Spiral Knights - Input Lag Woes

Input Lag Woes

17 respuestas [Último envío]

Sáb, 10/22/2011 - 21:00

Kupoo

Sometimes, my computer inputs are not registered by the game for durations upward of 5 seconds. This includes both pressing buttons and letting go of them - I can tap a direction key for a split second and end up walking through an entire line of spikes before I regain control. It's not an FPS drop kind of lag (I do get those often as well, but that's a different problem for another time), as the actual animations are smooth enough to be playable. I can see fellow party members move about and attack, but I'll be running into every single wall and trap in the area. The best I can hope for in these kinds of situations is to hold down my shield button and hope it comes up before I'm mincemeat.

I'm fairly certain it's input lag, as it also pops up when I'm trying to type a message. My sentences often get distorted a little liiiiiiikkikikiikikieeee eeee tttttttthhhhihiiishss.

There doesn't seem to be any particular situation where it arises, but I'll note that the only times that I've actually noticed it happening were when I was in a party with other players. It may be coincidental, and possibly because I'm more able to complain about it in a party, but I'll just throw it out there.

Any troubleshooting ideas?

Computer specs:Windows Vista (64-bit) Java 1.6.0 1.60 Ghz processor (AMD Athon Neo Processor MV-40) ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 1278 MB graphics memory 2 GB RAM

EDIT: Also, playing through Steam.

Sáb, 10/22/2011 - 21:15

Starlinvf

My first guess is something

My first guess is something with drivers and the hardware polling rate, since the rest of the process doesn't seem to be impacted. Do you have any other games that can be played on it in full screen mode to see if the behavior extends to other apps?

Sáb, 10/22/2011 - 21:45

Kupoo

Oh, I don't play it in

Oh, I don't play it in fullscreen mode. Should I be? I like being able to glance at the time without having to divert too much attention.

The Touhou games (bullet hell shooters, lots of precise movement involved) are the only games I play fullscreen, and I've never had a problem running those. I also have a few emulators, Morrowind, and CABAL Online (another MMO, though I've stopped playing it a while ago) on my computer, and none of those ever suffered from the same issue either.

And for what it counts, I'm playing through Steam. I forgot to mention that.

Sáb, 10/22/2011 - 22:27

Starlinvf

Sorry, another post I was

Sorry, another post I was looking at bled over in my head.

Anyway, try full screen mode and see if it happens as well. If it still does, restart the game and do a short run (1 depth, or just wander around town if it happens in Haven), then post the projectx.log file from the SK folder. And Steam should not be a major factor.

If you have any controllers or joysticks plugged in, make a note of them as well.

Dom, 10/23/2011 - 09:32

Metanat

i might know your problem

i am a new spiral player but i do know my computers [i tear them apart and put them back together for fun] i was looking over some spiral and vista stuff and the problem might be that your processor isn't powerful enough because spiral needs 1.3ghz to run and vista needs 1ghz to run so since you said you have a 1.60 ghz processor that might be the problem

Dom, 10/23/2011 - 09:35

Metanat

oh also

i also have a linux computer where i can watch my processor power and when it starts to get hot it starts skipping also my parents old laptop starts skipping really bad when it gets hot hope that helps

Dom, 10/23/2011 - 09:35

Metanat

oh also

Dom, 10/23/2011 - 20:36

Kupoo

Full Screen Mode

Okay, so I tried full screen mode, and it *seemed* to fix the problem - at the very least, when the issue started to crop up again, the input lag disappeared when I went fullscreen. Normally, I'd be quite happy with something like that, save for the fact that when I try to go fullscreen... my mouse cursor disappears. Is that related? D=

EDIT: Oh, I found what caused the disappearing cursor. Apparently Spiral Knights doesn't like pointer trails. Guess I'll do fullscreen for a while and see how it goes. Thanks!

