X-Tended -Terran Conflict V2.2 Released. [06/09/2013] (X3:AP prototype available)

[chris_1979]

Actually i've turned on a program which shows me d3d9 framerate. It says 13fps and thats doing nothing staring into nowhere. Thats really really bad!

Gpu usage 4-6%.
Cpu usage 13% (which is the hyperthreading deception as it's more like 26% if hyperthreading didn't fool the system into thinking it was a 100% core.)

X3TC memory usage 1.6gb far from the 3.6gb limit.

[edit]

started a new game. 250fps. 250fps even on 10x seta.

Compare that to 5 fps on my late game and the day recovery it needs from stopping seta and you get the feeling.
ACtually i just tested 5x seta on my late game with that same tool. It says 1.1 fps. I knew it was bad.. but this bad..... i haven't used seta for some days now. So i didn't know it was this bad already.

Whats stunning is that x3tc goes into such a sluggish state that my videcards actually start power saving mode and drop back their frequency to the lowest power saving setting. Well that might be the only enjoyable thing about it. That i actually have to pay less to enjoy less...

No, i love this mod and i really don't want to install something else. Tho i saw a similar release http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=304158 this week???

Might be enjoyable, if thats got the bugs stamped out. And keeping on playing this is unenjoyable. I hate to say this but i'm thinking of waiting until 2.0 to return. By that time hopefully modders have made their mods more compatible with xtc. Cause lets face it, this mod has it all. Factory ships yay! m2+ capital ships. Cool weapons like IBC and Meteor Cannon. lots of configurable AL settings. A cool expanding universe.

Altho i have been wondering where all the aldrin stations went......

So someone save me from using a different mod. Because i have to if this isn't resolved until 2.0.
[edit] attached signature.

[Requiemfang]

I recommend the XRM mod, next to this mod it's the other one I play

Only thing I can think of that would slow down your combat in the game would be the amount of ships there are in game. Imo I start seeing FPS drop drastically and become a slide show when ever I have 100+ ships fighting. My rig can't handle that amount apparently.

[Trickmov]

@Chris1979:
if the performance-hotfix didn't improve your fps, I guess, you're doing something wrong. On the lategame-savegames I tested I saw an improvement by 200% or even more.

The performance hotfix i did install to T and Director folder.

you're sure you have the right file? The right file has scripts- and director-folder, which of course have to be extracted to the main installation-path (or move the files directly into the right folders in your installation).

And no, there is no special requirement to activate this patch.

[EDIT:] if you did everything correct and your fps are still unplayable, there is nothing we can do for you.

[chris_1979]

@Chris1979:
if the performance-hotfix didn't improve your fps, I guess, you're doing something wrong. On the lategame-savegames I tested I saw an improvement by 200% or even more.

The performance hotfix i did install to T and Director folder.

you're sure you have the right file? The right file has scripts- and director-folder, which of course have to be extracted to the main installation-path (or move the files directly into the right folders in your installation).

And no, there is no special requirement to activate this patch.

[EDIT:] if you did everything correct and your fps are still unplayable, there is nothing we can do for you.

Actually i read somewhere that there was a late game lag and the writer (maybe you???) said: Lets see what we can do about that in 2.0

You mean to tell me that this was fixed in the small bug fix???

And yeah i downloaded that file again, unpacked it and overwritten all the former identical files. Indeed it was scripts and director, not T. But thats what happens when you don't check what you remember.

But even so. If this is yet another (unreported/undiscovered) lag issue then i trust that it will eventually be stamped out. I hope before 2.0

I could lend my save to the dev team, but it does have mars, codea, cags and dockware manager installed. So i'd bet all i'd hear is we cannot guarantee functionality with any mods and it'd be done with. Well let me assure you that this performance issue arose before i installed those mods. which was 2-3 days ago. As i wanted to check if xtc worked well with some of these mods. So i'll leave it to the hardcore xtc'er to do that for me. Btw 200% is 2fps at 5x seta. is 26fps during normal gaming. Which means something is still very very messed up. Don't get me wrong. I know in large battles there will be a slide show. But i bet if i put another 2 days in this game it will be a slideshow all the time. Maybe thats just what i need to do... Do another week of gaming. Send in my savegame and let the scripters see which script utilises 100% cpu time and drops the game to a total halt.

