WA3E Bug Topic

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Pawelec
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Post by Pawelec » Thu Oct 09, 2014 4:56 pm

I've made one very sad discovery and I need someone to confirm it, because I'm not sure if it's happening to me only or is it a general rule. The thing is I've made a jungle level (no custom stuff) with a lot of decorations. MoFI's wg.exe is running it perfectly with 60 FPS, PotZ's gets only 39 FPS and WA3E's max is 19 FPS, but the level usually MAVs upon starting. I've tried reinstalling WA3E, but it didn't solve the problem. If few more people confirm this fact it would mean PotZ's code is way less efficient, what completely ruins my plans for epic custom scenery...
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Epicande

Post by Jutomi » Thu Oct 09, 2014 5:31 pm

Exactly how epic are we talking..? :?

I've played enough of Wonderman's one series to see lots of decoration before
MAVing due to lack of custom content downloads,
and I myself have added a fair few objects in the editor, so... :?

Though, we actually made this in the WA3 editor itself, so,

I honestly don't know. :(

Sorry! :cry:
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Post by Pawelec » Thu Oct 09, 2014 6:31 pm

Lack of downloads causing MAV is quite expected and nothing new.

What isn't expected is the fact that in WA3E Player an adventure using many meshes (custom or in-game, doesn't really matter) suffers significant FPS drop, making the level unplayable at some point. Now I don't know if someone else has experienced that as well - it may be only a problem of mine.

To make matter even stranger, in adventure selection screen I get 11-39 FPS :?

I uploaded Overcrowded Jungle Test adventure, which has enough objects (no custom ones) to cause lag in my WA3E Player. My WA3E player runs it with 29 FPS at best, please check if yours can do better (to see FPS in bottom-left corner of the Player's window, press F5).
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Last edited by Pawelec on Thu Oct 09, 2014 6:58 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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F5~42

Post by Jutomi » Thu Oct 09, 2014 6:56 pm

Oh, neat!
I wasn't aware of that feature! :mrgreen:

Well, I took your adventure,
and in some parts, with the spy-eye, I get up to 59 FPS, while other parts, I get down to 36.

And I have a pretty slowing computer... :?

I think it might be, unfortunately, your copy of the Wonderland editor. :(
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Post by Pawelec » Thu Oct 09, 2014 6:59 pm

Now I'm almost convinced that it's something with my WA3E Player - I ran an adventure I could play with 60 FPS and quite a lot of objects few months ago - today I had 29 FPS. I'll try to figure out what happened, because I didn't have such a lag before.

I wouldn't complain if I could get 36 FPS - this is still preety much playable, 19 FPS isn't...

EDIT: After reading a bit about Blitz3D on its support forums it appears there are problems with FPS on Windows 7 and 8 regarding DirectX emulation. I'll do some search and try to use Microsoft's ACT to find a workaround. Menu slowdown problem is solved by increasing window resolution, but adventure lowered FPS is still present.

Patrick must have made some changes in wg.exe's rendering system, because MoFI's wg.exe works fine, while PotZ's and WA3E's get the slowdown. Unfortunately he hasn't been replying to my PMs for last two months.
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Post by garirry » Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:16 pm

Well, tried it out as well and I can confirm that there is a problem on your side, either with the editor or your computer. It runs near perfectly at about 59FPS, it only dropped to 54 once when I used the Spy-Eye.
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Post by Pawelec » Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:20 pm

This is getting very strange, I've got a slideshow (FPS < 1) on my Windows XP machine, so this must have something to do with software I've installed on both machines, as on Windows XP all Wonderland games used to work fine. I wonder why doesn't it affect MoFI, though. I'll continue searching and post any results here, they may be useful if someone has different problems with graphics in the future. The thing to try is to downgrade GPU's driver.
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Post by Pawelec » Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:08 pm

D-P, but downgrading GPU's driver didn't help. I'm desperate because I can't run most of the adv.s (eg. Collaboration Level Test by kidkidaaa1 gets 3 FPS at best) I could few months ago. Something seems to have been accumulating until it reached critical point, causing massive lag, but I have no idea what is that and how to remove it. The second option is something causes the PotZ/WA3E code to loop, dropping the performance, but again, no idea what is the cause.

I need help. Currently I'm unable to use the Editor and I've put way too much work into my adventures to give up just like that. To make matters worse no one seems to be able to reproduce my performance problem.
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The Corrupter...

Post by Jutomi » Sat Oct 11, 2014 10:54 pm

This reminds me of The Corrupter by Kooky... :?

I wish you very good luck with figuring this out. :(
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Re: The Corrupter...

Post by garirry » Sat Oct 11, 2014 10:56 pm

Jutomi wrote:This reminds me of The Corrupter by Kooky... :?

