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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: [0.9-RC10] Increasing slowdown and system locks with game restarts  (Read 2953 times)

Bad_Idea

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Hello!

Let me first say that i love the new updates in 0.9, been playing the game since 2012 and the constant development is awesome!


Now, to the point of this post, i've run into a small issue with restarting the game.
Namely, doing so repeatedly rapidly degrades the performance until the game is unplayable, this continues to mount until the entire system is restarted. Even worse is as this problem sometimes locks the entire system with ceaseless lag, forcing a hard restart. Worth noting that everything in the background keeps on rolling as it should, a youtube video or spotify will keep making sounds until the system is restarted. Trying to force-close Starsector before the lag claims the system just results in the screen going black.

I am running a fair few mods, and i have upped the allowed RAM use to 6GB to permit this. It is worth noting that i have been having this issue since i first downloaded 0.9 (And didn't have any mods), nevertheless the modlist can be found below:
Spoiler
[close]

System specs  - courtesy of (an abridged) DXdiag:

Code
Time of this report: 1/19/2019, 02:11:26
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_ldr.180112-0600)
System Manufacturer: MSI
System Model: MS-7917
BIOS: BIOS Date: 12/23/14 12:51:56 Ver: V1.9B0
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
Memory: 32768MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 32720MB RAM
Page File: 16599MB used, 48837MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found

Card name: NVIDIA TITAN X (Pascal)
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: TITAN X (Pascal)
Display Memory: 4095 MB (This is wrong, windows doesn't properly find the 12GB of VRAM for some reason)
Dedicated Memory: 3072 MB
Shared Memory: 1023 MB
Current Mode: 3840 x 2160 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Driver File Version: 25.21.0014.1735 (English)
Driver Version: 25.21.14.1735
DDI Version: 11
Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 12/17/2018 07:12:02, 20847752 bytes

If you need any other kind of information i'll be happy to provide it!
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Cosmitz

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Re: [0.9-RC10] Increasing slowdown and system locks with game restarts
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2019, 07:29:40 PM »

Do you happen to have multiple instances of Java active in the task manager after multiple game restarts?
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Alex

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Re: [0.9-RC10] Increasing slowdown and system locks with game restarts
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2019, 07:37:18 PM »

That's a weird one!

Hmm. So if the problem persists across restarts of the game, this sounds like it's an issue with the operating system, possibly triggered by something the game does, but ultimately probably not due to something the game does, if that makes sense. The game doesn't carry any state - aside from some config settings - across application restarts, and any problem like (say) an in-game memory leak should be completely cleared by a restart, so it's not that.

Btw, do you have to load into the same campaign save for the problem to show up, or does it show up regardless of that? It sounds like the latter, but it'd be good to confirm.

As to what the issue might be, it's really hard to say. Lag like that on a system could mean, say, lots of pagefile swapping. You might (at your own risk :)) try disabling that, to see if it helps. Another possibility is a graphics driver issue.

Another, more distressing possibility, is a hardware issue. For example, if something Starsector does follows a pathway in the video card that's "bad", that could accumulate across game restarts, but be cleared by a PC restart. Or it could be something that an OS reinstall would fix (though I'd hardly recommend trying that just to see).

It really is just very hard to say exactly what the problem is. Something bad accumulates across restarts, right. If the system is working properly, that seems impossible. But narrowing down what the issue might be beyond that is ... non-trivial. Like, you probably don't have a spare video card laying around to see if swapping that in might help or not.
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Alex

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Re: [0.9-RC10] Increasing slowdown and system locks with game restarts
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2019, 07:39:30 PM »

Do you happen to have multiple instances of Java active in the task manager after multiple game restarts?

(Ah, a very good question, and that could also explain the effects persisting, if the game is for some reason unable to entirely quit.)
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Bad_Idea

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Re: [0.9-RC10] Increasing slowdown and system locks with game restarts
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2019, 09:36:43 PM »

Gave disabling the pagefile a try, we'll see how it does!

I gave the game a couple of restarts but could not see any java processes running afterwards, i do however remember seeing that previously.

To be completely honest i have no idea what might be causing this myself, i've had these issues since i started playing with 0.9 but no-one i've spoke to has shared them.


Update: Did 10 or so back-to-back restarts in which i opened the game, loaded a save file and flew around for a while before closing the game and doing it all over again. I couldn't get the performance to drop, which doesn't mean the pagefile is the cause, but it does seem likely. I'll keep trying for a day or so and put an update here when i know if the issue is still present. It is worth noting that the issues have persisted through (and even been made worse by) putting my computer to hibernation for a while and using it again, so i'll try to do this as well to get as complete of a test as possible.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2019, 09:53:42 PM by Bad_Idea »
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Bad_Idea

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Re: [0.9-RC10] Increasing slowdown and system locks with game restarts
« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2019, 02:04:53 PM »

Gonna double post here as an update:

It seems disabling the pagefile has actually solved the problem, somehow. As my system does have plenty of RAM even without he virtual memory this is a pretty good solution for now.

I am fairly curious what could be causing this, as Starsector is the only game that's caused this to happen.
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Alex

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Re: [0.9-RC10] Increasing slowdown and system locks with game restarts
« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2019, 02:28:13 PM »

Hmm, interesting - well, at least it seems like you've got it sorted out!

(Not sure why that'd matter, yeah - given that your computer has plenty of RAM, it didn't seem likely that this would help. But who's to say exactly why the OS would decide to do this.)
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Cosmitz

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Re: [0.9-RC10] Increasing slowdown and system locks with game restarts
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2019, 04:42:30 PM »

Try setting the pagefile on another drive entirely if you have it (ideally also moving the Starsector install there), try chkdsk-ing (with full /R) the original drive as disk errors/bad sectors can and do influence anything that accesses the pagefile. Also some things do need some pagefile to work properly, even if 100mb, so it's somewhat not recommended in my opinion to not have any pagefile, especially not on your main OS install drive.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2019, 07:41:01 PM by Cosmitz »
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