Lag on fresh OS install.

Posted by Khannon on Fri 02 Dec 2016 05:52 PM — 24 posts, 84,338 views.

Khannon Fri 02 Dec 2016 05:52 PM #0

Got new PC, installed Win7 64bit Ultimate SP1.
Install from same source then old PC which ran Win7 64bit Enterprise SP1.

I copy/pasted MUSH folders over from old PC HDD to new one, fixed some plugin paths etc. Logged to Aardwolf and at first everything seemed to work just fine until, spellup had immense loading in partitions, same with speedwalks. On old PC those 2 things were smooth/no-text flowing lag or quickly loaded in partitions (I really lack better way to describe it). There's no lag when entering commands in this sense it feels just like old setup. What made this even more strange is the fact that I just recently bought laptop, preinstalled win7 64bit pro sp1, so it's clean install, and it has EXACTLY same issue.

Things I've checked over and personally don't think it's issue:

Downloaded new MUSH without any plugings/aliases/triggers - Didn't help.

Checked firewalls and connection, added exceptions to aardwolf, pinging aardwolf gives same result as old PC setup - Don't think connections is an issue here, but I'm not 100%. Tried friend WiFi on laptop, same exact issue, laptop has no AV neither or had at the time of testing.

Tried to run old HDD on new PC to open MUSH from there, no help.

I might forgot some other things I've tried that also didn't help.

Normally for such issues I simply use google and there ton of information to surf to for fix or multiple people have same issue, given how small mudding community is, your my last hope for smooth mudding.

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Fri 02 Dec 2016 09:03 PM #1

Quote:

... spellup had immense loading in partitions ...

What do you mean by "loading"? Do you mean "lagging"?

What do you mean "in partitions"?

Are you saying that screen drawing is slow?

Khannon Sat 03 Dec 2016 08:50 AM #2

Nick Gammon said:

Quote:

... spellup had immense loading in partitions ...

What do you mean by "loading"? Do you mean "lagging"?

What do you mean "in partitions"?

Are you saying that screen drawing is slow?

If you know what's 3-round burst and full automatic meaning
thats basically whats happening on my spellup/speedwalk possibly some other similar things which are less noticed.

Example from spellup, over 20 spells with spellup wish.
on old PC all spells are cast in one smooth line (exluding fails and skill lags). Then on new PC entire spellup looks like
Spell 1
Spell 2
Spell 3
... the parts are kind of quick succession but not smooth
Spell 4
Spell 5
Spell 6
... and same pattern goes on, it's more like 4/5 spells that are loaded in same time instead smoothly

Speedwalk is similar; rt heleg
Whitewind Avenue (G) (1156)

Phoenix Square (G) (1156)

Starlight Way - East (G) (1156)
(first 3 loaded once and it goes on like that)
Starlight Way - East (1156)

Starlight Way - East (1156)

Starlight Way - East (G) (1156)

Starlight Way - East (1156)

Starlight Way - East (1156)

Eastern Entrance - Starlight Way (1156)

Eastern High Road (1156)

Fields near Aylor (1155)

Fields near a farm (1154)

A small stretch of woodland (1153)

Mesolarian Grassland (1152)

Mesolarian Grassland (1151)

Trampled Ground (1150)

Mesolarian Grassland (1149)

A field of grain (1148)

A field of wild flowers (1147)

Fields near Dragon's Eye Forest (1146)

Fiendish USA Global Moderator Sun 04 Dec 2016 07:59 PM #3

If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like output is displaying in batches of multiple lines instead of smoothly as lines come in.

Is there a graphics driver update available for the new PC?

Can you check to see if activating the "smoother scrolling" setting in the MUSHclient preferences (File->Preferences->General) improves this?

Khannon Mon 05 Dec 2016 06:06 PM #4

Fiendish said:

If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like output is displaying in batches of multiple lines instead of smoothly as lines come in.

Is there a graphics driver update available for the new PC?

Can you check to see if activating the "smoother scrolling" setting in the MUSHclient preferences (File->Preferences->General) improves this?

Graphics drivers are up to date, tried smoothing scrolling didnt help.

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Tue 06 Dec 2016 08:52 PM #5

Please provide a summary of your world configuration:

Either use the scripting Immediate window (Ctrl+I) to execute: Debug ("summary")
or
Install the Summary plugin (see "Summary" feature) and type "summary"

Then copy the resulting information from the output window, and paste into a Forum message.

You need version 4.55 onwards of MUSHclient to do this.

Khannon Fri 09 Dec 2016 07:22 PM #6

I can only copy/paste 6000 characters, even if I cut the output half it's still exceeding this...

