Game Lags

[macho_man 0]

I used to play the first beta versions of this mod years ago when it just got released untill well life came along and i forgot about Generals. Well last week i decided to install zero hour and i was looking for a good mod and i remembered you guys so here i came and downloaded v3 and what a difference! The campaigns are just awesome with lots of action and challenges (but not too difficult). The textures look amazing, my favorite being the T-34 tank (green camo) and su-154. They just look awesome. I have been playing this mod for a few days now and i have finished the axis and the soviet campaign. I am looking forward to the allied campaign which i think starts in Africa. However i have had a issue with speed in this game; the game lags terribly when i select all my units and issue them a command. However about 10-20 seconds after the command is issued, the lag disappears and it happens if the CPU commands a large group of tank formations to move. That's how i can tell when large units of soviet of axis tanks are coming :D My system exceeds the recommended specs for this game and perhaps even newer games. so i was wondering if you guys could help me solve this? The lag is getting really annoying. thanks!

 

spec:

MSI G33M MOBO

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @3.01Ghz

4GB RAM @860Mhz

320GB WD 7200RPM

GeForce 8800GT @650Mhz

Windows 7 and XP Professional

Edited November 27, 2009 by macho_man

[Comrade Raptorkov 0]

Hmm, that sounds strange, usually that lag is felt online, mostly due to internet performance, I've never heard of it happening on single player. It's most likely the scripts for the mission overwhelming the engine for a second. Have you tried benchmarking, it might help to show exactly when things slow down. Mine will usually run at 75FPS, my only thought here is to lower the max particle in the options on main menu. See if that helps any.

[macho_man 0]

i tried benchmarking but it doesnt make much sense. im getting only 30fps and then when lags occur it goes down to 5fps. i mean i get about 75fps in world in conflict... anyhow im gonna try lowering the particle settings and report back...

Edited November 27, 2009 by macho_man

[macho_man 0]

yep it seems max fps is locked to 31fps for some reason. anyway i lowered particles cap and it helped reduce lag but didn't completely fix the problem.

[Count von Phoib 0]

Are you running it under Windows 7 or under XP?

[DirtyHarry 0]

Hi,

 

your system specs are sufficient. do note blitz has much higher specs than the original zh, specially for mp. however specs are irrelevant in this case.

 

Even though i run fallout 3 maxed out, still zh when dealing with large numbers of units gives lag, it will always do that, so is true in blitz. Most sp missions stay below the number of units, and more importantly buildings, to cause this, but some might not, specially if the player makes alot of inf etc. You might have never experienced this in ZH, but i have, after building a certain nr of structures and units it shuts down completely, often giving a fatal error, or putting players in a state in which they are unable to move.

 

Next to units and buildings, pathfinding can cause lag. If you order 50 units at the same time across a certain distance, it can momentarily freeze or slow down the game, as the engine calculates the paths. Obstacles, specially sharp edges on the map and bridges, can add alot to this effect. Also inf among tanks causes lag when pathfinding across distances. If you order troops across small distances, and small groups at a time, say max 20 orso tanks, you should be fine.

 

For the sp maps, i myself have not experienced lag yet, though if a large nr. of units is triggered, it can happen. Also ur OS might be of influence, specially background processes. Do note if you get alot of lag in every mission, there is something wrong, blitz SP should not create it except for occasional unique situations on the field. Noone has reported that kind of lag to date.

 

For skirmish - it is bugged atm. On all but a few maps, the ai goes into a sweet slumber mid game, builds up a tremendous amount of units, and eventually starts back up again. This can cause lag. Also if you play against more than 3 opponents, on larger maps, you can expect lag, in zh the ai also does this when playing 6-8 of them, but in blitz its alot worse. We did include the ai, but its not a priority for devellopment, since we want blitz to be an MP game, with historical SP. The skirmish ai is there to train people in mp, as does this well enough, in 1v1.

 

I hope this helped,

 

Greetings, DirtyHarry

Edited November 27, 2009 by DirtyHarry

[Korona 0]

The pathfinding could be the issue, if you are ordering lots of troops to move large distances the crappy ZH pathfinding engine will generate major lag, even on a new CPU. Try using the alt key to set waypoints as this really helps.

[Neo 0]

Thanks for the comments Macho man...we appreciate....we spend so much time to make this new Blitz version something special...

 

About the lagg factor i would add to the previous comments that many missions have much more units than any ZH missions have and have much bigger maps than most MP maps. So we are working here at the limit of the capabilities of the engine. I had to reduce the scale of the epic battles many times to make gameplay the more fluid as possible. So on these maps it is not recommended to select all the units you have on the map (double A) to attack at same time.

 

Also, except for some specific missions (defensive missions like Stalingrad, Leningrad and Moscow) it is not recommended to use a more turteling tactict and build up too many units before launching your attacks. The engine having a maximum unit number it can deal with (around 3000 objects including all sides and civilian objects). So the more units you have on the map the more laggs you could experiment and the closer you are to the fatal error crash DH was talking about.

[macho_man 0]

Thanks for the comments Macho man...we appreciate....we spend so much time to make this new Blitz version something special...

 

About the lagg factor i would add to the previous comments that many missions have much more units than any ZH missions have and have much bigger maps than most MP maps. So we are working here at the limit of the capabilities of the engine. I had to reduce the scale of the epic battles many times to make gameplay the more fluid as possible. So on these maps it is not recommended to select all the units you have on the map (double A) to attack at same time.

 

Also, except for some specific missions (defensive missions like Stalingrad, Leningrad and Moscow) it is not recommended to use a more turteling tactict and build up too many units before launching your attacks. The engine having a maximum unit number it can deal with (around 3000 objects including all sides and civilian objects). So the more units you have on the map the more laggs you could experiment and the closer you are to the fatal error crash DH was talking about.

 

 

ok thank you for the comments and im glad that its the game and not my computer.