Poor performance and lag

[winterflaw]

Evening.

So, for me, game performance is poor.

What I mean by this is that if I host, or I join a game with more than two players and two AI, then as the number of units increases, the game sooner or later begins to lag, and it takes longer and longer - seconds, then a minute or more - for commands to be performed.

In fact having sat next to a friend while we play BKM and seen what's going on for me and for him, what's happening is the the lagged players are seeing the game as it was *in the past*. The other player is seeing things as they actually are now. So I will be looking at units which have moved, or been blown up, already, ages ago. It's quite strange. (When the lag is extreme, I think the computer begins to move some of my units, too!)

What surprises me though is that this happens at all.

It seems to be worse in BKM than in normal COH, but that's just a feeling.

My laptop is pretty powerful - the resolution I use is fairly low (1200ish by 700ish) and I can't imagine the AI work is so costly, computationally. I can only think the game (COH) is badly coded (which in some ways we can see very obviously - the lobby bugs, for example).

What are other people's experiences with this problem?

[Jalis]

What are other people's experiences with this problem?

At BK, it is not so uncommon.
However to make situation a bit better, in graphic setting put all to minimum (low or none), except models details (lower right corner). For models details set cursor to max. It your friend apply same setting you will also reduce a bit desync issue. Desynch is more likely to happen when computer is hanged by heavy lags.

[winterflaw]

Just had a 2 v 2 AI game, on a 6 player map (trainz).

Desync after about 30 minutes, we called it quits.

I think I can only play 2 v 2 games, when someone else hosts, on four player maps.

The rest of the game, for me, does not work.

It has to be poor programming - this game is ten years old.

My computer's processor, RAM and network connection is staggeringly huge compared to the hardware around when COH was released.

[MarKr]

Just as with anyone else who reports performane issues - check your graphics settings, make sure that you have nothing set to "Ultra". Yes, your PC should be able to run just fine, but CoH engine is not optimized well enough and the Ultra settings use DX10 however the game does not know properly how to work with DX10 so it creates glitches.

Also check your nVidia control panel if the settings for CoH are set to "controlled by application" (sometimes the drivers force some graphics settings that the game cannot use).

Some people reported more FPS when they disabled "pre-fetch" an "superfetch" services in Windows, though this was for Win7 so not sure if it is still a thing on Win10.

You could also try to run CoH in compatibility mode with some older Windows (Win7 or even XP) - in some games this can improve performance.

I also remember that someone wrote that it is recommended to set in nVidia control panel the number of pre-rendered frames to "1", but I don't know if it actually had any positive or noticeable impact.

That is all I can remember right now, maybe at least some of it will help.

[winterflaw]

> Some people reported more FPS

Wait a mo here - the problem is *not* FPS.

I have plenty of FPS - no problem at all.

The problem is lag, and then desync.

[Panzerblitz1]

> Some people reported more FPS

Wait a mo here - the problem is *not* FPS.

I have plenty of FPS - no problem at all.

The problem is lag, and then desync.

Make a new fresh install of bk, make sure to verify your coh cache integrity.

[winterflaw]

Make a new fresh install of bk, make sure to verify your coh cache integrity.

Oddly enough I just did this, for other reasons, prior to reading your post.

Now BKM does not start.

It's a Steam problem I'm sure - Steam is no good.

I wanted to move the Steamapps folder off my boot drive to a much larger data disk.

There are a number of problems with this and in the end I uninstalled and reinstalled (and discovered when you uninstall Steam, it silently does *not* uninstall the games you have - dozens of gigabytes of disk), which also did not fix the problem - but now everything was uninstalled and I could make Steam use the larger disk, so I got what I wanted in the end, even if it wasn't done correctly.

Having done all this, and also fixed Steam since it's broken out of the box and cannot contact the content servers (i.e. you cannot install games *at all* out of the box - IKR), I have installed COH and BKM and now BKM will not start, claiming "Failed to set a working mode for the rendering device".

Why it should all have worked on the previous install, and not now, is a complete mystery and I have to say basically Steam is *really* no good - it does not work. It's full of problems. It's not obvious to me tying BKM to Steam is wise.

I could in theory try contacting Steam support but it's a nightmare to do so. It's almost impossible to get through the maze they have around the deeply hidden contact forms. I've done it once already and the thought of doing it again is offputting to say the least.

[MarKr]

If you messed with the steam folder (moved it to another disk) it will cause problems not only in BK but possibly in other games too.

If you want to install Steam games on another disk, choose a different installation path when you install the game. I did not know this was possible so I used to install all my games on my (quite small) SSD drive and it was quickly full. Then I moved the Steam folder to my other disk and BK started having issues (especially in MP lobby nobody could see my games and if they could, they were unable to join), but other games glitched too.

Then I uninstalled Steam and installed it again and this time I installed only one game to the SSD and the rest to the other disk and now things work properly.

So if the steam does not work for you now, I would recommend doing what I did - completely uninstall steam and all games (I think you can keep save games) and install steam again, then install all games again but install them to the disk where you want to have them (so don't move the game files after installation).

[winterflaw]

If you messed with the steam folder (moved it to another disk) it will cause problems not only in BK but possibly in other games too.

Yes.

I did not do so.

I uninstalled, and reinstalled.

Everything has been installed by Steam itself.

If you want to install Steam games on another disk, choose a different installation path when you install the game. I did not know this was possible so I used to install all my games on my (quite small) SSD drive and it was quickly full. Then I moved the Steam folder to my other disk and BK started having issues (especially in MP lobby nobody could see my games and if they could, they were unable to join), but other games glitched too.

Yes. You can't move games.

So if the steam does not work for you now, I would recommend doing what I did - completely uninstall steam and all games (I think you can keep save games) and install steam again, then install all games again but install them to the disk where you want to have them (so don't move the game files after installation).

This is what was done.

[MarKr]

Well, I'm out of ideas again.

[winterflaw]

Well, I'm out of ideas again.

I'm Googling.

Other people report this problem, but not seen any fixes yet.

[Jalis]

With last details you gave, I also agree it is more a steam coh issue than a bk one.
Also maps like Trainz are not know to have serious pathfinding issue to explain lag.

What OS Do you use for for laptop ?

[winterflaw]

With last details you gave, I also agree it is more a steam coh issue than a bk one.
Also maps like Trainz are not know to have serious pathfinding issue to explain lag.

What OS Do you use for for laptop ?

Debian.

It could be a WINE problem, or related to that - except - all that has changed is Steam was uninstalled, and then installed.

[Jagdpanther]

- Set maximum pre rendered frames in nvidia cpanel to 1

- Dont play vs AI, play PvP, vs AI it lags

- Dont set Shader quality to Ultra, set it to High

- Open xsplit broadcaster while you play the game (just open, dont record), for some reason it makes my gameplay smoother.

- Overclock your CPU, CoH is CPU intensive

[winterflaw]

This fixed it;

1) Run winecfg
2) Goto the libraries tab
3) add d3d11
4) edit it to disable it.

Taken from this thread;

https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25382

In other words, turning off DX11.

Why this was being used now and not before, I do not know.

Steam startup will take a bit longer, and also COH/BKM startup, but it all works.