Game has become unplayable

VikingG

Hi,
I am going to have to give up playing ... at least until 9.0 comes out...
I have a strange bug at the moment that is resulting in 2 issues...
Slow to load into a battle... I usually get in about 40 seconds to a minute after the battle has started.

That is frustrating enough but the second issue is that spotted tanks do not appear for at least 2 to 4 seconds. I have had tanks drive right up to me and shoot me twice before they have suddenly appear, I have seen team members look like they are shooting into thin air as they can see the tanks but I cant.

Last night was hidden in a TD south of the forest in Murovanka when the TD next to me started firing into the clearing in front ... then my sixth sense light goes off... and a couple of seconds later there is a T71 behind me.
If I look at the replays I see the same... but the odd thing is if I pause the replay the enemy tank appears and I can see its movement fine. I could see the T71 drive straight towards me and pass within 5 meters of me.

Obviously the issue is related to resource loading... I have tried a number of approaches... I have set Graphics to a minimum ... I have installed a compressed resources mod... I have defragged the hard drive.

Now I play on a laptop..

Dell 7440... i5-4300U CPU @ 1.90GHz
8Gb RAM
Intel 4400 integrated graphics

So not exactly a gaming rig...but should be more than capable of running WOT.

Spear

What's the frame rate like? Is there disk activity when this happens?

Does the python.log file record anything?

VikingG

On the minimum graphics setting I have around 60fps... ping is about 40 to 50... though it does spike the odd time...

I also used ping plotter to see if that was the issue and though there was the occasionally spike to 500ms it was rare and not tied with the issue of tanks slow to appear.

thanks for the tip to check python log ... have not done that so will check it out

Spear

Packet loss would explain some of it at least, and seems to match the ping leaping to 500ms. Are you connected by Wifi?

VikingG

Python.log

A few errors from last night... I dont see anything major here...


BigWorld Release Client (compiled at 13:35:08 Jan 30 2014) starting on Mon Mar 24 22:08:05 2014

Checking ./res_mods/0.8.11: mods found
[NOTE] (scripts/client/post_processing/__init__.py, 275): The quality = 4 was selected.
[NOTE] (scripts/client/post_processing/__init__.py, 275): The quality = 3 was selected.
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/hangar
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/05_prohorovka
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/hangar
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/03_campania
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/hangar
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/06_ensk
[WARNING] (scripts/client/account_helpers/CustomFilesCache.py, 33): Method "__run_read" takes too much time 0.141000032425
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/hangar
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/47_canada_a
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/hangar
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/45_north_america
[WARNING] (scripts/client/account_helpers/CustomFilesCache.py, 33): Method "__run_read" takes too much time 0.141999959946
[WARNING] (scripts/client/account_helpers/CustomFilesCache.py, 33): Method "__run_read" takes too much time 0.177999973297
[EXCEPTION] (scripts/common/Event.py, 34):
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "scripts/common/Event.py", line 32, in __call__
File "scripts/client/gui/Scaleform/Battle.py", line 241, in onPostmortemVehicleChanged
KeyError: '62299778'
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/hangar
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/10_hills
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/hangar
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/17_munchen
[SPACE] Loading space: spaces/hangar
PostProcessing.Phases.fini()
[WARNING] (scripts/client/account_helpers/CustomFilesCache.py, 33): Method "close" takes too much time 0.640000104904

Spear

Nothing there stands out as an issue.

VikingG

Thanks ... will post to the main WOT forum as it is back up now as well...

VikingG

http://wotreplays.com/site/716880#widepark-greenviking-kv-1s

here is a replay of my last game last night...

Towards the end of the battle I get passed by a T49 who drives within 5 metres of me .. yet I did not see him in game until he had hit me twice and had driven past me.....
When I viewed the base I did not spot the 3 tanks there until 2 seconds after they shot me.

magick

VikingG wrote: »

http://wotreplays.com/site/716880#widepark-greenviking-kv-1s

here is a replay of my last game last night...

Towards the end of the battle I get passed by a T49 who drives within 5 metres of me .. yet I did not see him in game until he had hit me twice and had driven past me.....
When I viewed the base I did not spot the 3 tanks there until 2 seconds after they shot me.

Yeah thats a weird one alright because ur spotting on at the early part of the game seems fine alright, i dont have that problem but then again im using a video card, only thing i can think of is some sort of graphics error

magick

VikingG wrote: »

http://wotreplays.com/site/716880#widepark-greenviking-kv-1s

here is a replay of my last game last night...

Towards the end of the battle I get passed by a T49 who drives within 5 metres of me .. yet I did not see him in game until he had hit me twice and had driven past me.....
When I viewed the base I did not spot the 3 tanks there until 2 seconds after they shot me.

Yeah thats a weird one alright because ur spotting on at the early part of the game seems fine alright, i dont have that problem but then again im using a video card, only thing i can think of is some sort of graphics error.

You can look at my reply (shameless promote) and see if theirs any difference

http://wotreplays.com/site/717263#ruinberg_on_fire-nakier-amx_ac_mle_1948

CHorn

VikingG wrote: »

Now I play on a laptop..

Dell 7440... i5-4300U CPU @ 1.90GHz
8Gb RAM
Intel 4400 integrated graphics

So not exactly a gaming rig...but should be more than capable of running WOT.