Because seeing the amount of time i put in this game, i could expect a week of playing to suffice easilly. Lets just say every day the drop in performance is noticable! Every day the game is less responsive. It's that bad! Yesterday i saw that my mouse actually became unresponsive and starts moving almost like a slideshow. The 13fps tells me why i felt that way. Thats why i even started this question. Having to press buttons like 5 to 10 seconds for the game to realise a button was pressed is too much. So i hope this issue is known because otherwise i fear 2.0......

[chris_1979]

Btw, where does x3tc place my saves??? I want to back them up to switch back and forth if i wish to. If only to enjoy that which i have built so far. To fly around in a J or K and kill some xenons with their own ships or so.

[edit]
Nvm found it! documents\egosoft.

[Trickmov]

Saves with third party scripts installed are generally not usable for such testing purposes.
However, there will definatly not be an additional patch before 2.0 - there will be some new performance-increases in 2.0 - but those are by far not as effective as the performance-hotfix was - thus if you have now problems of such nature, you will most probably also have issues in 2.0.

However, I still tend to believe, that this issue is mainly related to your side only -> most people enjoy with the performance-hotfix a fluid playing even in late game. Ofc this means lower fps than in Vanilla, but playable at least. There is some known issue with Khaak-weapons, which create lag-issues, but aside from that also battles are playable at those people.

And really: There is no use in specifying your problem more detailed here. If you want to do a bug-report, do a proper one on our forums. Telling again and again, that your fps are so low (for what reason ever) helps noone.

[Requiemfang]

About the Kyon beam weapons, what textures are you guys using for them? The X2 textures or the X3 textures? Paulwheeler solved the lag fest issue cause by Kyons by switching over to the X3 textures for the Kyon emitters weapons and that removed the lag issue in the game for his mod.

[chris_1979]

Saves with third party scripts installed are generally not usable for such testing purposes.
However, there will definatly not be an additional patch before 2.0 - there will be some new performance-increases in 2.0 - but those are by far not as effective as the performance-hotfix was - thus if you have now problems of such nature, you will most probably also have issues in 2.0.

However, I still tend to believe, that this issue is mainly related to your side only -> most people enjoy with the performance-hotfix a fluid playing even in late game. Ofc this means lower fps than in Vanilla, but playable at least. There is some known issue with Khaak-weapons, which create lag-issues, but aside from that also battles are playable at those people.

And really: There is no use in specifying your problem more detailed here. If you want to do a bug-report, do a proper one on our forums. Telling again and again, that your fps are so low (for what reason ever) helps noone.

I believe this is not a problem from my side and as such i'm sure many many many reports will soon come in. Or if people are actually waiting for 2.0 because they hate to start over again, then the reports will come in. And since i have used 3rd party mods don't ask me to help the devs. I'll leave that to the people who didn't install a third party mod.

totaly unusable seta on a 4.2 ghz core i7 920 means EVERY LAST PERSON playing xtc will end up with this issue. This also means i'll hold on to my savegame because if 2.0 takes a little longer to be released i'm expecting the fix soon.

But you said it all. I just started XTM with some mods, which i'm going to play until 2.0 or if my issue is reported by others and fixed before 2.0

[chris_1979]

Let me just add this. I played this for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. It tell me 37 days.. I have not seen a hitch. Yeah i saw no aldrin space station, also the fire missle barage command was missing from m7m's??? And i believe thats it. Not one ctd. Not one problem. I loved it!

I installed mars to see if i could leave large destroyers in battle without them firing at those pesky corvettes instead of m1's & m2's. Yeah their cannons have absolutely no target prioritisation and as such it felt stupid to own 20+ m1,m2's. Their ppc's fire at the m6's because they are the first to come close to them and the corresponding m1 behind it will kill your m2+ easilly.

I installed dockware manager to be able to delete wares from equipment docks as i want a ship to fly in there and i can simply transfer everything to it. Not having to check for software upgrades and weapon or ammo all the time. Or i could pick up a station if i accidentaly put some ware into it and redeploy it and pay 11 million for all the upgrades again.

Same for shipyards and headquarters. I don't want my shipyards to start buying weapons or useless resources. Thats why i have the headquarters in the same sector.

Also Cags to be able to profit from overproduced products in large complex hubs. and to support smaller complexes and factories, because lets face it Trade command 3 is bull..

The scripts in this game have been created with no large empire in mind. The fact that you can buy more then 1 ship or factory is nice, but there is too much micromanaging and that way a large fleet and large factories become a waste of time and credits.

I don't believe i exagarated in the mods here. i'd go as far as to say these little mods were nessacary for a late game experience. And this was 4 days ago now. I installed them last sunday. While seta was broken long before.

