Ravage

[haleks 8212]

16 minutes ago, tomegeb said:

The mod @Heros Survive at hr_a3_survive\scripts\client\Inventory Display Check.sql replaced "LBDblClick" to "KeyDown" and conflict with @Ravage double click did not.

 

That's just how those event handlers work in Arma3 : you can't stack them and only one of them will be active at any one time.

We can only hope the GUI in Arma4 will have more options when it comes to modding it (I reckon it's too late for Arma3).

[MuRaZorWitchKING 725]

Currently in another long and grueling day in one of my Ravage Scenario's and I just got curious... anyone in this Forum, I'm curious on everyone's longest run in Ravage (day count before your demise) My longest I've EVER gone before was 15 days... but my character slowly died from radiation poisoning... Currently on Day 3 in "The Burning Rain" just picked up a half-Ghillie and a nice M4, decently geared up in this play through but food is severely scarce, gonna have to hunt at some point... What's YOUR max survival times? And Happy Hunting!     

[EO 11277]

7 hours ago, MuRaZorWitchKING said:

What's YOUR max survival times? And Happy Hunting!     

 

I've played Ravage from the very first version right through to the current one, I think most of my longest playthroughs were before the returnDays function was added so I can't put a firm number on it, however I can recall a few years ago i had my own private server for a few months and uploaded the Altis demo mission with a few tweaks, one of them being no time acceleration so the mission played out in real time, the server also persistent so the mission kept rolling even when i was disconnected. I played out that mission for nearly 10 days, before succumbing to rad poisoning. I loved the fact the server ran in real time, so my night-time sessions were played out in the dark and vice-versa for my daytime sessions. Those 10 days were definitely my golden Ravage memory......(with the possible exception of the Ravage MP testing period)

[MuRaZorWitchKING 725]

@EO I can imagine the difficulty, sounds like it was epic as hell though! That's what I truly love about Ravage, the experience is so unique each play through that you never know how you're character is going to die... Am I going to die from radiation poisoning this go round? Bandits? I remember when I saw my first car patrol... As they were usually quite rare, and still are, I saw my first in one of my own missions at the time, I was in Elektrozavodsk in the fire station by the hills, I remember hearing a car of some sort on my headset and thinking "What the hell is that?!" And sure enough, I believe they must of caught a glimpse of my character before I entered the station, because they drove right up to that station, and they all got out of the car to search for me... Luckily patience was on my side as they gave up the search after about 15 mins in game time, But you can bet my heart was pounding! I can only imagine something like that in REAL time brother! Thanks for sharing! :)    

[CrazyCorky 463]

I need to dig through ravage and setup a personal mission for it. Seems like the type of stuff right up my alley.

[MuRaZorWitchKING 725]

@CrazyCorky Keep us notified if you do! Always Curious to what others bring to the table, there are so many talented individuals in this thread and most (If not all) my work wouldn't even exist without their hard work. It's because of the mod authors and scriptwriters hard work that my scenarios exist, and it gave me the courage to actually post my stuff up in the workshop (and even join the forums) cause I believed that I was going to get tons of hate or just talked out of posting up more content... But I actually try to push out newer updates or bug fixes to my scenarios weekly, The Ravage forums I've found to be the most laid back forums I've ever been in, and that's how it truly should be. I wish you luck on your future creations!  

[LSValmont 789]

Calling all Ravage fans/testers/devs. Urgent test needed. 

Posible replicable FPS crippling bug found while using the latest release of Ravage when hosting local multiplayer (COOP) and using static Ai that cannot take damage (undying NPCs).

 

Mission Background:

Placed 10 Ai units via EDEN editor in a small 20 by 20 area of the chernarous 2035 map. Hosted mission in local multiplayer. Ai units are doing ambient animations and patrolling, acting like a survivor camp population. Four of them are meant to be traders and they cannot die.

PS: No scripts used in mission.

