Time compression at TC > 256

erahmig · 05-18-19, 07:00 PM

Hey all,

I'm noticing something odd in my campaign patrol. When I left base (Pearl) I could ramp up TC to 2048 or higher and the game would still run smooth as glass. The keyboard was responsive, the mouse was not jerky, etc. The only way to know that time compression was set to something other than "1" was by the speed of my sub on the tactical map or by looking at the TC setting in the lower right corner of the screen.

Somewhere during my patrol something changed. Now, time compression is only really usable up until TC = 256. Anything higher than that and the following things happen:

tactical map updates are no longer smooth but stutter
the mouse pointer is very "laggy" - i.e. it lags behind the actual mouse movements
the keyboard is almost unresponsive. It takes multiple key presses for a key to register.

Because of this it's taking much longer to return from patrol than it did to get to my patrol area. As you might imagine, this is somewhat frustrating.

Has anyone else ever experienced this change in TC behavior during a patrol? Is there anything I can do to fix what's happening?

Sniper297 · 05-18-19, 09:22 PM

Happens in stock game usually when there are a lot of things for the game to keep track of. I get it most often after sinking an entire convoy, the game continues to process all the life boats, rafts, floating boxes and barrels until I'm 20 or so miles away. Some mods aggravate the effect, thinking there wasn't enough debris after a ship went down they edit \Data|Library files debris.dat and LifeBoat&Debris.dat to double or triple the amount of floating junk after a ship goes down. Looks great for 1 or 2 sunken ships, sink half a dozen and the game slows down because it's tracking all that movement.

If it's not related to a recent sinking (if the game doesn't smooth out when you're 20+ miles away) or near something that appears as a contact 5-10 minutes after the stuttering starts, check your video and sound drivers. Never figured out why, but unless the sound card can process audio correctly it somehow makes the video stutter even if the video card and drivers are perfect.

propbeanie · 05-18-19, 09:36 PM

If you have a 64-bit OS, you could try this: Windows10; Large Address Aware; SH4 Install - CapnScurvy speaks specifically about a Windows 10 install, but any of the other 64-bit Windows is very similar. He installs Silent Hunter 4 and LAA (Large Address Aware), to set the SH4.exe file. It allows the game access to more than 2 gig of RAM (or rather tells the OS it can address more properly), and that will sometimes - sometimes, not always - let the game run smoother. If you have a 32-bit OS and more than 3 gig of RAM, let me know, and I'll accelerate my tutorial for that. I have had success with Windows XP 32-bit, but I still have to try things out on Vista and Win7 32-bit, to see if similar is available, but I'm lazy right now, and the Vista machine is sitting in the corner unplugged, missing a hard drive... does not look good...

erahmig · 05-18-19, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper297

If it's not related to a recent sinking (if the game doesn't smooth out when you're 20+ miles away) or near something that appears as a contact 5-10 minutes after the stuttering starts, check your video and sound drivers.

Once it starts it never seems to go away. Also, it's a newish PC (March) so I don't know whether the drivers are an issue. Haven't had any weirdness with any other games, and I've played a bunch that are newer and much more demanding on the hardware than SH4. But, thank you for taking the time to reply!

Quote:

Originally Posted by propbeanie

If you have a 64-bit OS, you could try this: Windows10; Large Address Aware; SH4 Install - CapnScurvy speaks specifically about a Windows 10 install, but any of the other 64-bit Windows is very similar.

Thank you. I saw a write-up about Large Address Aware and I have done that to SH4.exe. I'm on Windows 10.

Sniper297 · 05-19-19, 12:47 AM

I'm still chugging along with an ancient Dell XPS 400, Win XP media center (kind of half assed XP pro with a movie maker app) upgraded a few times with a Pentium D 3.4, 2 gigs RAM, Nvidia GTX 650 2 gig, and a SSD. Running SH4 off the F drive (the SSD) I get better performance than 12 years ago, but if the patrol runs on long enough and I get 300,000+ tons (happens a lot since I have all these resupply bases) it will sTTTTTTart sTsTsTuTTTTTering in TTTTTTTime compression.

Only cure I've found is quit before it gets up to 400 thousand, return to base, end patrol, start a new patrol and the stuttering is gone. Until I go crazy again, of course. Not really an issue if I don't get carried away, medals max out before 200 thousand tons anyway, and by the second patrol I have more renown than I can possibly spend.

Get back to base, end patrol, see if it does it after starting the next patrol - save files getting fat is my main theory, although I haven't proved it yet.

Krieg Francis · 05-19-19, 02:36 AM

It's kind of normal.
256 compression in extremely crowded areas and even close to land cause a lot of stutter due to the amount of elements the game has to process.
I have noticed this happening both in SH3 and SH4, keeping around x64 compression seems to prevent this issue though.

Krieg Francis · 05-19-19, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by erahmig

Once it starts it never seems to go away.

Didn't read this, sorry.

It might be a memory leak in this case, did you set up Large Address Aware before playing?

erahmig · 05-19-19, 03:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Get back to base, end patrol, see if it does it after starting the next patrol - save files getting fat is my main theory, although I haven't proved it yet.