@metanat
Does Vista constantly use 1 Ghz of processing power? I'll admit I'm not terribly experienced with computers, but the CPU usage - assuming that's related - is usually somewhere in the range of 7-13% before I start up Spiral Knights. I make sure to close any other programs that might be taking up processing power. And as a point of comparison, CABAL Online has a minimum CPU requirement of 800 Mhz (significantly lower than SK, I'll admit), and I can run that perfectly fine without any noticeable frame skipping. If it were an issue of Vista coming into play, I'd be 0.2 Ghz below the requirement, and I'd imagine I would get some pretty bad FPS.

My laptop does run fairly hot, so I keep it on a cooling pad. I keep a hardware monitoring program up (it takes up very low processing power, I've never had an issue just keeping it up on the side if I want to glance at it) and haven't noticed a great difference between the temperatures at which I start to lag and the ones at which I can run SK smoothly. Also keep in mind that it's not really a frame skipping issue - that I can deal with, at least my shield comes up in time - but a problem with my inputs not being registered in the game.

Dom, 10/23/2011 - 21:08

Starlinvf

Kupoo: good to see you

Kupoo: good to see you figured it out. I wouldn't had thought to look at that.

@Metanat: Thats NOT how it works. You can't pinpoint how much CPU time will actually use since they can't control the operating environment. Instead what they do is make educated estimates on how much overhead you'd need to avoid having the UI lock up on you. For operating systems, the minimal requirements are whats critical to maintaining system stability under load. If the OS can't keep up with its own demands, something in the OS will crash and bring the whole system down. They do leave a little bit of overhead since they assume your going to run 1 or 2 small programs, but its left to the Application developers to define their own hardware requirements.

For applications, the system requirements "assume" the OS will need a certain amount of resources to function, and add the program requirements on top of it. Again, this is only an estimate of how much power you need to avoid having the UI lock up constantly. Things like smooth performance are usually outlined in the recommended requirements (if they have them).

Now none of this takes into account things like dual core processors (unless explicitly stated) due to critical differences on how they work and are rated, but thats a whole topic in itself.

As for the heat issue on that laptop, you need to get that addressed with a cooling pad or something. If a system gets hot enough to where its getting errors, your at the point where it can actually cause damage to the hardware.

Vie, 10/28/2011 - 14:42

Kupoo

Well, it's back.

After playing for a bit, it seems as though going fullscreen hasn't quite stopped the problem from happening. I guess whatever happened last time was more of a coincidence than anything. It's still recurring, so... here's the projectx, maybe you can help make some sense out of it.