So i'm sure anyone out there will steer away from any mods with large fleets and factory complexes, letting them just sit there being useless.. For the sake of finding all of this. But that would be too much to ask from me.

I loved it and i'll be checking out the forums from time to time.
I mean this is praise and i don't even care for a fix anymore. If what i think is true i'll let others fight over it. I'll stick to the loving it part.

[Requiemfang]

Aldrin isn't complete, the race at least so you won't see any stations on their part besides what's in Bean until 2.0.

Missile Barrage command was removed because M7M were to much of an IWIN ship.

[Killjaeden]

Missile Barrage command was removed because M7M were to much of an IWIN ship.

Before the missiles were tuned down and missiledefense added to enemies

@chris
No the amount of scripts is not much, but the impact is much.
If you run several 100 of ships with Mars and 80 CAG or so it will definitely have an impact. The scripts make them more clever but that also means they demand more computing power, which is hampered by the singlecore-only engine that gives a rats arse about your i7. *russian accent on* these corez are of no value here cowboy. only raw gigaherzz countz here

[chris_1979]

Actually please don't argue about this anymore, thats what i intended to say in my last post as a request if you read between the lines. I told that i didn't intend on helping to find out whats wrong. I actually found that i have a clean save of the unmodded xtc left from August 10 2011. I know that its still unmodded because the downloads all get their dates adjusted to the time when they saved. And my mods all date to August 12. I could share it to see if the devs think it's bad. But its useless arguing about it any further here. I already told that the game was badly lagging without anything but xtc running.

And telling me to actually reinstall everything and play that save until the game has come to a total halt is unfair to me. I know i'm taken seriously anyways. And when people are around having identical issues then it'll be solved anyway.

So lets stop the debate and enjoy other thoughts on this amazing mod. Because i can't wait to play 2.0. And oh sure, i'll reinstall x3tc for that. nice and clean. Don't worry that i'll have the same issues there, because if i will, YOU WILL TOO! It'll take a total restart anyways. By the time of its release the support will be better anyways as the devs seem to really press its release. And not spend too much time on the current release. And by the time 2.0 gets released i'll have a large amount of time (tho i hope others beat me to it) to get xtc on its knees again

[KRM398]

Wow, some really serious talking going on here. I haven't been around a while but I can see one thing from the start...If you have over a hundred ships and complexes running in an empire, on a single core, then that's the problem, no machine no matter the gig size can run all that without giving you fits. we all want the perfect game, hell, if I could slide through the screen I'd die there, in the future, but no matter what we think, our machines cant make reality, so having a huge empire is great, but don't expect the machine to keep up.

I worked with the mod team for two years, and yes, the mod has problems even today, but not enough to stop me from playing it. The mod team had a sick sense of humor about some things too, but its just who they are. I particularly like the "fuzzy bunnys' that is a game choice below 'easy'..I tried it just for fun after losing a hundred million in ships doing their 'very hard' missions in a frigate, with bomber escort, and may I say, that fluffy bunnys is sad humor when a 500k mission marked average, gets you 6 Carracks and an equal number of bombers, and then a fighter escort. Those bunnys are deadly, so beware..lol.

I also got the newest patch, and it did help, but it was not the cure all it was meant to be, and my seta even running on 8x works fine, no problems at all. I had to lower my textures and shaders to 4x to even out the game, but that's ok, now I can go anywhere with little to no jerks and pauses, and only very small ones in major battles. It'll do until the new game comes out, then this will be history for most of us anyways, so just another couple months and we're on to the next one.

[Tharaphita]

Hey!

Started the mod again after awhile. Can anyone say wich way are Split sectors from Merindasa Prime? Just some general directions would be okay =)

Thnx

Edit : Nvm Google helped

[chris_1979]

@KRMsomething

It is sure that when you build a great empire that things get slower. I've played vanilla too. With a very few mods like marine repairs and complex cleaner. i still remember the time when i enabled the large memory flag myself, not waiting for 2.5?? 2.7??? patch which enabled 3.6 gb instead of 1.6 which. I used Laatido to switch that flag.

Anyways, i had a huge empire which was so big that i had the 2 billion credit mark in each of my factories AND personal player account. I bought boreases with 10 a time and so on. I had every capital ship in the game at least twice. I had ore belt and other sectors filled to the brim with space stations (complex cleaner ofcourse). I had so many weapon factories that most of the time the resources weren't used, because they weren't sold or equiped by ships so i built more weapon factories.

And what i remember is that 10x seta worked flawlessly. I had 80 UT's and +/- 50-60 cags.

