[Rakshasas]

First I have to say hi. I've been playing FS2 for ages and I absolutely love the idea of the source code project. You guys rock! This is returning the freespace world to life. Great idea!

Unfortunally my computer isn't very good and I am experiencing some problems. During normal freespace 2 useage my game freezes randomly. It hangs and the sound repeats. Sometimes I can go through an hour of playing with no problems and other times it can crash after two minutes. I then began searching google for a possible fix and I then came across FSO and said to myself: Holy **** this is amazing. I also figured it would solve my problem since I am sure you guys have made plenty of improvements and bug fixes.

This now brings me to the reason I am posting here (other to say hi .) I start the game and it takes an extremely long time to load. I'd say 2 minutes. I then get to the pilot screen and it takes another 2 minutes or so to get to the next screen. And it doesn't cease at all. Same goes for option screens. I never tried to play the actual game though. Anyone know what I could be doing wrong?

I have a p3 733
512 ram
3d prophet 4500 64mb
computer. Freespace 2 runs at max graphics perfectly (other than the random crash.)

I also tested this on a 2.0 ghz 16 meg ati radeon with 256 ram and the time for loading is probably the same. So I assume that this is probably a well known problem. I tried searching though and came up with nothing.

Anyone have ideas, I really wanna try this out!!!! Thanks

[Woolie Wool]

Perhaps a video card upgrade is in order.

Oh...and...

*aims LRBGreen*



Exits are to the sides and rear, flamethrowers are under the seats, and if you bump into a Shivan while crawling through the ducts, it's just Carl. Give him your lunch and back away slowly.

[Rakshasas]

Thanks

It seems you are right though. I just tried a computer with a msi geforce4 ti 4200 128 and an amd 2100 xp with 512 ddr ram and it loaded perfectly.

Still, why would original freespace 2 load faster than the open on this crappier computer? (it doesnt matter too much I suppose since I am getting a new vcard in the near future but still I'd like to use it now if possible)



Just a curious question. What programming language is used to program the source code project?

[WMCoolmon]

What version of fs2_open are you using?

If you're using 3.5.5, try 3.5.4 - there's new loading code in 3.5.5 which is supposed to speed things up which could be causing the increased loading times.

[RandomTiger]

Originally posted by Rakshasas

Just a curious question. What programming language is used to program the source code project?

C with a little C++

[KARMA]

a kyro2 should be more than enough, and the slowdown is loading, not playing

[Flipside]

Yep, considering the loading times for some games, I never played Ground Control for long because of this.....

Loading Terrain......
Loading Objects.....
Loading NPC's........
Loading Weather...
Loading Animals.....
Loading Textures...
Loading Speech
Computing AI paths......
etc
etc
etc



Things are helped a little, I find, if you convert all the textures to DirectX surfaces using Photoshop and a plugin available through the Unreal Tournament 2003 forums Since FS2 now supports these and they are smaller than PCX's.

Flipside

[Fry_Day]

Yet DXTC is lossy compression, while PCX is lossless

[Flipside]

True, but the algorythms used for that compression have been massively enhanced, MP3's and DivX are a wonderful example of how compression has improved over the last 2 years

Flipside

[Kazan]

DXTC probably won't help

this sounds like a typo in the code - or some places badly in need of optimization

Take Advantage of Pointer Arithmetic

[RandomTiger]

The texture code is less than optimal thats for sure.

[CP5670]

Actually I noticed a bit of a slowdown as well when the DX8 upgrade was implemented, particularly in intense battles (which ran fine before), although I have gotten used to it now.

[RandomTiger]

Yes, there is a definate slowdown.
DX8 doesnt like the way FS2 does everything in software at the last moment.

Hopefully that will get sorted out at some point.

[Carl]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
there's new loading code in 3.5.5 which is supposed to speed things up which could be causing the increased loading times.

well than that's...useless.

[ChronoReverse]

Indeed.


Anyways, whoever it was that was working on hardware T&L will hopefully create some black magic to make it go fast in the future

[WMCoolmon]

Originally posted by Carl


well than that's...useless.

I've implemented that and the support ship repair ceiling this month. Out of those two, the loading code change seems more likely to be the cause.

I'll add a "-safeloading" command line param when I can, anyway.