Hi,

I use a Dell N5050 Inspiron laptop (1.5 GHz, 3Gb RAM) with Intel HD 3000 Integrated Graphics, so behind your spec. I get an fps of 20-30 with absolute minimum graphics settings (not just low/minimum but all switches that can help toggled), and performance is acceptable (usually, when not it's often by issues in common with all like WoT servers/lag/traffic).

Sometimes I can be 15 or so secs behind in getting to drive off, and sometimes I can spin around/head off jerkily at start, even bang into others without meaning to because the response to left/right/ahead is delayed, though this always settles down quickly and I sort of rev up to an acceptable fps rate which stays reasonably steady.

Sometimes scheduled services (such as an AVG virus scan or an auto Defrag) kick off without me realizing it's happening, sometimes if I've Chrome loaded also it can demand more resource. These cause immediate problems but they're so obvious and I know to look for them to kill the offending processes, hopefully before too much damage (to my AFV) is done. I've found that loading WoT alone helps. I've tried programs that close down unnecessary services (like Turbo Booster) but find these more trouble than they're worth. I also use Driver Booster to keep my drivers updated.

I do recall the issues you describe occasionally happening to me, but doing all the above helped on one front, and then eliminating mods that could be causing the behaviour one by one (eventually) sorted another. Some mods- particularly it seems to me those 'interfering' with graphics like for instance stripping out fog/improving the distance you can see- have caused me problems in the past.

Some suggestions (forgive me if I'm going over old ground):

What mods- if any- are you using? Have you tried copying your res_mods folder elsewhere/backing it up and then running WoT with no mods, i.e. an empty res_mods folder? I've found mods particularly troublesome moving from version to version, and it's difficult to pin down which one is troublesome if you're using more than one, so I usually start by running WoT without any (use a replay or go to a training room).

Again, if I'm covering ground you're already familiar with/have tried, apologies, just trying to help. Given similarities in our systems if you want to go over settings item by item, just PM me.

Spear

8gb of RAM is more than plenty, WoT isn't that demanding in memory terms. Disk activity from other sources could be crippling though, laptop disks tend to be slower 5400 RPM ones to save on power and heat.

VikingG

Thanks for the replies..... `

yes I have tried removing the mods ... I used XVM mod pack but even with all the mods removed I still have the issue.

My chief suspect now is the data encryption that is on this laptop or else perform the standard IT fix... uninstall... clean reg.... re-install though I must check when 9.0 is out as I dont want to download 6 gigs twice in a week

Spear

9.0 is still two weeks away minimum. It's only CT2 tomorrow.

ED E

VikingG wrote: »

Thanks for the replies..... `

yes I have tried removing the mods ... I used XVM mod pack but even with all the mods removed I still have the issue.

My chief suspect now is the data encryption that is on this laptop or else perform the standard IT fix... uninstall... clean reg.... re-install though I must check when 9.0 is out as I dont want to download 6 gigs twice in a week

Have you got software based whole disk encryption going? That'd do it.

Also, you say you dont want to download it again, does that mean you're on mobile data? If so packet loss could account for you not getting the update positional data on enemy units.

VikingG

ED E wrote: »

Have you got software based whole disk encryption going? That'd do it.

Also, you say you dont want to download it again, does that mean you're on mobile data? If so packet loss could account for you not getting the update positional data on enemy units.

Yes the encryption is my main suspect at the moment ...though not sure why it has become an issue as this has been in place for a while.

No I am not on mobile data.... though I have played that way before and it works fine .. slower piing of around 150ms but it does work... no the only reason I was delaying downloading is that I have a 50Gig download limit... and I always manage to find myself close to it... this month I am blaming True Detective in HD :-)

VikingG

Just a note to say that I resolved the issues.... main problem was that I was running on a laptop that I also use for work .. that had hard drive encryption as well as McAfee anti virus... and probably some other stuff running..
To resolve it I created a dual boot system and installed a new clean windows install.... I also created another FAT32 hard drive partition... as encryption skips FAT32 partitions and put the WOT install on that ... and hey presto it runs like a dream....
hard to say exactly what the issue was....probably the combination of the hard drive encryption and virus checking had a problem loading the 1Gb resource files as it wasnt able to seek to load the specific resource it had to draw and loaded the entire file.

Anyway happy days now....

Spear

I suspect loading a tank, meant it to decrypt the entire vehicles pkg file each time to extract a given tank from it. Hence the horrible delay of a few seconds.

Tenger

VikingG wrote: »

Just a note to say that I resolved the issues.........

Anyway happy days now....

Good to hear

ED E

I still have crappy performance. But, FTR had an interesting post this morning.

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/05/12/awesomium-screws-wot-up/

copeyhagen

gonna try that later, my fps has doubled with my new gfx card, but jumps from 30-60-15 on low settings.. machine should be getting a good constant 60 minimum!

was gonna do fresh install of game... my exe is still 'wot beta' ffs lol

Spear

I had to manually alter the nVidia profile to disable SLI, they admit they broke the SLI support in 9.0.

copeyhagen

were you running 2 cards spear?

Spear

copeyhagen wrote: »

were you running 2 cards spear?

Two GTX 680's.