Freezing

[Violence]

Since Tech and EC aren't viewed as much, I feel I have to Link here as well- In case someone has had similar issues but doesn't frequent those Forums.. Any info on this would be appreciated. Thanks.

http://vboards.stratics.com/uo-tech/246006-freeze-stepping.html

 

[Violence]

So of about 100 people who read this, not a single one has experienced this on EC? It's extremely annoying not Lagging at all, yet freezing when running into Housing or more than 1-2 NPCs/PCs.
Correction... 100 counting those who read it on Tech or EC Forums..

 

[Barok]

The EC is poorly optimized (or not optimized at all) and doesn't handle a large number of objects at the same time very well.

 

[Ludes]

I get it too and its very annoying.. it can range from a very short split second pause all the way up to a second or two at the Luna Malls. I haven't figured out what causes it yet but I think it has something to do with the disk caching for houses.
I know I can eliminate any kind of hardware issue.. my rig is extremely overkill (hey I game a LOT)...
And I have a very fast cable internet connection.

But I'm on the problems trail... just wish I had Tracking.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

This isn't just an EC issue. I have not been in game today but was experiencing this heavily last night with the CC.

 

[Ludes]

It would really help if someone who DOESN'T have this would jump in here so I could do some comparisons on settings and such.

 

[Violence]

So that's one thing we do know.. It has nothing to do with our rigs nor with Lag... And the CC acts up too.

Disk Caching is what I suspect as well, even though changing that in the Options doesn't affect this- Though I have to say I doubt it's just Housing.

 

[Barok]

It also happens when I recall into the Queens Forge in Ter Mur. And that's all static map data, no dynamic objects like a housing area.

 

[Doubleplay]

Sounds like a stuck key problem I once had. Try disconnecting your keyboard and move with just the mouse. If that does not cure the problem, then try disconnecting the mouse and moving with just the keyboard.

 

[Violence]

Ter Mur weighs me down as well. As you said, no Housing there. So it must also be NPCs and such.

DoublePlay, I believe if it was as you suggest I would notice it in other applications as well. I'll give it a try though. EDIT - I do see how that could have been causing Movement glitches but this is not the case.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

couple things I've noticed in CC:
While a mob, coming into the immediate area, and even if still offscreen, is trying to lock on, frozen for a short time

When a new 'sound' starts to play, frozen for a short (my singing ball does this, every time)
Coming near massive house contents, such as in Luna - and not just inside the walls either - you'd think being completely outside the city walls this wouldn't happen

There's a spot in SA; at the west end of the long hallway adjacent the area where wolf spiders are, just before it turns S. and goes into the large room w/ goblins. Sometimes I get over a 10 second freeze here (enough to think I lost my IP). Happens once every time I go.

yes, queen's castlein ter mur, laggy as crap! I bookmarked the forge, and just don't use the rest, just a wasted area

 

[Violence]

So who are we gonna call..?? I PMed Mesanna asking about all this, even though it's not her job it might help.. I suppose since it's Saturday and all, we'll have to wait..

 

[Violence]

*BUMP* Kk I just got my old PC here, LANed and ran UO and... No issues. Luna was easy to run through, other areas did not present any difficulties. It's not my ISP. It's the EC not wanting to work on my rig in particular... Which, on its own has NO issues either so it's just the EC acting up for some reason..

 

[Ludes]

The computer out here in the living room is much older so I run CC when I play out here..

The problems is still there in CC just barely noticable is all...

Yesterday my EC actually crashed.. first time in weeks.

I'm trying to find a program that can monitor cache usage so I can narrow it down. It has to be something along those lines.

*starts glaring suspiciously at vendors*

 

[Violence]

I checked again and you are right, even on my friend's PC it still does it. It's just much more reduced in duration so I did not notice at first. Just a minor Freeze around Luna and generally in crowded places but the cause must be the same. But that rig doesn't get the AutoMove glitch mine does, after Freezing for more than 2-3".

As for CTDs, none on my old PC. On the new one, UO(EC) will occassionally just Close. No reason at all, as if I X'd UO's Window. Happened only once on my friend's PC though.

 

[RawHeadRex]

i still say hd somehow

 

[Nails]

i seem to get freezing on CC and it usually occurs shortly after a recall followed by immediate movemnet. Although sometimes it is just the recall. my guy just freezes. so this is both clients and some weird bug.

