Improve performance?

[TheEisbaer]

Is there a way to improve my performance exept reloading my save every 5 minutes?
I have the sampling/filtering option on off. The game begins to stutter every then and now. :/
-
And I still can't play in fullscreen._.
(NVidia GTX 280 @ 1280x1024 and any other resolution)

[perryliu97]

Keep your staff number below 35, or maybe even 30. It can be hard, but some have reported that the lag gets insane when staff numbers go high.
Or keep your prisoner number small.
Or play on a small map.
More AI friendly roads may help too, as pathfinding CAN cause lag in many games.

[totalysexyguy]

Alpha = Adding features

Beta = Fixing bugs (like bad performance)

Let them add content and worry about performance later, I assure you, the performance will be improved down the road.

~cheers

[Novbert]

Lag has nothing to do with graphic options - it's not that game. It's more about the way workers and other folks get assigned to jobs.
Play on a small map really, that is relatively stable.

[Novbert]

Lag has nothing to do with graphic options - it's not that game. It's more about the way workers and other folks get assigned to jobs.
Play on a small map really, that is relatively stable.

[mitchmann300]

Lag is when you are playing online games with ping and latency but what you are experiencing is frame rate drops

[NormenJaydenFBI]

I have a very good computer personally, but I do experience lag problems on occasions and restarting the game seems to fix them. In your case, keep your prisoner count and staff count lower; as development progresses the game should hopefully become more stable, it is still Alpha after all.

[xander]

Lag is when you are playing online games with ping and latency but what you are experiencing is frame rate drops

If you are going to be a pedant and correct other people, please make sure that you are correct. In this case, you are incorrect (or, at the very best, only correct in a very narrow sense). Let's examine this, shall we?

A basic definition for lag is given by

lag: (verb) fall behind in movement, progress, or development; not keep pace with another or others

In the current context, it is perfectly reasonable to say that the framerate is not keeping pace, or that the game is falling behind. That is, it is entirely reasonable to say that the game is lagging. In a more general sense, the goal of language is to communicate ideas. You clearly had no difficulty understanding what TheEisbaer was saying, as you correctly noted that he was experiencing problems with framerates. It seems that TheEisbaer effectively communicated.

As to the rest of your post, I have a couple of minor quibbles. First, I understand that there is a somewhat technical definition of the word "lag" in computer networking. This definition is a bit more refined than the general vernacular definition. Lag is (basically) the perception of problems related to latency and other network issues (see, for instance, this link). That is kind of irrelevant, since TheEisbaer was clearly talking about diminishing framerates. Second, "ping" refers to the amount of time that it takes for a packet to get from A to B and back again (basically, the roundtrip communication time). It is nonsense to talk about "playing online games with ping." I know, this is a minor, pedantic point, but you started with the pedantry. As I said, if you are going to be pedantic, be correct. What you meant to say was "playing online games with *high* ping" (i.e. long roundtrip times). High ping and high latency are essentially synonyms, thus the mention of latency is redundant. Finally, it should be noted that "latency" has vernacular meaning, as well, and that we are really discussing *network* latency, rather than some other notion of the word.

xander

[bolesting]

I dont know is it because I buyed strong components for my PC or its about new update, but alpha 13 work like charm for me, no slow down, no more stuck workers...AMAZING

[TheEisbaer]

For some reason the fps drops are getting fewer o.O
(I set the filtering thing on the highest)

[thekillergreece]

Lag has to do with a lot A.I trying to find a pathfinding. Most a.i, huge lags.

Especially doctors and guards. If guards spots an incident, he wont rush to the scene, just run,stop,run, so prisoner keep on running...


Guess the lag comes from the size of prison and how many A.I are there. It has nothing to do with the graphics or game settings. Some memory leaks

[Mouaku]

Lag is when you are playing online games with ping and latency but what you are experiencing is frame rate drops

If you are going to be a pedant and correct other people, please make sure that you are correct. In this case, you are incorrect (or, at the very best, only correct in a very narrow sense). Let's examine this, shall we?

A basic definition for lag is given by

lag: (verb) fall behind in movement, progress, or development; not keep pace with another or others

In the current context, it is perfectly reasonable to say that the framerate is not keeping pace, or that the game is falling behind. That is, it is entirely reasonable to say that the game is lagging. In a more general sense, the goal of language is to communicate ideas. You clearly had no difficulty understanding what TheEisbaer was saying, as you correctly noted that he was experiencing problems with framerates. It seems that TheEisbaer effectively communicated.

As to the rest of your post, I have a couple of minor quibbles. First, I understand that there is a somewhat technical definition of the word "lag" in computer networking. This definition is a bit more refined than the general vernacular definition. Lag is (basically) the perception of problems related to latency and other network issues (see, for instance, this link). That is kind of irrelevant, since TheEisbaer was clearly talking about diminishing framerates. Second, "ping" refers to the amount of time that it takes for a packet to get from A to B and back again (basically, the roundtrip communication time). It is nonsense to talk about "playing online games with ping." I know, this is a minor, pedantic point, but you started with the pedantry. As I said, if you are going to be pedantic, be correct. What you meant to say was "playing online games with *high* ping" (i.e. long roundtrip times). High ping and high latency are essentially synonyms, thus the mention of latency is redundant. Finally, it should be noted that "latency" has vernacular meaning, as well, and that we are really discussing *network* latency, rather than some other notion of the word.

xander

owned

[xander]

Guess the lag comes from the size of prison and how many A.I are there.

This is probably most of the problem. The larger the map, the more cells that the pathfinding algorithm has to search, thus the more processor time is required. Similarly, more staff and prisoners means more paths to find. A poorly optimized pathfinding algorithm is likely to blame.

Some memory leaks

This is a problem, too, but shouldn't have an effect on performance unless the physical RAM is maxed out and memory is being swapped to disk.

xander

[JSwigart]

I would think, as an AI programmer myself, that the pathfinding for this sort of game would be ideally implemented in the form of flow fields or influence maps, where path finding would be pretty much free. There isn't enough dynamic obstacles or a large enough tile map to not invest more memory into making pathfinding as trivial in cost as these techniques would allow.

[xander]

I would think, as an AI programmer myself, that the pathfinding for this sort of game would be ideally implemented in the form of flow fields or influence maps, where path finding would be pretty much free. There isn't enough dynamic obstacles or a large enough tile map to not invest more memory into making pathfinding as trivial in cost as these techniques would allow.

Pretty sure that pathfinding is currently done using A*. I don't know enough about algorithms to know exactly what you are suggesting, but my impression after a quick Google is that flow fields are appropriate for swarms moving through a continuum, and that influence maps can be used to alter cell values for another algorithm, such as A*. I don't understand how either would significantly improve performance in the current context. Perhaps you could expand on your ideas a bit?

xander