Spiral Knights - Optimizing IMF, FSC and the rest of the game.

Optimizing IMF, FSC and the rest of the game.

5 replies [Last post]

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 09:16

Renpartycat

We all hate lag. Sometimes we do everything we can to get rid of lag. But the lag I'm talking about here is FPS lag, not ping lag. Some parts of this game can be very laggy and difficult to play in. So here I am to point out some issues and possible solutions.

Problems with Ironclaw Munitions Factory:
- Too many models (The screen feels like a hurricane most of the time)

Problems with Firestorm Citadel:
- Too many Sprites (Mainly the shadowflames)

Problems with the game's performance:
- Java (Not a good engine to use, has bad coding and frequent memory leaks no matter what game you use it with.)

Solutions:
- Reduce the amount of models and things in Ironclaw Munitions without making it too easy. A revamp is what we need here.
- Reduce the amount of sprites in Firestorm Citadel. Change the shadowflames from sprites to models.
- Use another platform. Anything else really, just not Java or Source.

Discuss.

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 09:35

Madadder

ill admit java wasnt the best

ill admit java wasnt the best choice for SK to be written in but whats wrong with source? i havent had much if any problems with it...

anyway wouldnt they need to recode the whole game? thats expensive and i doubt they will ever consider it

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:01

Renpartycat

@Madadder

The thing about source is that it's a very old engine. And it has the tendency to fragment everything with every single update. Eventually a game will become virtually unplayable if it's being used with source.

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:48

Wuvvums

I know this anecdote probably

I know this anecdote probably won't matter much, but I must agree java just really isn't that good for an MMO. I think it's fine for local games like terraria and minecraft.

I can easily run two windows of World of Warcraft when I feel like dual-boxing. I can't do this at all in Spiral without my connection chugging, the music skipping, and everything slowing down significantly. It's disappointing, really, how flash and java games seem to run badly, more so than regular games would.

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 23:08

Starlinvf

Thats pretty much a given

Thats pretty much a given with any interpreted programming language, where another program is running your code. And the only 2 major options idTech and Source if you wanna run native, but they aren't nearly as portable as java, and may not have a future on ARM devices.

Another point of concern is that OOO is trying to keep development cost low, and Java is lot friendlier in that regard with the licensing. But making a new cross platform engine from scratch would simply cost too much in time and effort, and require more programming disciplines then the Dev team may be currently equipped to handle. Then comes a minimum 1 year cycle to - develop the engine, followed by importing, converting, or even remaking content resources, massive amounts of debugging and QA testing, and once its been deployed, then maybe think about how long it'll take to get a return on investment. But if they went through all that, would it really change CE purchase decisions?

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 22:59

Engie

I don't think it's the amount

I don't think it's the amount of models that is causing lag, they're all fairly low-polygon.

You want to turns sprites into models? Sure, changing a simple two-dimensional object into a three-dimensional model makes sense. Just kidding, you got that completely backwards. There are probably <10 sprites unique to FSC, if any.

Java isn't an engine, it's a programming language. It doesn't have "bad coding" unless the code is written badly, and Spiral Knights is definitely not written badly. They're not going to stop using Java no matter how hard you try, forget it. The developers are obviously more proficient in Java than any other programming language, or they wouldn't be developing SK in Java. They'd have to hire a new team, and that might cause legal issues (as well as being a royal pain in the ass for all of OOO).

Search

Optimizing IMF, FSC and the rest of the game.