I wish you very good luck with figuring this out. :(
That was the last post I checked, actually! :D

I'm not sure if this would help, but hey, at least everything's worth trying.
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Post by Pawelec » Sun Oct 12, 2014 10:18 pm

The event causing the lag must have happened between 4th April (I have screenshots of the adv.s that I remember weren't lagging on that day) and 8th August (I have screenshots of tha adv. that I remember was the first to lag). If the reason is an OS update then I know which ones to check. Unfortunately I don't know Blitz3D engine well enough - if there is someone who knows what libraries it uses please PM me or post here, I need someone who can at least tell me where would it be good to look for errors or changes.

EDIT: I've figured out this is NOT related with the GPU - Intel or nVidia, the bug still occurs. There seems to be some kind of memory leak I don't know how to prevent. I've tried MNIK's Corrupted Profile Fixer, but it changed nothing, I've also found nothing peculiar in DirectX registry entries.

EDIT2: I'm completely exhausted, nothing seems to help. Both of my computers (Win 7 Ultimate 64bit and Win XP Professional) have the same trouble and they have almost nothing in common: no software installed on Win 7 computer between 4th Apr and 8th Aug is present on Win XP machine, all the hardware is different and MoFI runs perfectly fine on both machines. Without Patrick's help I won't find the cause, what means I have to say 'Goodbye' to WA3E for some time :cry:
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Post by Pawelec » Wed Oct 15, 2014 6:57 pm

D-P again, but I did some Sherlocking and I think I finally know what's the problem.

I found out wg.exe from PotZ and WA3E uses a lot of CPU (fortunately its engine, Blitz, doesn't support multi-core CPUs, as it would crash my system otherwise; read further to see why). My CPU has 8 cores, 4 of which are not used most of the time, I would call them emergency cores as they run only if more than 4 cores are needed. All the operations are split between running cores in multithreading process. When I run wg.exe, in main menu my CPU's usage doesn't change, but when I run an adventure it reaches 13-17%. What made me think was the fact CPU usage went back to 1-4% after I minimized wg.exe's window. In Resource Monitor I see clearly that wg.exe uses a total of 12.5% CPU split between 4 cores while rendering 3D objects. 12.5% is exactly 1/8 and my CPU has 8 cores, so it seems wg.exe is trying to the whole CPU, but it can detect only one core, so it uses 100% of that core (not really: this is split in multithreading process between 4 running cores, but the total is always 12.5%, what corresponds to one core). But wait, what is wg.exe trying to do with a whole CPU?

The most operation-dependant process is 3D rendering. I decided to download a GPU monitor and I found out that in main menu GPU usage increases a bit, but when I enter an adventure it goes down to 0 while it should be rendering the scene. This means my wg.exe uses CPU instead of GPU to render 3D objects and if I find a way to make it use GPU as it is intended to do then the problem will be gone.

EDIT: I did a quick test on MoFI's wg.exe and GPU was used while running an adventure, so I was right about the rendering problem.
Last edited by Pawelec on Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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CPUPG

Post by Jutomi » Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:11 pm

That is strange... :?

Do you know why it's doing that?
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Post by garirry » Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:12 pm

Hmm... That sounds like a strange issue, especially saying that it works on neither computer. I'll do some digging/searching/testing and see if I can help you solve the issue.
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Post by Pawelec » Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:24 pm

Oh, I forgot to write the above was tested on Windows 7 machine, I don't have access to the XP one at the moment.
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Post by garirry » Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:56 pm

Plans change: You said that you tested both on a W7 and a WXP machine and although being completely different, they didn't work, right? Tell me: what IS common in those machines? This can help my investigation.
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Post by Pawelec » Wed Oct 15, 2014 8:23 pm

There's preety much nothing in common what could cause problems: Bitdefender Free Antivirus and Advanced System Care 7 were both installed after the problem started to occur, there's preety much nothing similar.

Can someone check if their PotZ/WA3E wg.exe uses CPU while in adventure? Just open Task Manager, look what's the CPU usage, then open wg.exe, run an adv. and see how CPU usage changed. If it hasn't then the problem is specific to my two machines.
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50%

Post by Jutomi » Wed Oct 15, 2014 8:36 pm

The laptop I use does get a large spike in CPU <usage>,
from 0-8% to 50-57%...

Basically a 50% increase. :|
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Post by Pawelec » Wed Oct 15, 2014 9:01 pm

To specify the issue we need to make 4 tests.

1. PotZ/WA3E: CPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
2. PotZ/WA3E: GPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
3. MoFI: CPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
4. MoFI: GPU usage in main menu and in-adv.

In my case, test 1. (PotZ/WA3E) shows high CPU usage in-adv. while all the other operations (PotZ/WA3E in main menu and all MoFI ones) use mostly GPU with little or no increase in CPU usage. If that is a general rule for everyone we must contact Patrick as this is a serious issue which makes PotZ/WA3E very vulnerable to GPU and CPU driver updates. Given the fact every user can have different hardware this is impossible to control.

