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Very, very slow


ElderRitter

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This is my suggestion on the location menu, I hope this will be implemented to lessen the unnecessary usage of additional memory(image pop-up window) and speed up the game a bit. :)

 

Preview:(description window)

Suggested format:

###################

#--------xxxxxxxxxxxxx----------#___LEGEND:

#--------xxxxxxxxxxxxx----------#_____# = Consider this as the description window.

#--------xxxxxxxxxxxxx----------#_____x = Where the image in should be located(in order to lessen the pop-up windows).

#------------------------------------#_____* = The text of the description.

#-------*****************--#

#--********************--#

#--********************--#

#--********************--#

#--********************--#

#--********************--#

#--********************--#

####################

 

Old/Game format:

###################

#------------------------------------#___LEGEND:

#-------*****************--#_____# = Description window.

#--********************--#_____x = Image in the pop-up window(the image must be deployed in the desc. window).

#--********************--#_____* = The text of the description.

#-------*****************--#_____% = Image window(the cause of additional loading time :( ).

#--********************--#

#--********************--#___%%%%%%%%%%%

#--********************--#___%---xxxxxxxxxxxxx---%

#--********************--#___%---xxxxxxxxxxxxx---%

#--********************--#___%---xxxxxxxxxxxxx---%

#--********************--#___%---xxxxxxxxxxxxx---%

####################___%%%%%%%%%%%

 

Thank you! :lol:

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Some of you guys commenting on optimization and memory leaks: unfortunately, your problems are likely due either to your own hardware limitations or whatever stuff you have running in the background. I've hardly got a beast of a computer--it's nearly 4 years old, 2.1 GHz CPU, WinXP, 2G RAM--but I don't notice any of the problems you guys are talking about, except for a (very) slight slowdown as the database grows larger, which is unavoidable. I can certainly sympathize with your frustration, but if you're noticing huge delays, the issue's almost certainly on your end.

 

The one thing that I have noticed is that if you save and reload repeatedly, sometimes it causes the game to partially crash: you get an error message and it won't access the database, but it doesn't actually shut the game down.

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Ive play 3d games, some are mixed(3d and text based) on full fps... but this a pure text based, there is something wrong!!! :(

 

Its true that some of us have a crappy system, but hey, this is why this thread was created, to assure some of the users of this game a guarantee that theres something to be done on its slow responsiveness. Thats why we suggest different sort of things! :lol:

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Most of the FPS mostly need a good GPU but dont need real good Processing Power of the CPU (and even less RAM if they are Multiplatform) this game with its Huge DB instead need loot of Memory and Processing Power of the CPU.

As fare I read it this game dont even have a real support for Multicore Processors so some Singlecore with a High tact could be faster then a moderen Multi core processor with a slower tacting.

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wardrake, if there were something wrong with the game itself, then everyone would be affected. The fact that they're not tells you the problem isn't the game, but the user's specs. As Schwarzbart points out, it's the CPU and memory that matter for a game like this. (OS matters, too; 2G RAM on WinXP is fine, but I'd be surprised if that was good enough for Vista or Win7.) The suggestions you've made won't make your game go any faster. It'll just hide the problem beneath more layers of clicking and scrolling...and that will make everyone's game go slower. The only real solution is to simply have less things in the game itself, and you're not suggesting that, are you?

 

At some point, you have to expect that if you're below the recommended specs, you're not going to get very good performance. 1G of RAM is low for a game like this. Add to that the stuff that most people have running in the background, and, well...

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Why are people saying the game has a "huge database"? Really, I think words like "massive" and "huge" are very much an exaggeration when we're talking about computer games in general - compared to most corporate ones they are trivial in size.

I don't think that Academagica even has a particularly large one in game terms though. Compared to, say, the Football Manager series it's quite small.

 

Databases are used to persist data to disk - permanent storage. There is no need whatsoever to access the database outside of saving and loading unless you genuinely cannot hold the data in memory. I believe that even the FM games ran in memory. Even outdated machines should very easily be able to run Academagica with no database access except for persistence.

 

If you are accessing the DB during play, then this is something you should look to eliminate. DB access is pretty much always a performance bottleneck and it is well worth minimising DB calls. Just load out the whole data set into memory when you load a game (you must surely have to load it all for when you process everyone's actions each turn anyway) and don't even look at the DB again until the player chooses to save.

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Bullwinkle, why are you posting in this thread? is it just for showing us how fast your cpu is? please for our convenience, read the thread subject, if you do have a fast cpu, for as long as I know, your comment or opinion isnt needed here. You didnt even understand my suggestion! That's all, thank you! :lol:

 

hdghd, quite a fact in there. :(

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I agree with Hdqhq here with just a bit over 1GB the complet size of the game on the Disk + 200 MB size of the Catch + maybe 90 MB size of the save I think systems with larger size of RAM (2GB+ depending on OS and other things in the background) sould be able to store the complet game in the Memory witout any loading necessary.