 

Bug Description:

With the ravage modules placed and their default settings as long as the player remains there at the camp location the server will start to loose FPS over time to the point where after 4/5 hours FPS there drops from ~60 to 5 FPS. If you move to another location FPS recuperates but as soon as the players comes back to the camp FPS drops to the 5 FPS again. (Mission: SpeedTest4)

 

As soon as you remove the Ravage modules as seen in the other mission (SpeedTest3) the FPS starts at 80 and remains at 80 even after 8 hours of gameplay where the player just stood there in the camp. 

 

Replicability for testers and devs: Start Mission SpeedTest4, just leave your character at the middle of the camp and leave the pc for a couple of hours. When you return your FPS should have dropped to less than half of what it was. If you wait long enough there it will get to the 5 FPS point.

 

Then, remove the ravage modules from the mission on EDEN and load the mission again (optional: SpeedTest3 is the same mission but without the modules) and you will notice 2 mayor differences:

1) The game will have a huge ~20% more increase in FPS at mission start compared to what it was with the modules on. (Mine was 60Fps with modules and 80Fps without them). This is understandable as Ravage is doing so many things in the background.

2) Your FPS will remain there while all the same NPCs doing their animations and stuff in the camp even after 8 hours so there is no FPS loss over time while the modules are not placed in the mission.

 

PS2: This is probably replicable on other maps too but since you will get such high fps on BIS maps it will take longer for the FPS to degrade to the 5 FPS part.

 

MY THEORY: With the Ravage modules enabled, NPCs that cannot be killed or do not die during the mission will continuously run some ravage script that increasingly consume more and more CPU cycles and/or produce memory leaks over time so that just at that NPCs location your FPS will be greatly reduced for the whole duration of the mission and only going down as the time passes until it becomes unplayable and you have no other choice but to restart the server. 

 

Test environment:

 

- Arma 3 v. 1.84 (Encore) (Latests version), using the 64 bit executable, parameters: -skipIntro -noLogs -noSplash -world=empty -enableHT

- Ravage v. 161 (Latests version)  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1376636636

- CUP Terrains, Maps, Weapons, Vehicles and Units. (Latests version) http://cup-arma3.org/

- CBA A3 (Latests version) http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=18767

- Chernarus2035 Map (Latests version) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1113631358

- Mission hosted using Multiplayer/Host menu. (Local Hosted COOP mission tested on a LAN network).

IMPORTANT: NO MOD OTHER THAN WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY LISTED WAS ENABLED/USED WHILE THE MISSION WAS MADE AND/OR WHEN PLAYING THE MISSION.

 

SYSTEM:

Intel I7 6700K @ 4.0GHz (No overclocking)

Corsair Dominator 32 GB RAM

Geforce 1070ti @ 8GB RAM

ASUS ROE MOBO

1000WTS Corsair PSU

Samsung 512MB SSD

Windows 10 64 bit (Latest Version)

 

Mission Files:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1UvpBZ05BM-afB_-9VMswBRyPN8MTcbNO

[EO 11277]

@LSValmont, Have you tried that same test on a vanilla terrain? Altis for instance.

[LSValmont 789]

33 minutes ago, EO said:

@LSValmont, Have you tried that same test on a vanilla terrain? Altis for instance.

 

I did, and it still happened but took a lot longer to get to the 5 FPS point. 8+ hours to be exact. Still the progressive FPS degradation at the NPCs location happened. NPCs are bluefor by the way. What I did not identified if it is just one module the one causing the issue I just added all of them together.

 

I guess the next step is to leave just one module each time and see which one is causing it. Or perhaps it is a combination of them?

 

I guess nobody found this issue yet because you have to stay on the location for such long time for it to become noticeable and not many missions have static undying npcs but the scenario is certainly easy to achieve on a highly populated server. 

 

I even tried removing all the Ai functions like FSM, PATH, MOVE etc and also disabling all SIMULATIONS on them and the issue still happened.