2011/10/28 17:03:29:886 INFO I$a.b: Logging to 'c:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\spiral knights\.\projectx.log'. 2011/10/28 17:03:58:556 INFO I$a.b: Steam initialized. 2011/10/28 17:04:30:735 INFO I$a.b: Connecting [host=game.spiralknights.com/184.73.171.156, port=47624] Loading: net.java.games.input.DirectAndRawInputEnvironmentPlugin 2011/10/28 17:04:33:714 INFO I$a.b: Datagram connection established [port=47624] 2011/10/28 17:05:45:592 INFO I$a.b: Moving at request of server [zoneId=16777217, sceneId=1] 2011/10/28 17:05:47:156 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=portal, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:05:47:157 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=scene_id, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:05:47:862 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=conditions, object=[tag=, all=false, target=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:05:48:802 INFO I$a.b: Issuing zoned moveTo(1:1, 1, 73). 2011/10/28 17:05:49:095 INFO I$a.b: Connecting [host=/50.16.40.164, port=47627] 2011/10/28 17:05:49:258 INFO I$a.b: Datagram connection established [port=47627] 2011/10/28 17:05:49:846 INFO I$a.b: Issuing zoned moveTo(1:1, 1, 73). 2011/10/28 17:05:49:944 INFO I$a.b: Updating outgoing message throttle [msgsPerSec=15] 2011/10/28 17:07:13:901 WARNING I$a.b: Attachment not supported. [point=%ROOT%, model=com.threerings.opengl.model.h@3af8a6] 2011/10/28 17:07:52:820 INFO I$a.b: Moving at request of server [zoneId=67201741, sceneId=6] 2011/10/28 17:07:54:106 INFO I$a.b: Issuing zoned moveTo(4:92877, 6, 0). 2011/10/28 17:07:54:532 INFO I$a.b: Connecting [host=/184.73.214.58, port=47629] 2011/10/28 17:07:54:732 INFO I$a.b: Datagram connection established [port=47629] 2011/10/28 17:07:54:811 INFO I$a.b: Issuing zoned moveTo(4:92877, 6, 0). 2011/10/28 17:07:54:949 INFO I$a.b: Updating outgoing message throttle [msgsPerSec=15] 2011/10/28 17:07:55:079 INFO I$a.b: Got updated scene model [placeId=1467, config=[type=data.GuildhallSceneConfig, ], scene=6/%building:m.guildhall/73] 2011/10/28 17:07:55:591 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=portal, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:07:55:592 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=scene_id, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:07:55:592 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=town_name, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:09:19:822 INFO I$a.b: Connecting [host=/50.16.140.15, port=47627] 2011/10/28 17:09:19:983 INFO I$a.b: Datagram connection established [port=47627] 2011/10/28 17:09:20:055 INFO I$a.b: Issuing zoned moveTo(2:0, 1073742145, 0). 2011/10/28 17:09:20:167 INFO I$a.b: Updating outgoing message throttle [msgsPerSec=45] 2011/10/28 17:09:20:356 INFO I$a.b: Got updated scene model [placeId=1656, config=[type=data.LevelSceneConfig, alM=null, alN=true], scene=1073742145/%dungeon:m.lichenous_lair_shock/1] 2011/10/28 17:09:20:555 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=target, object=[]] 2011/10/28 17:09:20:556 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=size, object=[]] 2011/10/28 17:09:20:562 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=shape, object=[expansion=0.0]] 2011/10/28 17:09:20:564 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=shape, object=[expansion=0.0, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:09:20:571 WARNING ae.isLoggable: Previous message repeated 3 times. 2011/10/28 17:09:20:571 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=size, object=[]] 2011/10/28 17:09:20:573 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=target, object=[]] 2011/10/28 17:09:27:954 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=shape, object=[expansion=0.0, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:09:28:937 WARNING ae.isLoggable: Previous message repeated 2 times. 2011/10/28 17:09:28:937 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=value, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:09:30:809 WARNING ae.isLoggable: Previous message repeated 2 times. 2011/10/28 17:09:30:809 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=shape, object=[expansion=0.0, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:10:47:084 WARNING ae.isLoggable: Previous message repeated 1 times. 2011/10/28 17:10:47:084 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=distribute, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:10:47:086 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=dropped, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:10:47:086 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=item, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:10:47:087 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=loot, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:16:20:878 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=shape, object=[expansion=0.0, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:16:20:962 WARNING ae.isLoggable: Previous message repeated 3 times. 2011/10/28 17:16:20:962 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=target, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:16:20:963 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=name, object=[actor=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:32:54:078 WARNING I$a.b: Failed to find property. [name=number, object=[effect=null, location=[]]] 2011/10/28 17:33:06:696 INFO I$a.b: Moving at request of server [zoneId=16777217, sceneId=1] 2011/10/28 17:33:07:233 INFO I$a.b: Issuing zoned moveTo(1:1, 1, 73). 2011/10/28 17:33:07:447 INFO I$a.b: Connecting [host=/184.73.171.169, port=47627] 2011/10/28 17:33:07:727 INFO I$a.b: Datagram connection established [port=47627] 2011/10/28 17:33:08:183 INFO I$a.b: Issuing zoned moveTo(1:1, 1, 73). 2011/10/28 17:33:08:211 INFO I$a.b: Updating outgoing message throttle [msgsPerSec=15]

Vie, 10/28/2011 - 20:53

#10

Jhewt

Hello, I had a similar

Hello, I had a similar problem. The game isn't the problem, the real problem is your computer (the CPU).
The game is coded in Java, as you know it runs completely in the CPU (Java is an Interpreter) and it uses all the resources avalaible if you're running on a single core CPU (it happens the same on old HT Intel based CPUs).