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Legate says the game is stored in memory (mostly) and the interactions within what's stored are the source of most slowdowns you'll experience. Some of that we'll be able to optimize- some of it, however, is limited by your hardware. Wardrake's slowdown for the Location menu is probably mostly hardware. :(

 

Still, we are looking at ways to help players on the bottom end. ;)

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Well, I will keep suggesting on how the game will be optimized, and for your own good, it is the role of your company(BCS) to think of ways to make significant speed-ups/optimizations(thus lowering the system requirements), to cover a lot of gamers to buy and enjoy the game, and for us(that are gamers of academagia already) to have a bigger community and make lot of interactions! :(

 

Hey, how about my latter suggestion, any violent reaction? :lol:

 

Good luck, and Keep working hard! ;)

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Some of you guys commenting on optimization and memory leaks: unfortunately, your problems are likely due either to your own hardware limitations or whatever stuff you have running in the background. I've hardly got a beast of a computer--it's nearly 4 years old, 2.1 GHz CPU, WinXP, 2G RAM--but I don't notice any of the problems you guys are talking about, except for a (very) slight slowdown as the database grows larger, which is unavoidable. I can certainly sympathize with your frustration, but if you're noticing huge delays, the issue's almost certainly on your end.

 

The one thing that I have noticed is that if you save and reload repeatedly, sometimes it causes the game to partially crash: you get an error message and it won't access the database, but it doesn't actually shut the game down.

 

Hmmm.... My system specs are superior to yours, but I have definite lag issues. As far as I know I'm running pretty clean, I guess I'll have to start taking a closer look at my processes. Ugh. Maybe after I stop the antibiotics. :rolleyes:

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Hmmm.... My system specs are superior to yours, but I have definite lag issues.

How laggy are you? Typically, I'll see a wait of around 3-4 sec when getting or closing a report or making a story choice. More rarely will I see a wait around 5-6 sec, although this does become more common as the year goes on. I've never seen a wait approach 10 sec.

 

Calculating the day's results probably averages around 10 sec in the latter part of the year.

 

I get very little wait when opening a choice selection menu; typically less than 1 sec.

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Thanks- and you are welcome to continue making suggestions: we appreciate the feedback, even if we cannot always incorporate it. smile.gif

Well, I will also take a dib at solving this problem even when I am not knowledgeable at programming, but is worth the try.

(Roll INT+Logic+observation vs programming) :rolleyes:

 

Too long didn't read: Most of my assumption is the game is loading every single thing at once, didn't keep the data, and/or unnecessarily running data against data.

 

1) Does the system keep all the loaded information for schedule planning screen?

Because it feel like the computer just delete everything when we move on to the event/result screen and then reload everything from scratch, which could be solved by storing the information in the ram or certain harddisk space as data instead and simply add all the new gain/lost value to the data when we gone back to the planning screen.

 

Roll Fail = +1 Stress

 

2) When the game load for a random event, does it load up all the data/script/everything of the 4000+ event ?

My suggestion would be breaking up events in separate spaces like "folder" and let the computer roll a dice to choose a folder then roll another dice to pick the event inside the chosen folder. Might save a second or two.

 

Roll Fail = +1 Stress

 

Now I am interested to look at the background coding or command console to see what the hell is loading behind 8+ still images, 40+ skills, 40+ commands, and 1 background music. (+1 Stress)

 

Edit:

3) Is the shop section a separate loading too? Because there's definitely a slowdown with just loading to the second and third shop. (+1 Stress)

 

Side bug report: The game crush after I load a save while in shop mode for both patch 8 and 9. The warning is "System Error Occurred. Application will be terminated." (+1 Stress)

 

Edit 2:

Oh right, the system is running this for every single student in the school...that make senses now. (-2 Stress)

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How laggy are you? Typically, I'll see a wait of around 3-4 sec when getting or closing a report or making a story choice. More rarely will I see a wait around 5-6 sec, although this does become more common as the year goes on. I've never seen a wait approach 10 sec.

 

Calculating the day's results probably averages around 10 sec in the latter part of the year.

 

I get very little wait when opening a choice selection menu; typically less than 1 sec.

 

Odd. My lag times are about twice yours. But in different places! Opening a menu on the calendar is painful, by the middle of a school year it can be several seconds. OTOH I rarely notice lag in events. Perhaps a few seconds. I can live with lag during turn processing, that's when the computer is supposed to be doing it's own thing. It's when I'm looking at visible lag during what amounts to no more than selecting from a pull down menu that I want to grind my teeth.

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I like hdghg's point about the Football Manager series. I play that a lot too, and don't experience slowdowns even with a large database. And that database is enormous in comparison.

 

The lag that really bothers me the most is the menu lag when I've been playing for too long. But usually if I just exit the game and restart it; most, if not all, of my lag will go away.

 

An idea to possibly help organize the slowdowns:

 

Is it possible to make the computer do all of its thinking (loading: menus, tooltips, events, other student actions, ect.) at the same time like at the end of the day. If it is, it would be neat to have snippits of information to read about the history/politics/culture of the world as we wait the couple of seconds for the game to load the next day. Because one period of 5-10 second lag between days would be more tolerable, it's just when every action lags that it gets really frusterating.

 

BTW Excellent customer support community!

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Well, it improve so much that some of the background issues are seem to have left behind, I have a issue with relentless loading of game in which at some point, when i loaded the saved game, it performs in less descent responsiveness and more time loading, in short LAG-GY... please fix it... .wahh, im a load-save-load freak guy!

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wardrake;

 

As the game goes along, it must track more and more entities- the problem may not necessarily be related to your habit of saving and loading (in which you are not alone! :) ), but possibly to the progression of the game. Still, we'll investigate to make sure that no additional information is being left behind upon loading a game.

 

Thanks!

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