Lag while Timeshift
 

I have a weird inconsistent problem.
2 out of 3 missions has lag when timeshifting beyond 1024
Previously with other missions and tutorials I couold timeshift to 6000x + without so much as a bit of lag.
Now its seems some missions lag and other dont and I cant put my finger on it.
SH4 v1.5 with OTC mod only.
Win 10, high end gaming rig.
NVidia 1050

Tried all the tricks in the SH4 settings and even the LAA, which keep it from crashing but not lagging.


I suspect its poor optimization of threads, since neither the GPU or CPU are over 5% when it happens. I noticed it happens when the screen is full of targets, enemy ships, like when I am near Japan So maybe I cant do anything about that. under 1024x its fine.

Anyone else see this inconsistent effect? or maybe their is a command line switch I can add to improve performance here?

Yes, repeatedly. It's especially bad near the Volcano islands and the Inland Sea or when I've sunk a large number of ships. I'm pressed for time, but you can search my recent threads to see the advice I've been given

Save often and perhaps you can revert to a valid one when you encounter this again. Sometimes they will load; sometimes not.

yes, we all see this performance when RGG (randomly generated groups, i.e. convoys, task forces) spawn near us or we are near ports that contain moving ships or it is late in your mission and the sim is trying to keep track of a whole-lotta things. (technical term:D)
most of us throttle our TC (time compression) to no more than 2048.
sometimes, you will not experience smooth performance over 512 or 1024.
it is entirely up to you how you mange your resources.

BTW, if no one has advised you yet on shelling out of SH4 to do Windows-stuff, you are being advised now. Don't do it. SH4 does not like users to Alt-Tab out to Windows and perform other tasks and then returning. all sorts of weird and bad things can and will happen when you do that. if by chance you do accidentally shell-out, return to SH4, Save your mission, exit out of SH4 and then re-launch it and load your Save game.

:Kaleun_Salute:

"Ditto" to what KaleunMarco says, but I want to mention that the game itself also has a "bandwidth" problem, and if you think about it, as I mentioned just now over in the SH3 forums, at 512x TC, one second of your life passing in front of you at the computer is over eight and a half minutes in game time. A LOT can happen in 8 and a half minutes, like your sub getting holed by a bomb from an airplane, or a shore installation. You will probably find though, that 256x TC near ports is necessary, no matter how strong of a computer you have. It is, after all, an old game... :salute:

Thanks that’s pretty much a confirmation of what I see.
Btw. I don’t have issues shelling out in Win 10. I leave go read something on a browser for a hint on the patrol and come back. Never had any weird things happen. Seems like the game pauses on shell out until you go back in.

I pretty much purchased SH4 over SH5 and Coldwater due to other gamer recommendations. I am a bit sub sim fan from my youth and so far SH4 does not disappoint. Except for the performance. But it’s pretty sweet and the modding community is quite mature.
I wish an updated version came out.

Shelling out will eventually reach out and bite you. Thankfully, it's usually not a hard bite, but if you notice your CO2 meter doesn't clear and your crew is passing out while on the surface, or if a pyre of smoke and steam follows your every move while you're submerged, or a sound gets stuck in a loop, you can generally blame the shelling out. :salute:

Also, don't over-write your saves. Save in a new file each time. The game doesn't handle save over-writes well.

Great info.
I think I’ll play with affinity and CPU priority. There are 3-4 threads that SH4 makes that are heavy I/O and they are assaulting the sound system. Not the video controller. Go figure.
If I find a decent solution I’ll post.

When you think about, there is always audio playing in the game, with multiple files overlapping each other, so at different resolutions, and in different formats (wav versus ogg). Having Windows and your audio card set to 44.1kHz at 16-bit depth might help. Also, in the Sound Settings of the game is a "Number of 3D Channels" or some such. You could try and tweak that, though I have never noticed a difference on my computer. The Affinity might help, but then again... I read an article quite a while back about using Sony Vegas and the reasons it would CTD, and one of them was that if it was set to use all of the processors (4 core machine, use all 4 cores), then it would crash. If limited to one less than the total of cores, it wouldn't crash. While the crashes stopped when running Vegas on my machine, it then ran like molasses, even with a higher priority. The problem at the time was actually a QuickTime incompatibility though... :salute: