Back to GEM after a break and God it's SLOW!

[jacktannery]

I took a break from VEM/GEM/Thal's Mods after G&K came out, for various reasons. I really enjoyed playing the Vanilla game, but this weekend I decided to try GEM again and see what it was like.

GEM is great - simple to install, well-documented, and easy to find the right version. Compared to most mods I have ever used in many different games, this is the best presented.

The gameplay improvements are everywhere, and just brilliant. I had forgotten how much a genius Thal is - all aspects of the game are subtly improved and the entire game is a lot more fun. I found no bugs, all beliefs and policies worked perfectly for me.

Except for the slowdown - this becomes increasingly problematic as the game continues. It is not present in the unmodded (vanilla) game. The slowdown is most obvious when entering city screens (the game freezes for a few seconds) and using religious units (converting/inquisit-ing), but also happens elsewhere too. This slowdown/freeze was a problem with this mod a month or two ago too, if I recall, so I know its not just me or my computer. It's not mentioned in the bug thread anymore so I presume people have just got used to it.

Is this slowdown/freeze something which is unavoidable in GEM - a function of the added processing required by the balance mod, or is it a bug? If the former, I think we need to identify what's causing it and remove that component of the mod because the slowdown makes playing GEM/UP in the late game almost impossible, and I think it would be preferable to lose parts (even if its an important part) of the GEM/UP mod rather than the entire thing.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

the slowdown is not there in Nights for example, it's gotta be something in the civup...

 

[Stalker0]

I've noted my own complaint about the speed to Thal before.

I'm guessing its a lot of the custom graphics in the civup, but I don't know for certain.

 

[Dunkah]

I have noted a complaint as well but don't seem to have any problems since the patch. And a new computer with a new AMD processor.

 

[Stalker0]

I have noted a complaint as well but don't seem to have any problems since the patch. And a new computer with a new AMD processor.

The patch definitely has made improvements, some of the speed increases in the core game have translated into the MOD. Before the patch I couldn't play a standard map it was so slow. Now I can handle standard maps and the gameplay is a decent pace.

Now...its no comparison to the core game. The core game flies in comparison. But at least its gotten better enough that I can work with it.

 

[Thalassicus]

This kind of problem is incredibly challenging to solve: there are no error messages, no obvious causes, and few ways to track the issue. Civ's modding toolkit doesn't have much for debugging performance issues. It's made more difficult because half the code in the unofficial patch is written by other people. I sometimes re-write mods I include to make them more efficient before adding them to the patch, but that is very time consuming. Mods like Nights are usually written by just a few people, while civup is a community project including code from dozens of authors.

I do my best to ensure the code is fast and efficient, but sometimes problems do slip through.

 

[jacktannery]

Fair Enough Thal. I'll try it with just UP and see if the slowdown is in UP or in GEM. At least that will narrow it down a bit. It's a real shame, especially as its bound to be something silly that's causing it.

 

[Hawawaa]

During the early summer ya there were slow downs, but I would say 3-5 patches ago this problem was eliminated for me. 2 things I can think of is video card drivers and your processor drivers.

 

[Thalassicus]

If you can point to one area of the game which needs work, I can focus my efforts. Would you say the biggest problem is opening city screens?

 

[Stalker0]

If you can point to one area of the game which needs work, I can focus my efforts. Would you say the biggest problem is opening city screens?

For me, the big issue is time lag when the end turn button is pressed. It takes much longer for the end turn to finish in the mod than in the normal game. What I notice is that the turn notes at the bottom of the screen (showing which faction is taking their turn) goes pretty quick, and then there is a massive pause where all of the message icons appear on the right side and the AI takes final graphical actions.

There are several other navigational ones like the city screen, but for me the end turn is definitely the worst offender.

 

[manarod]

for me the worst is the lag in the selectin of specialist in the city view and the little pause after the next turn. But i have to agree that the game is much more slow than the vanilla. if this can help now i'm playing only with civup and the ai part of gem. cuold i try gem without civup ?

 

[Thalassicus]

Is this mostly at the start or end of the game? I created code to test end-turn times, if you can enable it:

1. Open:
   MODS\Civ V Unofficial Patch\2_ModTools_Trunk\MT_LuaEvents.lua
2. Find this and change the level to "INFO":
   log:SetLevel("WARN")
3. Start Civ and end a turn which feels long.
4. Attach your lua.log file to a post.

It will show things like:

MT_Initialize: INFO   Turn 0   OnTurnEnd         Total      0.091 seconds
MT_Initialize: INFO   Turn 1   VanillaStuff      Total      3.866 seconds
MT_Initialize: INFO   Turn 1   OnTurnStart       Total      0.057 seconds

 

[jacktannery]

Is this mostly at the start or end of the game?

For me, turn times are pretty fast, especially since the patch (I play Epic Speed, Large maps, on a fast modern computer). The 'waiting for AI/next turn' part IS significantly longer than vanilla, however this is not a problem for me, as I am used to it from CIV IV.

However, entering city screens takes an increasingly long time, to the point that by the industrial era I do everything I can to avoid it (I set everyone to autobuild, or make them build things that will take ages). The reason I abandon games in the industrial period is this. Another lesser problem is religious units, which freeze the game for ten seconds or so after I use them to convert/inquisite.

The problem for me is that when it is finally my turn, I can't really do much because entering city screens or using religious screens is such a slog.

...2 things I can think of is video card drivers and your processor drivers.

Hawawaa - that's really odd. I have a modern computer and updated graphic drivers. I doubt that's the problem since I can run the vanilla game perfectly right up to the end of the game. It's only UP/GEM I have an issue with, and its not just me as you can see by reading the comments above.

 

[Thalassicus]

Something else to point out is auto-save adds a lot to turn times. I have my autosave set to every 3 turns.

 

[Stalker0]

Is this mostly at the start or end of the game? I created code to test end-turn times, if you can enable it:

1. Open:
   MODS\Civ V Unofficial Patch\2_ModTools_Trunk\MT_LuaEvents.lua
2. Find this and change the level to "INFO":
   log:SetLevel("WARN")
3. Start Civ and end a turn which feels long.
4. Attach your lua.log file to a post.

It will show things like:

MT_Initialize: INFO   Turn 0   OnTurnEnd         Total      0.091 seconds
MT_Initialize: INFO   Turn 1   VanillaStuff      Total      3.866 seconds
MT_Initialize: INFO   Turn 1   OnTurnStart       Total      0.057 seconds

It starts at slow, and gets progressively worse as the game goes on.

I will try that code change on my next game.

 

[Stalker0]

Something else to point out is auto-save adds a lot to turn times. I have my autosave set to every 3 turns.

Mine is set to every 5

 

[Dunkah]

I've got mine set to every 10 turns. Perhaps thats why I don't see lag times.

I do see the problem with Religeous units and with Workboats when I click to work a tile. No problems opening city screens.

 

[Stalker0]

I did 10 turns and set my autosave to 30 just to see, it made 0 difference for me.

I will say that I my city screen does have a healthy pause, but that one isn't as bad for me as the end turn delay.

I also have the big pause when selecting specialists, but again I don't do that nearly as much as end turn.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't think time in between turns is that much worse than I expect, but the time within turn - on the city screen in particular - seems longer than it used to. [I haven't played vanilla in ages, so I'm not sure how it compares.]

 

[jacktannery]

I don't think time in between turns is that much worse than I expect, but the time within turn - on the city screen in particular - seems longer than it used to. [I haven't played vanilla in ages, so I'm not sure how it compares.]

Vanilla (for me at least) has NO LAG AT ALL when entering the city screen in the late game. I agree Ahrim that the slowness within the turn is the problem, rather than the slowness between turns (which is fine and similar to Vanilla).

It's interesting that Dunkah above has the slowness/lag with missionaries and workboats (I have this too) but not the slowness/lag with city screens. I should also repeat that this slowness/lag only appears from the medieval age and gets progressively more extreme until the industrial age is reached, at which point the game is almost unplayable.