Slow Startup Times?

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Enjay
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Slow Startup Times?

Post by Enjay »

I'm not reporting this as a bug because I have no idea if it is or not. It may even be system specific to me (I can't find another post about it). However, the first time I start GZDoom 2.2.0 (either 32 or 64 bit) there is a lag of pretty close to 9-10 seconds before anything seems to happen.

If I double click the exe directly, there is about a 9-10 second delay and the windows cursor may become the rotating blue circle then the GZDoom startup window appears with the IWAD selection dialogue on top of it (i.e. from that point on, things are normal).

Launching via ZDL, again there is the 10 second delay and clicking anywhere on the ZDL window changes its title bar to read "not responding" then GZDoom starts (the IWAD being added to the command line by ZDL).

It seems as if there might be some sort of caching thing going on. If I quit and then restart GZDoom immediately, there is no startup delay. However, if I quit, do something else for a while and then try GZDoom again I get the delay. I've tried with gl_cachenodes on and off: no difference. However, that's not a big surprise because the delay seems to happen before any WAD data is loaded. Also, quitting and specifying a different IWAD in ZDL allows a non-delayed start with the chosen IWAD. Once the game has started, it works just fine.

I don't seem to be experiencing this with other ZDoom engines or older versions of GZDoom. I'm not entirely sure yet if it's happening with the current DRD builds of GZDoom because I'm not sure how long or what I need to do to clear the memory to get it to happen but I *think* the DRD builds might be OK.

So, is this something other people have noticed or is it just me?

Spec:
GZDoom 2.2.0 32 or 64 bit
CPU: i7 Six Core Processor 6800K (3.4GHz) 15MB Cache
Memory: 16GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (4 x 4GB)
Graphics: 8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080
Sound: Onboard HiDef Audio (7.1)
OS: Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit
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Re: Slow Startup Times?

Post by Graf Zahl »

No idea, but this hints at some system side problem with one of the libraries it loads. You should also check if your antivirus is not at fault here.
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Re: Slow Startup Times?

Post by Enjay »

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried disabling all real-time virus protection, restarted my machine, double checked virus protection was still off and still had a delayed start. It doesn't seem to be that.

I can also now say with a fair degree of certainty that the DRD builds are fine. When I restarted my machine, I tried the DRD build first - no delay. Then I tried the official build - 10 second delay.
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Re: Slow Startup Times?

Post by Graf Zahl »

32 bit or 64 bit?
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Re: Slow Startup Times?

Post by Enjay »

Both 32 and 64 official releases show the delay.

I haven't noticed a delay with either the 32 or the 64 bit DRD builds.
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Re: Slow Startup Times?

Post by Graf Zahl »

The only immediate difference I can see is the OpenAL version. Can you try swapping them out or remove entirely?
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Re: Slow Startup Times?

Post by Enjay »

Removing openal32.dll from the GZDoom (official) directory did not stop the delays happening.
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Re: Slow Startup Times?

Post by Enjay »

Oooops, I think that I may have worked out what was going on. The autoload section of the ini in my official GZDoom folder was pointing to lights.pk3 and brightmaps.pk3 on another drive. The drive is there, but the files are not. None of my other (G)ZDoom installs were trying to point to those files. I have edited the ini to point to where the files actually are and, so far, I have been unable to get a slow startup.

If it happens again, I'll report back but, for now, it looks like the problem is that Enjay is an eejit with an error in his ini files that he hadn't spotted. :oops:


[edit] Yeah, that does seem to be it. Even after a restart of my computer, no GZDoom delay. Sorry for the spurious report. [/edit]
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Re: Slow Startup Times?

Post by Enjay »

Hmmm, OK it seems as if I may have mis-spoken. Having gone back to the official build after a few days of playing with the DRD builds, the delay is back.

My guess is that when I was testing before, I hadn't given it enough time to "reset" to the delay behaviour after a previous start. However, this morning I tried the official build and got a 10 second delay. I had to go out so I left my computer on and when I came back, the delay was there again for the first start. After that, subsequent starts were nice and quick.

I double checked my ini and it still points to the correct location for lights.pk3 and brightmaps.pk3 so that's not it.
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