Seta was totally unusable now. Not even 2x seta. So then the logical question becomes: What could cause that kind of a difference. Now i have hardly half of the empire i had then. equipment docks??? expanding universe?? New ship types? Racialised weapons??? What is so different that seta is unusable for me? I tell you if it weren't for seta being unusable i wouldn't complain about low framerates. But you are right. In a large empire it will indeed bring this game to a sluggish gameplay. It's just that it's still a little too jaggy and ruggish to excuse it with this i think.

[Gavrushka]

Chris, I live at the other end of the computer spectrum, using a 5 year old E6600, a business machine that I use casually for gaming.

The game, as it progressed (this is pre performance patch) does slow down - I had thought that there was a 'dirty' script somewhere that continued to run and propagate, but I think now it was more down to the fact that XTC is more demanding than the standard game...

- It had been one of my game saves that was used to identify a memory effect that came about with buying used ships that came about in the standard game (scripts did not close down properly) - and when identified performance for me when up by literally 1000% - Here I have to accept my PC is just too slow - With or without SETA.

The one thing I would say of TC in general, however, is that performance does not seem to correlate directly with PC power and some widely different results can be seen from different machines (or thus was the case).

[chris_1979]

@Gavruska

Let me simplify this then. A script which does a lot of stuff which could go into a general more conservative mode during seta could maybe be the fix i need. Just like turret scripts which don't fire at missles. Because i can accept the fact that i get 13 fps during normal game play. But it's hard to accept that you have to wait 24 hours after you disabled seta x10 after 6 hours of sleep. 24 hours of slideshow and no matter if you reload that save, it'll take the same amount of time for whatever xtc is doing. God knows what it's doing, or what it's catching up on. When i do large scale battles i don't expect anything less then a slide show. But when i'm staring into the clear blue sky for 24 hours waiting for the game to catch up on something.... Then obviously something is doing things less conservative then it could.

Let me add this to the thrill. I did some modding and scripting in other games, which could show you the exact amount of cpu% the scripts used per frame. Whenever something was wrong with a script you'd see the cpu time go up from the normal 0.000000001-3% to 99%.

I know alot of people think well heavy script and does a lot of things. But have absolutely no clue what modern day processors are capable of. And certainly the database driven scripting system in most games is what the processor is best at. i wrote script which checked and manipulated EVERY object in the gameworld EVERY frame. And still no problems... 0.000000003% cpu time. And yeah those were single core games too. Don't want to get off topic too much by talking about which games. and how many objects it had. But lets just say i'm waiting anxiously for Skyrim to continue. That should tell you something about the proportions of the game. And what every object means.

[Trickmov]

@Chris1979: Please stop ranting about the performance around here - for my taste that are already 5 posts too much. We know about the issue you have.
But:
a) as long there is noone else having such problems, we see it as "unconfirmed issue"
b) we don't read all of the posts in here - if one wants to be sure, that his issue is adressed for the next update, he will have to create a proper bugreport, including log-file on our forums


Let me add one thing: We tried to have a permanent look onto the performance of everything in XTC. Ofc this doesn't work always as intended... there can be bugs (for instance like those we fixed in the performance-fix) or just the situation that reducing load on one place would mean to loose some abilities on another place.
Thus as the Vanilla-game is itself not the best in meanings of performance (e.g. single-core), we face the situation that there is definatly not much room left for additional things. The more we add, the more the performance is reduced. XTC comes with dozens of additional things running, not even counted all the third party scripts, users tend to install additionally.

Thus in result, you could try to disable scripts running (either the third-party ones or the AL-options provided by XTC). If this doesn't work, there is still the possibility to remove all MD-missions (by creating an empty file "mdfiles.txt in the director-folder - this is useful to see, if there is a bug there, otherwise not recommandable). If this all doesn't help, then your system can probably not run XTC in an acceptable manner.
However, as I said above, this forum is not intended to provide support - if you have questions or problems, refer to our site and it's forums, please - you will mostly not get answers here.

[Shootist]

...bad performance...

Chris

No one, to my knowledge, has ever submitted a tech issue like yours. Recovering from SETA, eh? Is the slideshow you're experiencing like the slideshows we used to get, late game, pre 2.7, jumping into a sector at 1 or less FPS?

I fixed that in my game by setting nvidia control panel, maximum pre-rendered frames, to 0 or 1 (from 3).

[chris_1979]

the empty mdfiles.txt made my game go sky rocket in performance. 10x seta 60fps. What the hell does that do?????? Ah god.. That was weird.