 

Also made all the objects SIMPLE OBJECTS just in case but then removed all the objects and the issue still persisted. All you need to replicate the issue are NPCs that stay alive for a long time, stay on one location and having all the modules enabled so it is not related to mission scripts, objects, map or any other thing as I've discarded all those variables. The only difference between the two missions I tested was the ravage modules and that change alone made the difference between FPS degradation and no FPS loss. 

 

PS: it took me a long time just to figure it out it was the Ravage modules. I deleted all my scripts, all my mods and then re-installed arma 3 before I did the modules ON/OFF test so we are talking about a weeks work to isolate the issue and find the cause. I almost went insane =)

 

Perhaps there is a script running for all Blufor units and should only be running for Ravage placed Blufor units? I did not test if the bug still happened after changing the units from Blufor to other faction but since Blufor is the most common scenario for trader camps then it should be fixed.

[EO 11277]

Given the time required to replicate the "bug" I'll pass on this particular test, sorry.

[LSValmont 789]

37 minutes ago, EO said:

Given the time required to replicate this "bug" I'll pass on this particular test, sorry.

 

The problem is that it is a MAYOR bug. 

 

1) At night before you go to sleep, start the speed test 4 mission, spawn and just turn off your monitor and go to sleep. 

 

In the morning when you wake up you will find your FPS at 5.

 

2) Open Eden, remove the ravage modules, save mission.

 

3) Repeat step 1. When you come back in the morning you will still have the same FPS you had when the mission started.

 

Total time spent in front of the computer for the testing: 10 minutes. (That is just to replicate the issue not fix it)

 

=)

 

PS: Also, if you are more undying static NPCs you will get the FPS loss faster. Perhaps add something like 50 NPCs, disable all damage on them, place a safezone and zombie blacklist module on top so zombies don't ruin the test and wait for 2 hours, you will get the first FPS drops at minute 10, and arround 10 FPS loss every 20 minutes as long as you remain near the NPCs.

 

Perhaps this cannot be fixed but I cannot make a mission and host a server knowing that such FPS degradation will occur. Any server manager would just give up on using static traders for their missions or even ravage, sadly. 

[Gill93 342]

1 hour ago, LSValmont said:

 

I did, and it still happened but took a lot longer to get to the 5 FPS point. 8+ hours to be exact. Still the progressive FPS degradation at the NPCs location happened. NPCs are bluefor by the way. What I did not identified if it is just one module the one causing the issue I just added all of them together.

 

I guess the next step is to leave just one module each time and see which one is causing it. Or perhaps it is a combination of them?

 

I guess nobody found this issue yet because you have to stay on the location for such long time for it to become noticeable and not many missions have static undying npcs but the scenario is certainly easy to achieve on a highly populated server. 

 

I even tried removing all the Ai functions like FSM, PATH, MOVE etc and also disabling all SIMULATIONS on them and the issue still happened.

 

Also made all the objects SIMPLE OBJECTS just in case but then removed all the objects and the issue still persisted. All you need to replicate the issue are NPCs that stay alive for a long time, stay on one location and having all the modules enabled so it is not related to mission scripts, objects, map or any other thing as I've discarded all those variables. The only difference between the two missions I tested was the ravage modules and that change alone made the difference between FPS degradation and no FPS loss. 

 

PS: it took me a long time just to figure it out it was the Ravage modules. I deleted all my scripts, all my mods and then re-installed arma 3 before I did the modules ON/OFF test so we are talking about a weeks work to isolate the issue and find the cause. I almost went insane =)

 

Perhaps there is a script running for all Blufor units and should only be running for Ravage placed Blufor units? I did not test if the bug still happened after changing the units from Blufor to other faction but since Blufor is the most common scenario for trader camps then it should be fixed.

from what I have read using animations on Ai in multiplayer is not recommended atleast when using 3den enhanced as it will cause issues. I would recommend checking the box that says enable dynamic simulation on the AI the you have placed by hand you can then go into the Attributes section then performance and alter the activation distance for hand placed AI or AI using Animations to 400m x1.8 or 1.9 and uncheck the box that says limit by view distance this will make these specific AI activate once you or an enemy AI comes within 720 or 760 meters of them and then will also deactivate once nobody is in the area. I use this method for all my scenarios as it helps save performance when having a lot of AI, objects on map and or AI using animations.