 

[muscle n flow]

I experience it as well, it lags a lot when any named object comes into display range, such as vendors, random animals, anything. I've even started lagging when opening containers (I think more items in the container makes it lag more, but not sure about this one yet). I also have a very recent built desktop, no clue what it could be. I'm gonna try out the classic client again when I get fed up enough with it. I don't think I could go back permanently... the EC is just too convenient

 

[Violence]

RawHead : I am not denying the possibility. But only if we accept it's the EC in relation to particular HDs, mine's practically new and has no problems. I can send you the SpeedFan results if you want. Plus, the rest who report the same problems would have to have the same type of HD.

MuscleNFlow : True. Not to mention I've tried to DL the CC and it always comes up "Corrupted" when trying to Install. That's on 3 PCs total so I have to assume the DL available at WWW.UO.COM is crap.
I also get the Inventory Freezing.

 

[Violence]

While I'm not an expert, could it be the size of the HD? The number of Partitions? The Format(NTFS ETC)? Just random ideas..

 

[muscle n flow]

WD1001FALS is my hard drive, a western digital 7200 rpm, 1 TB, 32 MB cache

and some other random specs while I'm at it I suppose
AMD Phenom II X4 955 processor 3.2 GHz
4 GB RAM, don't remember specifics, probably cheap
Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 graphics
I'm on Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, DirectX 11.

 

[Violence]

So we both got new Western Digital HDs.. Hmm.

 

[Ludes]

I've got Seagate Barracuda's

 

[Violence]

There goes that theory, then..

 

[muscle n flow]

I've noticed some other programs acting up lately as well though, so I'm going to reformat because I think it's slowing me down. If I don't reformat at least once or twice a year I start to feel it. If I notice an improvement after reformatting I'll try to find this post again and give an update.

Still, I can't help but think it's related to the recent EC fix, due to the timing of it. I can't say for sure though, because I had quit for a few months and just started playing again, after the fix had already been released. Did you use EC any time before the memory leak fix or whatever it was?

Edit: I just read the other thread where RawHeadRex mentioned the fix and said that more people would be having problems with it if that were the case... so I'm probably wrong, but I saw nowhere near as much lag before I suspended my account, which was about the beginning of May.

 

[Violence]

I've always been on EC ever since it came out and have never had this issue. As I've mentioned I had to run EC with just 1 CPU dedicated to it on my old PC but that's it. No other issues except Mem Leaks and the excessive amount of CTDs we were getting with that Client. Those have improved, admittedly.

 

[Maximus Neximus]

While doing a spawn today my entire guild froze up multiple times, each at the exact some time for the same length of time. Looks like they need to do something with the servers.

I'm fairly confident we were all using the classic client.

 

[aarons6]

while my pc doesnt freeze nor does the ec ever crash i have always had the pause when stepping onto house steps or running through luna with all the vendors.
the loading of objects seems very slow..

it tends to stop me at almost the same spots every time i go past certain houses.
maybe its a certain item in those houses that is causing it?


i can run all the way around luna and have pauses at almost exactly the same spots each time i go around.

 

[Ludes]

Exactly the same symptoms as Aarons6..

Several people mentioned sound being a possible culprit..
I definetely seem to have some kind of buffer overflow or something going on with sound.

I've been doing experiments with it so I can fix it. I really want to get a good four hour play session going with the sound card disabled so I can see how it acts.. but I'm not looking forward to playing four hours with no sound.

However I don't think this has anything to do with the freezes.. I'm sure the freezes are caused by something loading.. I'm still looking for a good cache monitoring program so I can narrow it down. Any suggestions?

 

[Violence]

I wish I could help, never used one..

 

[Barok]

I have sound turned off completely in the client settings and I still freeze, so the problem has nothing to do with sound.

 

[Widow Maker]

This is a server issue. We were all experiencing freezes yesterday as well. The freeze affects mobs as well..so it is a server issue

 

[Ludes]

This is a server issue. We were all experiencing freezes yesterday as well. The freeze affects mobs as well..so it is a server issue

So after more testingI have indentified a memory leak in the sound buffers..
however it has nothing to do with the freezes... Now what?

I'm not sure how to even go about a server side issue fix?
Perhaps if I can perma cache certain areas in the game into static ram/or flash ram maybe? I could avoid these small lags.. but would the server even recognize that the data has been cached already?

 

[Violence]

WM : Yesterday's issues could be Server sided.. But what I'm experiencing has been going on for a while now.

Ludes.. Mem Leak related to Sound?.. How did that fly by the Engineer Team? But what you're trying to do.. Is it really necessary? Shouldn't they simply be fixing this so we don't have to be PC Experts to play UOEC? Especially since it's most likely NOT related to our rigs.. EDIT : In the sense that it's not a faulty CPU or RAM problem on our end..

