Long loadingtimes in certain areas / possible timeout

This is not really a bug, but i decided to collect thoughts/issues concerning this in this seperate topic.

We do use Worm's Seasonal Forests together with Sen's Addon. Too far into building, we found, that the loading of these areas take quiet a while (I run a dual core with 2 GB RAM and it takes around 1 minute to load - examples for this are Caergoth and Tarsis).

If your system memory is below 1 GB, it might result in a timeout (disconnection from the server).

I'm trying to find a way to get the loading time lowered.

I'll collect some posts regarding this in here.


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1st post copied in here:
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I think, I nailed it down!

It is the SENs addon to the Worms Seasonal Forest!
I made a small testmod (no placeables, only tileset-things), set it up as LAN on my "fast" machine and logged on with my "elderly" PC (RAM < 1 GIG):

Version 1 with only Worms Seasonal Forest: NP entering the mod!

Version 2 with SENs addon and... timeout!

Will try to find a way out of this for us, so that we don't have to kill our areas done with SENs. But I don't know, how long it wil take and I don't know, if I can manage!

My WORM-experiments so far:

Meanwhile I tried to divide the Worms/Sen-sets. (I removed all Winterstuff and have about 700 mdls less now! NOW, my old machine with less than 1 GIG MEM was able to enter the mod once, but got a timeout on the 2nd and 3rd try again, but that seems to be a way to cut down the loading time of those Worms Seasonal Forest areas.
I did a testrun with a DLCR-mod and it's amazing, how much faster those Worms Seasonal Forests do load (still slower than all the others but not really bugging slow anymore)!

Sadly, with removing groups/mdls form the .set-file, many entries get a new number (using the tool: Set Editor) and thus, the area-tiles are a total mess (eg. shippart for a building, hill for a floor, ...). One would have to look up the original entries and reset them manually in the .set-file, which would take ages (Worms together with SENs has over 5600 tiles/mdls!) or edit the .set-file by hand or remodel every area and that would take ages!


So, I guess, we have to live with the slow loading time of Worm's Seasonal Forest areas (and problems it may cause due to low system memory).
UNLESS somebody can tell me a way to remove groups without messing up already build areas (THAT WOULD BE COOL! - I'd love to enhance my knowledge on that!)

Just want to inform, that I had another idea and that one seems to work. I was able to (testwise) remove all winter-stuff and with this new approach, all our summer/fall-areas show up nicely and they do load faster (though still not as fast as a regual NWN-set). I'll keep on tinkering. There will be a seperet set for winter then, so also all those will work, if it works (LOL)!. And with this tileset-split, we will NOT have another tileset-hak - So NO new BIG HAK-download!
I won't rush it, though!

There is a Summer only version of WoRms Seasons you know. I'll look for the link if you like... but I think you're trying to find a solution that does not involve re-building entire areas... nez pas?

Yes, thanks. I got that and that one showed me, that the long loading time can be shortened, even in combination with SENs, if parts are removed.
And yes, rebuilding would be a major drawback and we used the autum and winterparts, too. So "only summer" would not help too much since we still need the other two.
But I love to tinker and I'm on the way (I think). I managed to create a reduced set, which already loads much faster and doesn't seem to mess up our areas. But I will do lots of testing and verifying before going for a switch (if at all). So for now, we have to stick with the long loading Worms+SENs, I'm afraid.

I found the link regarding LAGs especially with Worms:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/191/index/8306571

Here, Worms himself tells, that he needed to update his drivers.

And another member posted, that Lord Rosenkrantz's Mountain tileset (which we use eg. east of Solace or Hillhome) tends to be laggy with some cards.

Some tips I found for maybe elderly machines:
Turn off shiny water
Turn off animated textures
Turn off environment mapping on creatures
turn off Visual effects high.

I installed DX 9 last night and found out that I already had the latest NVIDIA drivers installed. I'll try turning off the settings listed for older machines, but I don't think that is the issue. Worth trying regardless.

Funny thing - when I tried turning these setting off/on the other day it caused some of the item images to blank out. Tried setting it back and logged in and the images appeared again. *sighs*