20 replies to this topic

[Tropical Bob]

You need to patch up FoC to the latest version. I think it's 1.1, but I'm not sure about that.

[Gumballthechewy]

I have the 1.1 patch but in the game at the bottom left hand side it says 1.01-then a bunch more numbers what does that mean? Did the patch not install properly?

[Phoenix Rising]

You probably ought to also patch EaW to v1.5. I'm not sure if it matters for FoC or not, but your copy should say 1.1 in the corner after it's patched and it isn't...

[Kitkun]

Wait a few minutes. The GC campaigns are huge and take a while to load.

[Tropical Bob]

I think that even high end computers can take upwards of a couple minutes per campaign. GFFA takes up to five I believe. So as Kitkun said, be patient and let it load.

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, there's clearly something wrong with the executable itself... a coding shortcut or some function not implemented well enough. This is an oversimplification, but it's the equivalent of an infinite loop in the code: doesn't matter how good your specs are, it's still infinite. We're still trying to figure out a way to bypass or marginalize the affected system... without being able to do any sort of technical testing on it. So far, the only proven solutions are to reduce the campaign planet count or to reduce the starting forces .

[Tropical Bob]

Yeah, there's clearly something wrong with the executable itself... a coding shortcut or some function not implemented well enough. This is an oversimplification, but it's the equivalent of an infinite loop in the code: doesn't matter how good your specs are, it's still infinite. We're still trying to figure out a way to bypass or marginalize the affected system... without being able to do any sort of technical testing on it. So far, the only proven solutions are to reduce the campaign planet count or to reduce the starting forces .

Whoa. So we do know what's up wrong now, then?

[Phoenix Rising]

Ehh, no. This is just what I've surmised from the benchmarking stats. If it was a mere data issue (i.e. something we've done to the XMLs), I'd expect the standard deviation for performance to be much greater, with high-end machines having little to no problem with the mod. As it is, it's pretty slow for everyone, which would suggest something more endemic to EaW. I'd suspect to find some cut corners somewhere in the programming that are holding us up... that is, assuming I could access the source. Since I can't, I'm pretty much just taking (failed) shots in the dark, which obviously don't make the news. For example, just today I tested to see if our scaling of the galaxy is the cause (I can think of no logical reason why it would be, but we're sort of beyond logic at this point) by rescaling vanilla, since most mods don't do that, but of course it's not .

[Tropical Bob]

For example, just today I tested to see if our scaling of the galaxy is the cause (I can think of no logical reason why it would be, but we're sort of beyond logic at this point) by rescaling vanilla, since most mods don't do that, but of course it's not .

You know, I actually thought about that at one point, and totally forgot about it the next moment.

Maybe Petro will give us a good Christmas present this year. *Not.* Sigh.

[jdk002]

I personally believe its the Black Sun Pirate (yellow) faction in general and something about that faction's code is messed up because there are simply so many units under one banner. You increased the unit population of BSP and the result was horrific lag, now it may be something other than the faction itself.. However the only logical conclusion I can draw is that it is either related to the BSP faction or the faction itself.

The problem with testing this is you basically have to redo all of Ghost's campaigns with a brand new faction which is sad to say.. a LOT of work..

[Phoenix Rising]

Well, it can be tested by removing the Pirate faction from the campaign, which is no problem. Somehow implementing that into a viable fix is another question entirely... one that may not have a good answer. I think you're right that all the units are contributing to the lag though.

[jdk002]

It could also be the number of planets affects how the AI handles calculations with that amount of units, more or less it comes back down to that simple factor of units. Someone should just remove the BSP faction and see what happens imo. I'm not very good with XML but I have a general knowledge of coding. Changing all the BSP units to another faction seems to me like it would a matter of switching the tags on the units from Black Sun Pirates to whatever else would actually work. Out of curiosity how would you disable that so easily?

[Kitkun]

AFAIK:
The hard part would be to create the new faction. (You might be able to use one of the other neutral faction, though.)
After that, open every unit in Notepad++ and do a find replace for Affiliation tags associated with Pirates.

[Tropical Bob]

I don't even think creating the new faction would be too hard. Copy/paste, and edit the important tags (Such as the faction name), and it should work.

Plus, there are multiple other factions you could substitute in. Maybe just give all the Pirate units to the CSA.

[Phoenix Rising]

Out of curiosity how would you disable that so easily?

Go in the campaign file, get rid of this:

<AI_Player_Control> Pirates, None </AI_Player_Control>

And this:

<Markup_Filename>Pirates, DefaultGalacticHints </Markup_Filename>

And then cut everything after this:

<!-- Pirate Starting Forces -->

For the record though, I have a bare-bones GFFA Full with minimal starting forces (one command center, one asteroid base per planet) that I've been working on to place planets and trade routes and it plays worse than the latest GFFA Slim that's available for download. It could very well be more than one thing causing the lag...

I don't even think creating the new faction would be too hard.

It's the single most difficult procedure in EaW modding - that is, if it's meant to be playable and you don't cut corners. Doing something like the Sarlacc faction probably isn't too hard (not sure why that exists in the first place).

Edited by Phoenix Rising, 27 October 2009 - 12:33 AM.

[Tropical Bob]

I don't even think creating the new faction would be too hard.

It's the single most difficult procedure in EaW modding - that is, if it's meant to be playable and you don't cut corners. Doing something like the Sarlacc faction probably isn't too hard (not sure why that exists in the first place).

Well, maybe I should have said in terms of a non-playable faction like the Pirates...