[duplicate] Sudden slowdowns

[Enjay]

Seeing as how I can't give anything really concrete to go on, I suspect this will quickly get an "I can't do much about this without the data" but I thought I'd mention it at least.

I have a series of 10 or so levels. These levels are not especially complex or large, and have no enemies in them because they are deathmatch arenas. There is some scripting, but for the most part that is minimal. Each level follows on from the last when hitting the exit switch until the last one eventually goes to the first in a loop.

I was just running through them to see how they look in GZDoom and I came up with a problem. The first level was fine, running at a very good FPS rate as I have experienced before with GZDoom. However, as I progressed from one level to the next, I noticed that by the time I got to level 7 or so, there was a slight delay in the level loading. Then, for no obvious reason (I was just running around in a level - which had performed well up 'til that point) the FPS dropped to less than 1 per second and everything about GZDoom became equally unresponsive. I tried a few things, but eventually had to alt-tab and quit. Thinking the level could be responsible, I went back in and tried again from the start. I got the same problem, but it happened a level earlier - so it wasn't level specific. I have managed to repeat the process, getting the same problem, after a complete restart too.

The levels in question are incorporated into my Aspects mod, and so have a huge data file and everything that goes with a many-megabyte IWAD to load. I extracted the levels, and the MAPINFO lump and ran them in GZdoom with Doom2.wad (just letting GZDoom put the default chequered texture in the place of the missing ones). I was able to run right through all the levels numerous time with no slowdown problems.

I realise that it's not much to go on, but could the large number of textures or something be exaggerating something like a memory leak that slowly uses up memory as you progress from one level to the next or something?

Sorry I can't be more helpful, but that's all I have - no crash logs or anything, just massive slowdown to the point of being unusable after playing 6 or seven levels, one after the other, in fairly short succession.

I did also get a lock-up yesterday too. This time it was due to a mapping error. I was setting up a portal/stacked sector and incorrectly made the sector that should be the lower one have the upper sector thing in it and vice versa. After hitting "new game" and picking a difficulty setting, GZDoom froze on the title screen (I think D_RUNNIN stated playing). I know it's a mapping error, but totalling locking up should be avoidable, no?

Win XP, GeForce 5900 with the drivers released earlier this month.

[Graf Zahl]

Does this WAD contain a DEHACKED lump that manipulates the armor items in any way? I got a slowdown quite like you described when picking up a hacked armor item but it is fixed now.

But as you guessed, I can't do much without a look at the WAD in question - or another one with the exact same problem.

The stacked sector lockup will happen in ZDoom as well. That one's a nasty thing caused by an infinite recursion.

[Enjay]

Yes, the armour is manipulated. The effects of the armour are completely unchanged, however, the green armour is hacked to use only its normal first frame (rather than animating between two frames). The blue armour is in a similar situation, but uses a totally different frame to what it normally does. Armour bonuses are also hacked to only use a single frame. (This was all done in pre-decorate days when frames were a valuable and very limited resource, in case you were wondering.)

I'll go back and play the maps avoiding picking up armour, and also paying attention to what happens if I do collect it.

[edit]OK, looks like you have nailed it. I played through the level loop 4 times (therefore 40 effective levels) avoiding all armour pickups. Then, on the last run through of the last map, I accidentally brushed against a green armour item and everything slowed to a crawl where I had to alt-tab out to quit.

I'm sure that in the past I must have picked up armour items without a slowdown, however, I just tried again, picking up the blue armour on the first map and I did get the slowdown.


As another issue I wonder if you could perhaps help with. I noticed that some of the items in one of these maps are translucent and one is completely invisible. Checking in the editor, the map does indeed have these items flagged as translucent/invisible (so they are being shown correctly in both GZDoom and 96x). However, this map was made before these flags existed. Any idea which old flag combination could have been set to cause this in the newer versions?[/edit]

[Graf Zahl]

Yes, the armour is manipulated. The effects of the armour are completely unchanged

That doesn't matter. The problem is not the change of properties.
Remember the disappearing armor bug when there's a door at (0,0)? I copied Randy's fix for this from the 2.1.0 code into mine which had the unintended side effect that touching any armor made it go away even when you didn't pick it up. So I fixed that. The problem is that any inventory item hacked with DEHACKED gets their states replaced which in this particular case caused repeated calls to the pickup function so the game slowed down considerably.

[Graf Zahl]

As another issue I wonder if you could perhaps help with. I noticed that some of the items in one of these maps are translucent and one is completely invisible. Checking in the editor, the map does indeed have these items flagged as translucent/invisible (so they are being shown correctly in both GZDoom and 96x). However, this map was made before these flags existed. Any idea which old flag combination could have been set to cause this in the newer versions?[/edit]

Only a buggy editor could have done that. The flags were unused before. Some time ago another map with such an effect was posted and in that case the suspect was an old version of DeepSea. It couldn't be confirmed though.

[Graf Zahl]

...and since you confirmed my armor suspicion I can safely move this to closed bugs now. I'm sorry that the next version has to wait a little longer but right now I am not in a condition to work with the source. Hopefully I'll feel better in a few days.

[Enjay]

The problem is that any inventory item hacked with DEHACKED gets their states replaced which in this particular case caused repeated calls to the pickup function so the game slowed down considerably.

Aha! that would probably explain another phenomenon I just noticed. Picking up other items (in this case a soul sphere and a blur sphere) caused multiple pickup messages to appear in the top left of the screen, but the pickup item still remained and could be picked up multiple times with the same effect. These items are similarly dehacked.

Only a buggy editor could have done that. The flags were unused before. Some time ago another map with such an effect was posted and in that case the suspect was an old version of DeepSea. It couldn't be confirmed though.

OK, thanks. Not sure which editor was used to create the map originally. It was just one I retextured to fit in with my theme (I left most of the items alone). I'm not the original author and I'm not sure who is (maybe NiGHTMARE, but I really don't know).

Sorry you're not feeling well. Sucks to be ill.