Lagspikes, freezes and other such inconveniences

[Gridalien]

After one of the recent updates, numerous problems have arisen (at least for me) that cause a great deal of distraction and frustration while playing the game. Ocassionally, the server I'm playing on will have large lagspikes. These could be occasional, they could happen every 3 seconds, they could last 5 seconds and, much like matchmaking in Diablo, I could suddenly synchronize with the game server again only to find that I've been killed.

More frequently, various ingame functions will cause huge amounts of performance lag, if not, freeze my game entirely. Maybe it'll be when I try to cycle spells, maybe when I try to open Gallat's storage chest, maybe when I try to visit a shop, maybe when my character is in the process of expressing a level-up of a certain skill. It won't happen all the time, but once in a while, I'll have to restart my game to resolve whatever issue the mod's having with certain aspects of the game at any point in time.

I've stuck with the latest updates, and because of these issues, I've tried reinstalling the entire mod and the latest betapack. None of the 'low-end computer' suggestions help either, which is typical since my computer is definitely not low-end. I've never had any single one of these issues (save for the occasional lag from a game server) in previous versions of the mod until the latest Jul2013 updates. I don't mean to seem unappreciative of the hard work you put into the mod to potentially spiff up the appearances and special affects ingame, but something seems to be going terribly wrong, and at random times.

For reference, my graphics card is an NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti, my processor is an Intel Core i3-2120 4 Core 3.3Ghz, and runs with 8GB of DDR3 RAM along with Windows 7 Premium 64-Bit.

In fortunate pockets of gameplay, I'll have none of these issues and, such as yesterday, I'll play with no fear of being disrupted TOO much by any of the glitches....but the server lag seems to be the most prominent.

 

[Thothie]

Hrmm... Well, nothing that fundamental has changed on the client between FEB2013 and JUL2013, but the RKS servers are running on a new core HLDS so... I'm not getting other reports like this (indeed, ping wise, the servers seem to be doing almost better than usual), so there's only so much I can advise here...

Few things you can try:
- Update Half-Life (find Half-Life in games library, right click, delete local content, reinstall).
- Make sure your old Half-Life and MSC folders are gone, and not causing load conflicts. ( Rename or delete \Steam\steamapps\<yourjusername>\Half-Life )
- Since you're on an i3... Once MSC is running, bring up the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete), click Processes, find HL.exe, right click. Set the Priority to High, and set the Affinity to the skip the first CPU (uncheck CPU 0).
- Also try running MSC in a window.

 

[Gridalien]

Skipping the first core just causes the ingame audio to glitch out. Setting the priority higher...I suppose that helps.

I've disabled Wait for Vertical Sync and set the game's executable and Half-Life's to Windows XP SP3 compatability, and to run as admin. So far, this seems to have fixed it.

 

[Snebbers]

I'm having every issue you have said here.

And did the same attempts to solve it and they appear to have worked for me too.

I'm using an AMD Phenom II X4 964 BE
8gb DDR3 (1600Mhz)
GTX 760

Strange how this happens...

 

[zeus9860]

Actually yesterday (or was it two days ago?), when i patched with the minor fix patch, one of the RKS servers was lagging like... god damn, can't even describe how terrible it was, lag spikes that made me unnable to do anything and then it's as if the game refreshed and went back to normal, this happened in server #2, was doing a phlames run at the time and this happened for about 3-5 minutes non stop, every 10-15 seconds or so. And it wasn't just me getting the lag spikes, a few more in the server were aswell.

I ended up switching servers later on, one thing i hate is playing with high ping and huge amounts of lag delaying my actions and overflows happen more often too. Adding lag spikes on top of all that just pisses me off even more.
Someone really needs to setup an EU server, i'm still waiting for a response from my provider see if this works out so i could host a 5 slot ded on my laptop and perhaps a few more on my desk when i'm away or idle.

Going to get patched with a new pack for my internet service, currently using a 6Mb adsl connection, slow like hell for heavy duty stuff... the one i'm upgrading to should be 6 times better, if the connection remains stable most of the time, otherwise it's a no-go.