After writing my previous message I tried returning to base. I couldn't even make it back - the game always crashed to desktop during TC, even at TC=256. I certainly wasn't going to sail back from Taipei to Pearl at TC=1. Very frustrating as I had a nice (for me) patrol in the bag.

I decided to throw that install way and re-install the game from scratch and try again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krieg Francis

Didn't read this, sorry.

It might be a memory leak in this case, did you set up Large Address Aware before playing?

Thank you - good thinking, but yes I did do that. Check http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...03&postcount=4 for more details.

05-18-19, 07:00 PM	#1
erahmig Watch Join Date: May 2015 Location: USA Posts: 21 Downloads: 88 Uploads: 0	Time compression at TC > 256 Hey all, I'm noticing something odd in my campaign patrol. When I left base (Pearl) I could ramp up TC to 2048 or higher and the game would still run smooth as glass. The keyboard was responsive, the mouse was not jerky, etc. The only way to know that time compression was set to something other than "1" was by the speed of my sub on the tactical map or by looking at the TC setting in the lower right corner of the screen. Somewhere during my patrol something changed. Now, time compression is only really usable up until TC = 256. Anything higher than that and the following things happen: tactical map updates are no longer smooth but stutter the mouse pointer is very "laggy" - i.e. it lags behind the actual mouse movements the keyboard is almost unresponsive. It takes multiple key presses for a key to register. Because of this it's taking much longer to return from patrol than it did to get to my patrol area. As you might imagine, this is somewhat frustrating. Has anyone else ever experienced this change in TC behavior during a patrol? Is there anything I can do to fix what's happening?

05-18-19, 09:36 PM	#3
propbeanie CTD - it's not just a job Join Date: May 2016 Location: One hour from Music City USA! Posts: 9,755 Downloads: 440 Uploads: 2	If you have a 64-bit OS, you could try this: Windows10; Large Address Aware; SH4 Install - CapnScurvy speaks specifically about a Windows 10 install, but any of the other 64-bit Windows is very similar. He installs Silent Hunter 4 and LAA (Large Address Aware), to set the SH4.exe file. It allows the game access to more than 2 gig of RAM (or rather tells the OS it can address more properly), and that will sometimes - sometimes, not always - let the game run smoother. If you have a 32-bit OS and more than 3 gig of RAM, let me know, and I'll accelerate my tutorial for that. I have had success with Windows XP 32-bit, but I still have to try things out on Vista and Win7 32-bit, to see if similar is available, but I'm lazy right now, and the Vista machine is sitting in the corner unplugged, missing a hard drive... does not look good... __________________ "...and bollocks to the naysayer/s" - Jimbuna

05-19-19, 02:36 AM	#6
Krieg Francis Medic Join Date: Dec 2016 Location: Milan, Italy Posts: 160 Downloads: 226 Uploads: 0	It's kind of normal. 256 compression in extremely crowded areas and even close to land cause a lot of stutter due to the amount of elements the game has to process. I have noticed this happening both in SH3 and SH4, keeping around x64 compression seems to prevent this issue though. __________________ "Those who never change their minds, never change anything" -Winston Churchill Mods by me: U-571 Dive Sequence for SH4

05-18-19, 09:22 PM	#2
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Happens in stock game usually when there are a lot of things for the game to keep track of. I get it most often after sinking an entire convoy, the game continues to process all the life boats, rafts, floating boxes and barrels until I'm 20 or so miles away. Some mods aggravate the effect, thinking there wasn't enough debris after a ship went down they edit \Data\|Library files debris.dat and LifeBoat&Debris.dat to double or triple the amount of floating junk after a ship goes down. Looks great for 1 or 2 sunken ships, sink half a dozen and the game slows down because it's tracking all that movement. If it's not related to a recent sinking (if the game doesn't smooth out when you're 20+ miles away) or near something that appears as a contact 5-10 minutes after the stuttering starts, check your video and sound drivers. Never figured out why, but unless the sound card can process audio correctly it somehow makes the video stutter even if the video card and drivers are perfect.

05-19-19, 12:47 AM	#5
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	I'm still chugging along with an ancient Dell XPS 400, Win XP media center (kind of half assed XP pro with a movie maker app) upgraded a few times with a Pentium D 3.4, 2 gigs RAM, Nvidia GTX 650 2 gig, and a SSD. Running SH4 off the F drive (the SSD) I get better performance than 12 years ago, but if the patrol runs on long enough and I get 300,000+ tons (happens a lot since I have all these resupply bases) it will sTTTTTTart sTsTsTuTTTTTering in TTTTTTTime compression. Only cure I've found is quit before it gets up to 400 thousand, return to base, end patrol, start a new patrol and the stuttering is gone. Until I go crazy again, of course. Not really an issue if I don't get carried away, medals max out before 200 thousand tons anyway, and by the second patrol I have more renown than I can possibly spend. Get back to base, end patrol, see if it does it after starting the next patrol - save files getting fat is my main theory, although I haven't proved it yet.