Thanks for your CPU test, Jutomi. Would anyone be so kind and run all the remaining tests? GPU tests need downloading a GPU monitor, as it isn't included in Windows system (I use MSI Afterburner, but it has many different features and has to be used very carefully - using overclocking feature without proper knowledge can damage your hardware, I'm not touching anything except GPU monitor in that program).
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Post by garirry » Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:12 pm

Pawelec wrote:1. PotZ/WA3E: CPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
2. PotZ/WA3E: GPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
3. MoFI: CPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
4. MoFI: GPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
Test 1: Menu: 60% Adv: 60%
Test 2: Menu: 15% Adv: 30%
Test 3: Menu: 30% Adv: 30%
Test 4: Menu: 12% Adv: 20%
It appears that the CPU usage keeps the same in adv and in menu, while the GPU is higher in adventure. Also, apparently, POTZ takes more CPU power than MOFI. :wink: Hope this helps.
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Windows Mode

Post by Jutomi » Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:31 pm

Just so you do know,
I do use a Windows 7.

It actually is still the one with the multiple personalities,
so my tests might not help very much... :?

Especially since I don't know where to find CPU usage. ,_,
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Re: Windows Mode

Post by garirry » Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:36 pm

Jutomi wrote:Just so you do know,
I do use a Windows 7.

It actually is still the one with the multiple personalities,
so my tests might not help very much... :?

Especially since I don't know where to find CPU usage. ,_,
Well... you can find the CPU usage by right-clicking on your start bar (or whatever it's called) and selecting task manager, then choosing the "performance" tab. You will see the CPU usage.

As for the GPU usage, I tried using the same program as Pawelec, MSI AfterBurner, you can directly find both CPU and GPU usage (don't accidentally overclock any of your components!)
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Gup

Post by Jutomi » Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:52 pm

Sorry, I meant GPU. :oops:

I found CPU easily, just not GPU. :oops:
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Post by garirry » Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:00 pm

Oh okay. Well, use the program Pawelec mentioned earlier, MSI Afterburner! Again, just be careful not to overclock or blow up your computer using this thing. :D
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Post by Monofly » Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:02 pm

garirry wrote:Oh okay. Well, use the program Pawelec mentioned earlier, MSI Afterburner! Again, just be careful not to overclock or blow up your computer using this thing. :D
Isn't MSI Afterburner is a recording program?
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Post by garirry » Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:04 pm

Welcome00 wrote:
garirry wrote:Oh okay. Well, use the program Pawelec mentioned earlier, MSI Afterburner! Again, just be careful not to overclock or blow up your computer using this thing. :D
Isn't MSI Afterburner is a recording program?
... :shock:

Nope, it's an overclocking software actually. :P
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Post by Pawelec » Thu Oct 16, 2014 4:32 pm

garirry wrote:
Pawelec wrote:1. PotZ/WA3E: CPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
2. PotZ/WA3E: GPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
3. MoFI: CPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
4. MoFI: GPU usage in main menu and in-adv.
Test 1: Menu: 60% Adv: 60%
Test 2: Menu: 15% Adv: 30%
Test 3: Menu: 30% Adv: 30%
Test 4: Menu: 12% Adv: 20%
It appears that the CPU usage keeps the same in adv and in menu, while the GPU is higher in adventure. Also, apparently, POTZ takes more CPU power than MOFI. :wink: Hope this helps.
Thanks, garirry! For me the results are:
1. CPU: Menu: 12% Adv: 12%
2. GPU: Menu: 9% Adv: 0%
3. CPU: Menu: 12% Adv: 12%
4. GPU: Menu 6% Adv: 33%

...but I have 2 GPUs: integrated (Intel HD 3000) and the one I use for more demanding tasks (Nvidia GT 555M). I tried running MoFI and PotZ with the integrated one instead of the Nvidia one and I discovered that the problem is my PotZ/WA3E renders 3D with CPU instead of any of the GPUs. This means it has nothing to do with GPU drivers, as both GPUs have the problem. I'll run the tests on Win XP machine to see if they give similar results to the Win 7 machine.
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Trite of Terror in the Flames of Sign People

Post by Jutomi » Fri Oct 17, 2014 11:17 pm

Trying to change a sign's logic to a fireflower apparently MAVifies Wonderland.
Great. I'll have to improvise.

P.S. I found the cause of it.
Any object with a sign model and fireflower logic MAVs. Also great!
Time for more improvization. ;)
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Post by Pawelec » Sat Oct 18, 2014 10:30 am

I assume the FireFlower logic MAV is caused by the lack of shooting and being shot animations for sign model.

I have access to my grandma's XP machine, I'll run the tests there in a moment and report back as an edit in this post.

Promised EDIT: The result is exactly the same - no access to GPU on Win7 and two WinXP machines; the problem doesn't occur in MoFI.
Last edited by Pawelec on Sun Oct 19, 2014 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Signworks

Post by Jutomi » Sat Oct 18, 2014 4:44 pm

I suppose so. :?

Still, it's fascinating that a flower can be a bobbing sign,
and that works perfectly. :|
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