Ps: That moment when you shoot bolts/arrows and you got to aim like 2 meters ahead of the target so it actually hits the target... fml. If it weren't for torkies sometimes, i would say archery is the "derp" skill for us europeans. :roll:

 

[Snebbers]

Going to have to agree with you there Zeus.

I wouldn't mind hosting it myself, but I have to turn my desktop off because can't sleep with the sound of my fan, even though it's pretty quiet and I work 30 hours a week too.

Connection is currently

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/2880641839

 

[zeus9860]

Give me your connection and i'll get some servers running... >_>

30 hours a week, is that full time over there or what? 'cause i work 40 for the moment, thinking on cancelling my contract since co-workers are just abusive with new people these days >_<

"Hey dude, can you do X task while i do Y? If we do this, we can finish earlier and take it easy later on."

Funny thing i always end up with the heavy duty stuff and i'm starting to get pissed, sooner or later i'll show up on their faces with an expression completly telling this "now you do both things by yourself for the next few days/weeks since you are a b*tch, have fun stressing out now"


Another thing, that co-worker works 2 hours less/day compared to me, basically 30 hours too. And she is always trying to leave earlier than usual just to have more freetime to spend. Samething happens when it's time to check in first thing in the morning, boss says "6 o'clock, don't be late!" and this b*tch is always coming at 6.15 and starts working at 6.25 or 6.30 and usually leaves 15 minutes earlier at the end of a day's work, completly fair right?

Story of my life for the last few days, life sucks when we are stuck with people like this in a job.

 

[Thothie]

The servers aren't resetting like they used to, and I suppose this could lead to "goo in memory" leading to unpredictable behavior after so many runs. I think they are setup to reset once a day, but it used to be they'd reset every time they emptied, which probably made for a much cleaner gaming experience.

I'd make a vote-reset or some such, but of course, I currently can't send commands to the server, for the same reason it isn't resetting proper on its own. I suppose I could trick it into crashing, but of course I'd rather fix the clientcmd/servercmd problems that have cropped up. Seems they only come up in the Steam Pipe HLDS, so tis tricky to test and diagnose.

It's odd that unchecking core 0 is giving you sound issues though - must be an odd internal sound card or some such. Half-Life is a single thread game, so even if you uncheck all but one core, the performance should remain the same. The intent behind unchecking core 0 is just to ensure other processes on that core don't interfere with it (as Windows has a habit of running most processes to core 0 by default). Hrmmm...

 

[Snebbers]

Sorry for being off-topic, but I understand how you feel Zeus, I work through agency, get no job benefits compared to the permanent staff (Like £3 an hour less than what they get) yet I work just as hard if not harder. Always gets all the really terrible jobs to do as well.

I haven't actually had any problems with MSC since I've put both MSC and HL executables into Windows XP (Service Pack 3) compatibility. Only thing I have to say is that sometimes the servers crash on map change.

Hell we actually had 8 players on one server earlier and it was absolutely fine... I think it was ms_wicardoven. Managed to grab both a fangtooth and an undead guardian scroll.

 

[Thothie]

Ooo yeah, I remember doing temp jobs when I was a teen... Those sucked arse.

If you think it's fun to work with these people - try employing them! Had some half-assed employee nightmares back in the early 90's when I was running our little DTP empire, that in the end cost us more than we got. Followed by eight years of running night clubs in San Fran and Boston. Our security and bartenders we got from services - and the bouncers, while seedy, weren't usually a problem - though we had to axe some bartenders, and three on-sight managers, for dealing drugs - one of which took it a bit personally. Keeping drug dealers out of those clubs is a bit like banning cheaters on FN, I suppose... Okay... Not really. >_> Bad enough when they're clientele, but when they're your would-be administrators, gah...

Granted, then the guy who owned the whole mess got arrested for trafficking, and I was all, "Why did you have me cleaning all the damn drugs out of your clubs!?" :|

 

[Snebbers]

Hahah Thothie, that's monstrous xD

Although just for referrence, I'm 21. Close enough though, I don't believe age is a good measure of maturity of life experience (At least not very well)