The basic problem is that the game is using 100% of your CPU while the game is running (95% is being used by the graphics rendering), the problem is that the CPU when is on heavy load, it needs to QUEUE all the task and that's why your keyboard is laggy. (You see first one thing, but the CPU is handling hounders of task at the same time and the keyboard input is one of them). This on a fast (mostly multi-core) processor is almost instant, maybe it takes 0.05ms to respond but that for your brain is impossible to notice.

So, to solve this problem once and for all is run the game in a multi-core processor or a faster one, maybe you can try lower resolutions.

That's the problem of using java for gaming :(

PD: Another thing I'd suggest you is to disable the Steam Overlay UI, I'vent test it, but try it.
PD2: You can also try to trick the game to run on 64 bits, that's more bandwitdh for your processor to handle witch means it can run a little faster.

Vie, 10/28/2011 - 21:49

#11

Starlinvf

Adding Jhwets post to the

Adding Jhwets post to the notes. Good way to lay it out.

Sáb, 10/29/2011 - 12:02

#12

Kupoo

u r smrt prsn

Ah, I see, that makes sense. I'm afraid getting a new computer isn't quite in my budget right now (college and all; I could probably get two for all the textbooks I've been needing), but I'll try the suggestions you posted.

Thank you for the information!

Sáb, 10/29/2011 - 20:27

#13

Starlinvf

If your teachers require you

If your teachers require you buy a textbook and not use it heavily, you can complain about it to the administration. I've been in classes where teachers made us buy books (some they authored), and used maybe 10% of it..... at $30-80 a book, especially when you have to buy new, I've been on the verge of force feeding the 8lb monster to them.

Dom, 10/30/2011 - 18:33

#14

Jhewt

Same here, I dont have money

Same here, I dont have money to buy a textbook for college (lots and lots of math and really old from programming), that's why I spend more time in the college's library.

Another thing that I forget to say is that I suggest you to do a small CPU overclock, in this case it can be very useful but is very riscky.

Dom, 10/30/2011 - 22:58

#15

Starlinvf

Because of a bad cooling on

Because of a bad cooling on laptops, you can rarely overclock it enough to make a difference in performance. He already has heat issues to begin with, so I can only foresee disaster in trying.

Dom, 10/30/2011 - 23:05

#16

Kupoo

Task Priority

My laptop already runs rather hot as it is, and I've had to use a cooling pad to keep my hands comfortable when doing anything CPU-intensive; I don't even want to think about what might happen if I try overclocking it. XD I need it for taking notes!

Would it help if I went into Task Manager and set the Java (javaw.exe, I presume) process priority down a notch? Maybe it might encourage processing the keyboard inputs first or something. It did seem to help during the last two sessions, though that may have been more coincidence than anything. I suppose I would have to deal with an FPS drop or occasional skips, but I'd consider that preferable to the stated issue - the former I can work around, and the latter leaves me with at least some semblance of control.

Lun, 10/31/2011 - 16:55

#17

Jhewt

Changing the priority won't

Changing the priority won't make any difference. If there is anything you can do to make it slower, your problem should be even worst.

Another thing that I just came to my mind is that Three Rings needs to make a FPS soft limit for low-end machines.
If you have a FPS peak of 60 FPS that means your computer can handle 60 FPS, but putting a limit on FPS to a lower value it can free a little CPU resource for the keyboard input.

For example, every game from Valve does have a FPS counter, limiter and so on. There's a "resource friendly" option in Portal 2 for saving battery and that means less calculations rendering every frame (basically it sets fps_max to 22).
I'm developing an online magazine reader on JavaScript with animations and pretty things, but It also have to work on mobile devices like an iPhone, iPad and every that begins with a "i". That means that I cannot make the browser render the animations so fast, so that's why i've to "limit" the FPS of the animations to prevent hugh battery waste and freezes on weak mobile phones (nokia, etc).

I'm not sure if there is any FPS limit in Spiral Knights. But when there's not, the computer try calculate the greatest quantity of frames per second... that means 100% of CPU usage (non multithread on single core, 50% on dual, 25% in quad, and so on...) and thats why is so heavy-load.
When there is a limit on the FPS, the CPU does not have to process and render all FPS it can handle, so it use less CPU witch means other process can have its "space".

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how usually 3d aplications behaves

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