[EO 11277]

I'll do the test if you pay my power bill...

[MuRaZorWitchKING 725]

@LSValmont I have hand placed so many traders and AI in my scenarios and haven’t noticed any type of performance issue, also running on Chernarus REDUX map which is a VERY heavy map, still no issues... I’m unsure what your problem is, but if EVERY single AI you have hand placed is using Animations that may be your issue... also it may be a server issue since you are experiencing it in MP, sometimes Servers slow. And I’m with @EO on this one, generally players don’t stand in one area for 8+ hours anyway, by doing so in Ravage if you’re in a town or not, Bandits will eventually roam through and kill you or raid the town. I have many towns and trader camps built into my scenarios and I know this for a fact because I’ve had whole towns killed in Bandit raids.

[Gill93 342]

Hey guys I got a decent Idea for a script if anyone is interested in making it come to life as I am not skilled enough with scripting atm. Basically the script would spawn a friendly camp or outpost on the map in a random location. The script could have the option to spawn a marker on the outpost location or players could just find it by exploring. Once a player has found the camp or outpost he or she could then locate and bring back any friendly survivors they find to the camp and be rewarded for it in some way either banknotes food or ammo etc. I think that having a feature like this would give players more to do on scenarios without tasks or objectives and would just make game play more interesting period.

[LSValmont 789]

12 minutes ago, MuRaZorWitchKING said:

@LSValmont I have hand placed so many traders and AI in my scenarios and haven’t noticed any type of performance issue, also running on Chernarus REDUX map which is a VERY heavy map, still no issues... I’m unsure what your problem is, but if EVERY single AI you have hand placed is using Animations that may be your issue... also it may be a server issue since you are experiencing it in MP, sometimes Servers slow. And I’m with @EO on this one, generally players don’t stand in one area for 8+ hours anyway, by doing so in Ravage if your in a town or not, Bandits will eventually roam through and kill you or raid the town. I have many towns and trader camps built into my scenarios and I know this for a fact because I’ve had whole towns killed in Bandit raids.

 

My town cannot be completely killed because 4 NPCs do no take damage.

 

Only 6 of the 10 NPCs plays animations but they stop the animation as soon as they go into combat mode. And it is not an animation issue since the problem is gone as soon as I remove the Ravage Modules. 

 

You can have even 100 NPCs in your mission and if they die there will be no noticeable/permanent FPS loss. If they stay alive and stay on the same location then you will have an issue.

 

As for the "players don't stay 8 hours on the same location":

 

1) They don't need to stay on the same location to suffer the FPS loss. If they stay 10 minutes at a time they will get 1 FPS less, then even if they leave for 2 hours and return later they will still have that 1 FPS less there, if they stay another 10 minutes it will be 2 FPS less and so on and so on until the area becomes unplayable. It takes 4 hours on my system if I am in the town alone to bring it to 5 FPS but the more players the faster it goes down. 

 

Please try the mission, you already have the map! Then you will understand what I am talking about!

 

 

[MuRaZorWitchKING 725]

5 minutes ago, Gill93 said:

Idea for a script if anyone is interested in making it come to life

@Vandeanson is your guy this sounds right up his alley, and his work is incredible!

[LSValmont 789]

40 minutes ago, EO said:

I'll do the test if you pay my power bill...

 

What your CPU is a power reactor or something? Just kidding... Yeah it is a harsh testing environment that is why such a bug was not found before I guess...  

[haleks 8212]

@LSValmont: Thanks for the detailled bug report mate.

 

Quote

I guess the next step is to leave just one module each time and see which one is causing it. Or perhaps it is a combination of them?

 

A combination of modules causing that seems unlikely to me, but yeah, judging by your description, one of the modules seems to have unwelcome effects.

