Game slows to a crawl

[mrbuster2000]

So dissappointed, because I can't run this game effectively.

The game runs fine, but then slows to 1 or 2 FPS at the beginning of the first turn.

Now, here is the wierd part: if I close internet explorer, the FPS shoots up to like 100 for the rest of the turn.  However, by the beginning of the next turn, I am down to 1 or 2 FPS for good.

It has to be some sort of network problem, with the game tying up resources trying to connect to the server or something.

Really sad, because I was excited to play MULE online.

[Cyclone]

is this when playing with other players? My game runs slow too if a host is bad, and it runs slow if I play by myself, because the game is always in network mode even if you play with yourself and 3 computers.

[Peter]

Thanks for the report. It could help us find the cause of this problem if you could attach your log.txt file found in the game's data directory.

[mikman]

Currently I have been playing Mule on my vista workstation which is pretty high end and I have never experienced any kind of trouble playing local or network games.

Now I recently installed mule on a windows XP pro machine (p4 2.4Ghz with 2gigs of memory and a geforce 6800GS) java is up to date and so are the video card drivers.

I wanted to play someone on my local area network, running a game on one computer and connecting to the host machines local IP. Everything appeared to function well except it slows to a crawl after the first round, then speeds up super fast like it was making up for lost time.  Then it seems to play fine for about a round then slows to a crawl again repeating the process.

I thought it might be something with my network, so I took that out of the picture and just ran a game on the Win XP machine training 6 month with 3 bots with no network involved, same thing happens... I can post the log if that will help.

I did notice the java.exe task is chewing up cpu using about 60% when it has slowed to a crawl... and only using 0-8% when it's running smoothly.

find attached a log file from the single player (local only) game.

[Peter]

... attached a log file from the single player (local only) game.

Thanks for testing, that information is very useful to us. I see in the log that the game crawls some rounds but runs smoothly other rounds. That is very strange indeed. Does this happen also if you play without AI players, and do you experience a long waiting time at the start of the land grant phase?

[mikman]

Yes even with no AI it exhibits the same behavior.  It appears to start to stutter and slow down right as the colonial ship is taking off and is about 1/2 up the screen... up to that point everything "appears" to be normal and at normal speeds...

Once I reboot the machine and play again it seems to run longer, but still eventually slows down to a crawl again...

[berb dreyfuss]

I have the same symptons on xp, but it doesn't slow down if I turn the sound off, so it felt like it was a java/sound issue.

[Falmil]

I have the same problem on my 2.4GHz XP laptop connected via Wi-Fi but not on my dual-core PC with a wired Ethernet connection. The slow down occurs during the Land Grant phase. After the Land Grant is over or after I select my plot, the FPS shoots up to super speed and the game runs quickly for a few seconds to compensate, it seems.
Not really knowing anything about the game or the details of computer networking, it seems to me that it could have something to do with the Land Grant phase timer to give the quickest player the plot of land.

[mikman]

I think berb dreyfuss has hit the nail on it, I set the games sound to off and no problems whatsoever... it definitely has something to do with the sound...

[berb dreyfuss]

That's interesting that it works well without sound at your pc as well. Anybody any idea what we can try to solve the problem? Would be nice to have sound...

[mikman]

I wonder if its the sound drivers or something. Maybe something the programmers can do to fix or change?  This PC only has the sound on the motherboard, no sound card... I'm thinking I have never updated the drivers for it. My guess is there aren't any new ones for it, as it's quite an old motherboard.

[mikman]

Interestingly enough, since I turned off the sound in the game that one time, the game now seems to work fine now regardless if the sound is off or on (go figure)...

I did noticed that by comparing the log.txt that I posted above to a log file now (regardless if sound is off or on) that the following 4 bolded lines are included in the log file above (prior to me turning the sound off/on) but are now missing from the logs  generated by the game (after turning the sound off/on)..

I dunno if this is just a coincidence or something that can be investigated.

++++++++ END OF INITIALIZATION +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
  INFO [MetaFrame.startGame]                         Starting game number 0
  INFO [MuleGameContainer.init]                      *** Starting Game ***
  INFO [MuleGameContainer.init]                      Display: Created=true Active=false Visible=true
  INFO [MuleGameContainer.init]                      Making display the current GL context
  INFO [View.<init>]                                 Creating view...
  INFO [SlickLogSystem.info]                         Initialising sounds..
  INFO [SlickLogSystem.info]                         - Sound works
  INFO [SlickLogSystem.info]                         - 64 OpenAL source available
  INFO [SlickLogSystem.info]                         - Sounds source generated
  INFO [View.<init>]                                 Finished creating view
  INFO [GameController.setModel]                     ++++++++ New Model: CONNECT #0 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[berb dreyfuss]

I have a soundcard on my pc, i will check the log files if it is the same. For me it wouldn't work even after I turned sound off. We'll see.

[Peter]

Thanks for testing this. It sure seems like it's related to the sound. I will investigate it for the next version and we hope to correct this issue.

It would be helpful if one more person could verfiy that disabling the sound makes the game run smoothly given that it previously stuttered/crawled.

Falmil: Does the slowdown occur only at the land grant and does it occur every round? Does it go away if you play without AI players?

[berb dreyfuss]

The slowdown occurs at the beginning of each turn, whether there is a land grant or not (if the plots are all taken). In the beginning it slows down when the ship is taking off and the sound distorts a little. Hope that helps.