Khannon Fri 09 Dec 2016 07:43 PM #7


-------------- MUSHclient summary --------------

MUSHclient version: 5.03
Compiled: Sep 23 2016.
Time now: reede, detsember 09, 2016, 9:29 PL
Client running for:  0d 00h 03m 38s
World opened for:    0d 00h 02m 42s
World connected for: 0d 00h 02m 34s
Operating system: Windows 7
Libraries: Lua 5.1.4, PCRE 8.39, PNG 1.6.23, SQLite3 3.13.0, Zlib 1.2.8
World name: 'sd', ID: 944a8ab17b40a63075edcb75
-- Scripting --
Script language: lua, enabled: yes
Scripting active: yes
Lua sandbox is 127 characters, DLL loading allowed: yes
Scripting prefix: ''. External editor in use: NO.
Scripting for: 0,039159 seconds.
-- Triggers, aliases, timers, variables --
** Triggers: 0 in world file, triggers enabled: yes.
   0 enabled, 0 regexp, 0 attempts, 0 matched, 0,000000 seconds.
** Aliases: 0 in world file, aliases enabled: yes.
   0 enabled, 0 regexp, 0 attempts, 0 matched, 0,000000 seconds.
** Timers: 0 in world file, timers enabled: yes.
   0 enabled, 0 fired.
   Timers checked every 0,1 seconds.
** Variables: 0.
-- MCCP --
MCCP active, took 0,003270 seconds to decompress
MCCP received 20505 compressed bytes, decompressed to 231460 bytes.
MCCP compression ratio was:    8,9% (lower is better)
-- Plugins (Processing order) --
** Plugins: 0 loaded, 0 enabled.
-- Comms --
Connect phase: 8 (Open). NAWS wanted: NO
Received: 22373 bytes (21 Kb)
Sent: 436 bytes (0 Kb)
Received 118 packets, sent 39 packets.
Total lines received: 3836
This connection: Sent 28 lines, received 3813 lines.
Telnet (IAC) received: DO: 3, DONT: 0, WILL: 6, WONT: 1, SB: 11 [Telnet]
-- MXP --
MXP active: NO, Pueblo mode: NO, Activated: On command
MXP tags received: 0
MXP entities received: 0
MXP errors: 0
-- Commands --
Commands in command history: 25
Speed walking enabled: NO. Speed walking prefix: #
Command stacking enabled: NO. Command stack character: ';'
Accelerators defined: 0
-- Miniwindows --
** Miniwindows: 0 loaded, 0 shown.
-- Output window --
Output pixels: width 1895, height: 905, font width: 7, font height: 15
               can show 270 characters, wrapping at column 80, height 60 lines.
Output buffer: 3854 of 5000 lines.
-- Miscellaneous --
Logging: NO, tracing: NO
** SQLite3 databases: 0
Sound buffers in use: 0

---------------------- End summary ----------------------

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Fri 09 Dec 2016 08:59 PM #8

Hmm. Are saying the output is jerky, or it is slow?

Khannon Sat 10 Dec 2016 12:00 AM #9

Its what it is what I explained, not smooth. My only guess is I maybe some some Win7 driver/updates lacking from new PC/laptop no idea really. Since both have fresh OS install, but both have updated graphics drivers

Fiendish USA Global Moderator Sat 10 Dec 2016 01:21 AM #10

Nick Gammon said:

Hmm. Are saying the output is jerky, or it is slow?

My understanding is that output is showing up in short bursts.

Khannon Mon 12 Dec 2016 08:56 AM #11

Yep it is what Fiendish said, could it be somekind of Win update? Or anything related to that? Since both cases it's fresh OS install. I could swear if I did fresh install on old PC I'd have same issue, I feel like something missing from OS, I dunno...

Khannon Mon 12 Dec 2016 10:05 AM #12

I'm purely curious does any of "Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable" could be affecting? I know my old PC has dozen version, lot of older versions, between 2007/2013 iirc. New PC I believe only has 2013, *shrug* how does one fix such issue it just doesn't make sense it has to be related to OS fresh install and something missing or perhaps someone has chance to perform fresh OS install and reproduce the issue, would be eternally thankful.

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Tue 13 Dec 2016 03:40 AM #13

The MUSHclient executable is largely self-contained. I think it might require a few core operating system libraries. I'm still having trouble understanding what you are seeing. Can you make a screen capture of it (a video)?

Is the overall effect that data arrives slower than usual, or is it that you get a bunch of lines, a pause, and then another bunch, but the total effect is that they arrive in the same time they used to?

Khannon Tue 13 Dec 2016 08:25 AM #14

I make quick capture video will send ytube link in private. That's speedwalk, unfortunately I'm not sure right now if I can show you the old PC version of same speedwalk, but you can clearly see that the speedwalk is not smooth it's lagging on main screen and map plugins, that ALL used to be smooth with zero lag across.

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Tue 13 Dec 2016 10:50 PM #15

Fiendish and I tested the thing you did and compared to the video. The total time for the speedwalk seems about the same (6 seconds). I can't pick much difference (compared to when I do it myself) but Fiendish thinks that your output is jerky.

I suggest you measure the number of screen redraws. Assuming you use the default "script prefix" that Aardwolf has (that is, "\\\") then you could type this before and after the speedwalk:


\\\print ("Redraw count", GetInfo (295))

You should see a number each time. I got 1144 and then 1228, so the difference is 84. Thus, the output window was drawn 84 times in that period. I counted around 100 lines of output, so not every line of output caused a redraw.