It looks like a script-generated trigger could be the culprit : that kind of degradation will usually stem from looped threads. I tried to keep those at a minimum in Ravage; zombies use them for behaviour, some are used on the player to process loot spawns or survival systems, and pretty much all triggers generated at mission start use some looped checks.

 

If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say one of those modules is behind it : safe zones, AI population or Loot/furniture spawn (although that one would be surprising). Or maybe Survival with radiations enabled, but unlikely.

Anyways, if you could isolate the module, it would help a lot. It seems to be a rare issue, but it could have deeper consequences on other type of missions, so I'll certainly push a fix if I can.

Plus, one of my top priorities with Ravage is to keep it as framerate-friendly as possible, so I can't give that one a pass, haha! ^^

[LSValmont 789]

1 hour ago, Gill93 said:

from what I have read using animations on Ai in multiplayer is not recommended atleast when using 3den enhanced as it will cause issues. I would recommend checking the box that says enable dynamic simulation on the AI the you have placed by hand you can then go into the Attributes section then performance and alter the activation distance for hand placed AI or AI using Animations to 400m x1.8 or 1.9 and uncheck the box that says limit by view distance this will make these specific AI activate once you or an enemy AI comes within 720 or 760 meters of them and then will also deactivate once nobody is in the area. I use this method for all my scenarios as it helps save performance when having a lot of AI, objects on map and or AI using animations.

 

Even if I remove the animations they will still end up lagging the server, it just takes a little bit longer. I even tried caching the Ai and moving my player to 10.000 KM away and then coming back and the location would still accumulate negative FPS with nothing to revert it. Thanks for the advice thou! Didn't know about the attributes part!

 

But the mission is super optimized. Every object and unit has disabled and/or dynamic simulation and most object are even SIMPLE objects. I get 80 FPS with all NPCs and objects and no FPS loss unless the modules are placed!

[LSValmont 789]

9 minutes ago, haleks said:

@LSValmont: Thanks for the detailled bug report mate.

 

 

A combination of modules causing that seems unlikely to me, but yeah, judging by your description, one of the modules seems to have unwelcome effects.

It looks like a script-generated trigger could be the culprit : that kind of degradation will usually stem from looped threads. I tried to keep those at a minimum in Ravage; zombies use them for behaviour, some are used on the player to process loot spawns or survival systems, and pretty much all triggers generated at mission start use some looped checks.

 

If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say one of those modules is behind it : safe zones, AI population or Loot/furniture spawn (although that one would be surprising). Or maybe Survival with radiations enabled, but unlikely.

Anyways, if you could isolate the root cause, it would help a lot. It seems to be a rare one, but it could have deeper consequences on other type of missions, so I'll certainly push a fix if I can.

Plus, one of my top priorities with Ravage is to keep it as framerate-friendly as possible, so I can't give that one a pass, haha! ^^

 

Sure thing! I will remove the module one by one until I can isolate the issue! That would help you alot and also the whole ravage community! Is the least I can do considering how much you've done already! Will keep you updated on my findings. Remember I only used the default modules settings so no radiation enabled.

 

We are close to isolating the issue!

[haleks 8212]

What intrigues me is the framerate loss being persistent inside a zone...

I think it's possible to save a locally hosted game right?

 

If you could send me a save file (along with the mission file) with the bug occuring on a vanilla map, that would spare me a few hours of research I reckon. ;)

[LSValmont 789]

5 minutes ago, haleks said:

What intrigues me is the framerate loss being persistent inside a zone...

I think it's possible to save a locally hosted game right?

 

If you could send me a save file (along with the mission file) with the bug occuring on a vanilla map, that would spare me a few hours of research I reckon. ;)

 

Yes it is possible but my mission has no saving enabled. I will enable it and I assume you want the saved game at the time the FPS is the lowest?

[haleks 8212]

That would be perfect, yes.

[haleks 8212]

@LSValmont: Although your PC is quite beefy... ^^

Just send me the thing when you see a sensible loss, I will without a doubt see it too on my own machine.