them to make some kind of significant speed-up, if not on year 1 but 2. Well, to think of looking the possibility of improving multi-core support, its indeed a big headache not to think on someone with low specs that could not afford the hassle and price of new systems. hehe, go go go academagia devs!, well keep an eye on this. :)

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I looked at the task manager while playing : 650M of ram used and somethign like 40% of my 4 core used. Some things are more annoying than others : when you plan your schedule, you have to wait 1 sec to see the list of available actions. Isn't there a way to speed that up ? I hope the game isn't reading from database each time I click on the time slots ? Because even one sec gained would be a lot because you plan a lot, and those seconds add up really fast.

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Legate,

 

Is there any chance that the location selection screen will be optimized as well, the slow reaction/response of the said window (especially in the option wherein the a picture of the place is seen as popups)do lessen the good experience I am having with the game.

Thank you! :D

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Another one, as I observe, those of the popups with lesser options seems to be having a little faster response than those of having a huge list. Well, I haven't created a game as large as this, so it is within your judgement, my suggestion is, why not lessen those options in the list and do more scrolling? :D

 

Thanks, hehe! :)

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wardrake;

 

Sorry for the delay- unfortunately, we want to show *more* options than less, in general, to save your scrolling hand. :)

 

While we will do our best to optimize the controls, which will enhance performance across all systems, I don't think we will be able to specify options for lowering the amount of display entities in a window. I wouldn't completely rule it out, but I think it's very unlikely.

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Have you considered the use of 'floating elements' in the UI? Stuff the end-user could move around or alter. This could also fluidly handle the amount of display entities in windows. Make the window larger and display more, or make it smaller and display fewer.

 

Although personally I'd just be making everything bigger. The Big Blue Border is wasted space. :)

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My biggest issue with the UI so far is that menus such as Choose Action and Choose Location always open at the top of the list, rather than at the currently selected command. I know that it would save me a lot of time to have Choose Action start at Rest, and for misclicks this would reduce the rescrolling time.

 

It's certainly not a serious issue, but it is something that can hurt my enjoyment of the game temporarily.

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My perception of what's happening with the delay when opening menus it is it has little to nothing to do with graphics or the UI, but rather with the program parsing the database to populate the action list based on your characters stats/abilities each time you click to open the lst.

 

The trick to massive databases like these is controlling which portions of it the program is keeping in RAM vs accessing on the disk (which is much, much slower.) This is not trivial programming however. Personally I think the best way to handle the menu lag would be to pre-load the list during the processing of the previous turn. That would do little to correct the games general lag of course, but it would certainly make each turn less frustrating.

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I certainly agree with andor, why not preload all the necessary items in the menu, i know it cost a lot of memory usage, but as of me, that have a 1gig of ram, maybe it will handle the lagging issue more progressively.

 

In some games, I do see the option precaching(which will speed up gameplay at the cost of memory usage), since its not a graphical game which will not frustrate my gpu memory, maybe it will use my precious 1 gb ram... hope the issue will be lessen, for a more sensible gameplay. :)

 

I have also a suggestion about the location option in the location menu, why not shift the location of images within the description window(uppermost text, or maybe a format of behind text), just to lessen the popup window! :P

 

We need speed-ups to LEVEL up!! haha :P

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Have you looked into memory leaks as well? I find that when I play the game for more than say half an hour the game starts to slow down. If I play for about 2 hours, the game is unbearably slow; so, I shut it down and find something better to do. Maybe this is a good thing so that I can continue with my life, but it does get annoying if I'm involved and want to keep playing.

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I've noticed that too, but I don't think it's a memory leak, I think it's just the database growing more and more complex as the school year goes on and everything starts interacting and linking. I could easily be wrong of course.

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