Now if you get a somewhat lower figure, that shows that, for the 100 (or so) lines of output, that the screen was drawn less frequently, thus accounting for the jerkiness.

Theory

Any Windows program processes events (things that happen) such as mouse-click, keyboard press, elapsed time (timer), disk file read/write complete, incoming/outgoing data to the Internet, and so on. The events have a priority so that if more than one happens, they are processed in priority order.

Screen redrawing is quite low priority - the idea is that it is important to catch (say) mouse movements, before drawing what that mouse movement meant.

Your new PC might have a faster Ethernet card, and thus be able to get data more quickly from the MUD. More data means that the "incoming MUD data" event is received and processed before the "redraw the screen" event. Thus with a lot of incoming data (eg. speedwalking) you may find that the room names are drawn in batches.

If it didn't do that you would probably be complaining that drawing a big room description is very slow. For example, a large paragraph might be "process one line", then "redraw screen" then "process another line" and "redraw screen" and so on. So it is actually desirable to get the incoming MUD data in and processed as quickly as possible. Even at the cost of slight jerkiness under certain circumstances.

Fiendish USA Global Moderator Tue 13 Dec 2016 11:17 PM #16

I have an idea, but I'm going to hold it until after we get the result of this test.

Khannon Wed 14 Dec 2016 06:13 AM #17

I do use MUSH default '///'
rt oz
before - 490, after - 542, I did about 5 tries, difference stays 52,53,54,53,52

I should probably do same test on old PC too? I'll have to post it later on, I'll check laptop too.

Really thought internet was ruled out when laptop hit same same issue with different methods, netstick, wireless, ethernet.

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Wed 14 Dec 2016 06:46 AM #18

I can't get too excited about having the window redrawn every second line, however this plugin may help:

To save and install the Force_Repaint plugin do this:

Copy the code below (in the code box) to the Clipboard
Open a text editor (such as Notepad) and paste the plugin code into it
Save to disk on your PC, preferably in your plugins directory, as Force_Repaint.xml
- The "plugins" directory is usually under the "worlds" directory inside where you installed MUSHclient.
Go to the MUSHclient File menu -> Plugins
Click "Add"
Choose the file Force_Repaint.xml (which you just saved in step 3) as a plugin
Click "Close"
Save your world file, so that the plugin loads next time you open it.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE muclient>

<muclient>
<plugin
   name="Force_Repaint"
   author="Nick Gammon"
   id="9b6b43fdb60091fefb6506ba"
   language="Lua"
   purpose="Forces output window to be redrawn after every line"
   date_written="2016-12-14 17:42:38"
   requires="5.00"
   version="1.0"
   >
<description trim="y">
<![CDATA[
Just install it.
]]>
</description>

</plugin>

<!--  Script  -->

<script>
<![CDATA[
function OnPluginScreendraw (type, log, line)
  Repaint ()
end -- function
 
]]>
</script>

</muclient>

What that does is force an output window redraw after every line is received.

Khannon Wed 14 Dec 2016 07:04 AM #19

Tried the plugin, it kind of gives same effect as smoother scrolling, however the same loading in batches occurs, it may feel little smoother, but in other hand when using commands such as eq or loading big room descriptions or who, those lines were loaded instantly, now and same effect as smoother scrolling had, they are loaded not instant, which is undesired too.

I also did the same redraw on laptop, with ethernet results difference - 46, 48, 47, 49, 48.

Khannon Wed 14 Dec 2016 07:20 AM #20

I also sent the plugin test video. In case you should be interested.

Khannon Wed 14 Dec 2016 07:42 AM #21

Fixed the issue or resolved rather, I remember using program called Leatrix in old PC. That was long, very long time ago I used to fix network issue in World of Warcraft. So I thought I try it and after install and reboot it did the trick.

Website: http://www.leatrix.com/

However I only thought about it when you brought up the internet/network theory it made me think what have I installed to old PC, and leatrix crossed my mind quickly as it worked miracles for when I had issue in gaming.

Thanks both of you for helping to figure this out. The annoyance it caused in mudding was just so deep for me.

Khannon Wed 14 Dec 2016 07:45 AM #22

Just thought to try the redraw script. It makes perfect sense, with leatrix, it now results 102 in difference.

Fiendish USA Global Moderator Wed 14 Dec 2016 09:56 AM #23

I'm glad you got it fixed!

Khannon said:

Tried the plugin, it kind of gives same effect as smoother scrolling, however the same loading in batches occurs, it may feel little smoother, but in other hand when using commands such as eq or loading big room descriptions or who, those lines were loaded instantly, now and same effect as smoother scrolling had, they are loaded not instant, which is undesired too.

Yeah, I was going to suggest something similar to what Nick suggested except using BroadcastPlugin(999, "repaint") so that my Repaint Buffer script[1] would take effect instead of directly calling Repaint(). I avoid ever calling Repaint() directly because repaints are quite noticably slow when you do many of them.

[1] - https://github.com/fiendish/aardwolfclientpackage/wiki/Repaint-Buffer