Stuttering, broken quests, listen server hosts get shafted. Thread - 3079

When attempting to play a listen server game of 3079 on my LAN I've noticed a few peculiarities after an initially positive experience:

- After a while of playing a particular saved game there comes a time when the host computer is inundated with stuttering and pauses. These get annoying to the point where the game is unplayable for the host computer

- Quests that involve going to a waypoint to meet with a character are effectively broken, as ai of any type often do not spawn around the host player at all on many occasions, meaning that going to a waypoint to either kill or defend an ai player are essentially unable to be finished. This is not true for client players, this has been tested numerous times, as generally the spawning of ai seem to "follow" the client player and not the host player.

Other peculiar behaviors include the music simply not playing on the host computer, yet playing on the client computer.

Just strange things.

It almost seems as if things in general stop working for the host computer.

Edited by: yourebuying

How long before the stuttering starts on the host computer? Does the stuttering happen with any specific action that I can do to help reproduce the problem?

I will look into the other two things -- for the meantime, can you try running a dedicated server on the host machine, and then both connecting to it as clients?

- Phr00t

EDIT: I couldn't reproduce any of the problems you reported... I will need some more information to do so. I'm not sure when the stuttering starts, or what makes it start for you. Also, I tested a host, with a client connected, and a "kill this target" enemy spawned just fine. Does it always happen for you, or very rarely?

I only have two computers at the moment on my LAN, I do have access to a VPS service, but I don't know how I would set up a dedicated server of 3079 on it.

It seems like a combination of exploration and level progression triggered the stuttering and pauses. About the same time I discovered a neander city and started seeing a lot more demons wandering around on the planet surface, that's when it started happening.

I lowered the ai count from 85 to 75, and then to 60 in the hope that it would help, it didn't.

Initially for quite some time an ai count of 85 was perfectly acceptable.

I understand loading new chunks can do that, I've played minecraft back when, so I get that.

However I would be walking through areas already explored (at the same time the one client was walking through territory that was also previously explored), and it wasn't sporadic.

It was like every ten seconds, a pause. I just couldn't deal with it after a while.

And yes, as the host computer such quests reliably don't work, yet they did for the client connecting to me.

Additionally, if we separated to any significant degree, spawning would be centered around the client player and nothing around the host player.

I just tried again, and once more, a "meet ai at a waypoint" mission could not start because for some reason ai generation does not follow me as the host computer.

On the plus side the stuttering has stopped.

Edited by: yourebuying

OK, I will try some more testing with AI spawns on the host server.

Tracking down the stuttering will be quite difficult, since it sounds very intermittent.. I don't think it is related to the number of AI present.. loading new chunks shouldn't cause much stuttering compared to Minecraft, since 3079 does it in a separate thread.

Played the game again some more tonight, had absolutely no pausing or stuttering, went all the way from a level 4 area back to 0, 0, 0, or the starting town whichever the case may be.

And now the pausing has resumed and is intermittent.

Would you like me to send you the savegame?

Sure, you can send me your save. Does the pausing happen reliably right after starting your saved game? If not, it might not help much...

I'm uploading an update now which will fix the missing quests / spawn problem!

That particular savegame does include (for me at least) - the pausing issues immediately after starting the game.

Could it be the resolution/gfx settings i have?

I mean I have a pretty capable machine, and it runs silky smooth.

I did however read something about crossfire being an issue, which I do have.

Should I disable that or no?

Also, that's fantastic news about the update, thank you so much.

I will take a look at the save game, see if I can reproduce the choppiness... now does it happen in single player for you, or only multiplayer?