Wonders and Projects

[AbsintheRed]

@ Absinthe: Well, I already have, and while the performance has improved there is still a lot of lag and sporadic MAFs.

That's really unfortunate
You tried to disable all 3 things Xyth suggested, or just the first 2 ones?

That's true, but they can pile upon eachother and create the issues. So basically, the wonders must be the problem. I think wonders that have code that "fires" often, like Machu Picchu for example (which happens every turn), might be the problem. So maybe I should ditch Machu Picchu for now and see how that works.

Yeah, that might be it. According to Xyth the 3rd python option was used only by Machu Picchu and Next War

Maybe first try to disable the 3rd option too
And if it still don't work, try it with removing Machu Picchu for now, just to find if really that is/was the cause

 

[Xyth]

Was the slavery code in the last playtest? I think I mentioned it already but I think it's a candidate for slowing things down. It adds code to 3 functions:

onCombatResult
- Called every time units fight. Probably not too bad as the added code is short.

onCityAcquired
- Called when a city changes hands. Doesn't happen often enough to be a problem

onCityDoTurn
- This function seems to be related to a city updating it's production each turn. I don't know how often it's called exactly but if we assume at least once for every city on the map every turn... that's a lot of calls. The code attached is short though, so I don't know.

If switching off the callbacks isn't helping much then I'd first suggest playing a game with both Machu Picchu and the slavery code removed (in addition to switched off callbacks).

While it can definitely cause slowdowns, Python is very unlikely to be causing memory issues though. If people are getting MAFs then that suggests there is simply too much art. That could possibly be the cause of the slowdowns too as when your computer doesn't have enough memory to do what it needs to do it starts using the harddrive instead and makes the entire system significantly slower.

(Btw I can't test this myself as Macs handle memory completely different to PCs, any results I get aren't comparable to what you guys will get).

 

[The Almighty dF]

That could possibly be the cause of the slowdowns too as when your computer doesn't have enough memory to do what it needs to do it starts using the harddrive instead and makes the entire system significantly slower.

Actually, it doesn't matter how much RAM you have available. It's a really, really awful design flaw with Civ4. It only looks for so much free RAM, then it breaks once x amount is being used.

That's what the Civ5 announcement "no more MAFs" really means. They realized that system was ******ed.

 

[Xyth]

Actually, it doesn't matter how much RAM you have available. It's a really, really awful design flaw with Civ4. It only looks for so much free RAM, then it breaks once x amount is being used.

That's what the Civ5 announcement "no more MAFs" really means. They realized that system was ******ed.

Ugh that's terrible. Despite it's numerous missing features I'm very glad that the Mac version of Civ4 got that part right!

 

[The Capo]

Yeah, that is definitely something annoying about Civ, especially since the game is so moddable. I really have NO IDEA why they opted to go in this direction.

From my understanding, the game itself will close up after using 2 GB of memory. So it doesn't even matter how good your computer is, when it hits that threshold it will MAF out on you. Is there any way at all to edit this or is it just something we have to deal with?

 

[The Capo]

Was the slavery code in the last playtest? I think I mentioned it already but I think it's a candidate for slowing things down. It adds code to 3 functions:

onCombatResult
- Called every time units fight. Probably not too bad as the added code is short.

onCityAcquired
- Called when a city changes hands. Doesn't happen often enough to be a problem

onCityDoTurn
- This function seems to be related to a city updating it's production each turn. I don't know how often it's called exactly but if we assume at least once for every city on the map every turn... that's a lot of calls. The code attached is short though, so I don't know.

If switching off the callbacks isn't helping much then I'd first suggest playing a game with both Machu Picchu and the slavery code removed (in addition to switched off callbacks).

While it can definitely cause slowdowns, Python is very unlikely to be causing memory issues though. If people are getting MAFs then that suggests there is simply too much art. That could possibly be the cause of the slowdowns too as when your computer doesn't have enough memory to do what it needs to do it starts using the harddrive instead and makes the entire system significantly slower.

(Btw I can't test this myself as Macs handle memory completely different to PCs, any results I get aren't comparable to what you guys will get).

Slavery might be an issue, the only problem there is that I can't really remove any of the Slavery stuff. That is something I really want in the mod, and I intend on keeping it. Machu Picchu, on the other hand, could go. I know, it is a cool wonder, I like it a lot. But ultimately I am not sure how important to the mod it really is. What I think I'll do first is put in your new traits, see how much of a difference that makes first. Then I'll decide on Machu Picchu.

In the meantime, do you see any way I could make the slavery stuff work more efficiently?

 

[The Almighty dF]

Yeah, that is definitely something annoying about Civ, especially since the game is so moddable. I really have NO IDEA why they opted to go in this direction.

From my understanding, the game itself will close up after using 2 GB of memory. So it doesn't even matter how good your computer is, when it hits that threshold it will MAF out on you. Is there any way at all to edit this or is it just something we have to deal with?

You can't do much on the mod-end, but I think there are some workarounds that you (the player) can use to trick Civ into using more RAM. I just can't recall specifics.

Also I'll miss Machu Pichu but... ho god is it powerful. Might be for the best that it's getting the boot. This became my beeline wonder.

 

[The Capo]

You can't do much on the mod-end, but I think there are some workarounds that you (the player) can use to trick Civ into using more RAM. I just can't recall specifics.

Also I'll miss Machu Pichu but... ho god is it powerful. Might be for the best that it's getting the boot. This became my beeline wonder.

Machu Picchu was definitely a good wonder, it could really make your country pretty powerful, especially if you have a lot of mountains around (I play the Perfect World map script, which tends to have a lot of mountain chains).

But, I don't think it is really a necessary wonder in the end, and if it is a decision between Machu Picchu and game performance, that is really not a tough decision at all.

 

[Xyth]

Slavery might be an issue, the only problem there is that I can't really remove any of the Slavery stuff. That is something I really want in the mod, and I intend on keeping it. Machu Picchu, on the other hand, could go. I know, it is a cool wonder, I like it a lot. But ultimately I am not sure how important to the mod it really is. What I think I'll do first is put in your new traits, see how much of a difference that makes first. Then I'll decide on Machu Picchu.

In the meantime, do you see any way I could make the slavery stuff work more efficiently?

Yeah the slavery stuff is pretty cool and worth keeping if we can. I need to learn more about how onCityDoTurn is called to know if there's a more efficient way of doing that part of the code. I'll ask in the Python/SDK forum.

The traits should have a negligible effect on turn speed, the python for them is not called very often at all, and in some cases just once.

 

[The Capo]

Well, I removed Machu Picchu and started a game as China. So far everything is running much better than it did previously. So I am begining to think Machu Picchu was the issue, although I should probably play the whole game before jumping to conclusions.

If this is the case, Machu Picchu has to be removed. There's no way I can defend the wonder if it is causing that much lag and performance issues.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Well, I removed Machu Picchu and started a game as China. So far everything is running much better than it did previously. So I am begining to think Machu Picchu was the issue, although I should probably play the whole game before jumping to conclusions.

If this is the case, Machu Picchu has to be removed. There's no way I can defend the wonder if it is causing that much lag and performance issues.

Since Machu Picchu's out, suppose it'll be replaced by another new wonder?
There's still Great Zimbabwe, which you'd wanted to add in. Also there's art for a Nazca Lines wonder. Either one'd be neat.

 

[The Capo]

Well, just because I am removing Machu Picchu doesn't mean I am replacing it with anything. We'll see though, right now I want to finish the game I am playing with MP removed to see if I ever encounter a MAF error.