 

[Ludes]

In my experience I'll have better luck coming up with my own fix/workaround than waiting for "The Powers That Be" to fix it.

The sound thing is pretty minor.. I mean it takes like 4 hours of steady play to start showing. And I've already got a work around for that.

And the freezing thing... well I guess we can hope it's something that gets addressed soon.. in the meanwhile I'll come up with my own workaround or just live with it for now.

Sure not gonna quit playing.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

WM : Yesterday's issues could be Server sided.. But what I'm experiencing has been going on for a while now.

Ludes.. Mem Leak related to Sound?.. How did that fly by the Engineer Team? But what you're trying to do.. Is it really necessary? Shouldn't they simply be fixing this so we don't have to be PC Experts to play UOEC? Especially since it's most likely NOT related to our rigs.. EDIT : In the sense that it's not a faulty CPU or RAM problem on our end..

In theory the EC should use ram until there is no ram left (or you happen to be a real expert and limited the amount of ram the program can access and it has reached that limit.) Have you looked to see if it is using as much ram as is available? I know it doesn't do it on this computer ("this" being my wife's) and I know I am having the same issue from time to time....(actually noticed it for the first time today)

If what I said above is true, caching should not be an issue and it has to do with something else (such as perhaps the program releasing the cache before it fills up? or some such)

Not like I know how the game is coded....and not like I have my own computer currently to really test things, but that is my theory for today. *Disclaimer: Could change with time.

 

[Violence]

Cloak&Dagger, I've not touched my RAM(Srsly, NO PUN INTENDED).. Interesting information either way.

Ludes, if you do find a temporary solution, let us know? I don't intend on quitting either since I just recently came back and haven't managed to actually play!.. At least, not until I have to pay again.

And I suppose it wouldn't hurt letting the Devs know about that Sound issue.

 

[Pandora of Baja]

I think everyone's freezing with this last patch

 

[Aboo]

I am experiencing it, in fact died to Toxic Sliths yesterday because of it. However, I am not on EC.

 

[Ludes]

Just the fact that so many people are reporting the same thing tells me something.

And it's not just one client either but both of them.

My comp is set up to use RAM first before Virtual Memory just like Cloak&Daggers..
Far as I can tell its never used up available RAM and had to start VM.

It's very annoying since I as well have died from it.

Lets try to keep this thread bumped and maybe it might get some attention.

 

[Violence]

I already Linked this discussion and its twin from UOTech to Messana, accompanied by a short explanation. She said she would pass it to the Engies and that they'd look into this. That was a couple of days ago. Despite all the data I sent to RawHeadRex we still don't know what could be causing this...
Bit Of Wisdom : Do NOT Format your PC while slightly drunk... Not related to the topic but now I have to Format again... LOL

 

[aarons6]

i think the main difference between the clients is the CC caches the houses and all its visible objects to the hard drive.. the ec doesnt seem to do this.

so once you pass by a house and it loads all the objects the cc is much faster upon return.
the ec tho once you walk off the screen it flushes this memory and has to reload again when you come back making it very slow.

 

[Violence]

Completely freezing for several seconds? Differences from PC to PC regardless of specifications..? Connection not being the problem? Having played on EC for long enough to know that even if it works as you say, it did not stop it from being much faster on my old PC than the CC, to the point of being accused of SpeedHacking(Connection DEFINITELY not my issue)? Entering areas which, following your reasoning, should have been flushed from Mem did not cause freezing back then?

If what you point out is the reason, how do you explain all the above?..

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

i think the main difference between the clients is the CC caches the houses and all its visible objects to the hard drive.. the ec doesnt seem to do this.

so once you pass by a house and it loads all the objects the cc is much faster upon return.
the ec tho once you walk off the screen it flushes this memory and has to reload again when you come back making it very slow.

This would not be the case since the EC should never flush anything from the cache it simply replaces the oldest information with the newest information. This is of course all assuming they are using current coding techniques along with not having changed the code Drastically since these are things they have said themselves. So unless you have very little amounts of ram and a small cache, then this should not be a problem unless you are expecting the game to load stuff you passed hours ago, which no client does.

Also keep in mind this is a brand spanking new issue related with the new "we found one of the EC crashing issues" publish. I assume one of two things happened here, either 1 the issue was from sending information in a specific way and they changed it and this way is actually worse, or 2 the fact that they said there are multiple issues causing the crashing and when they removed 1 it allowed for this new issue which was at bay due to the first issue (off topic it seems to have allowed for the other crashing issues to happen more often.)

 

[Barok]

Also keep in mind this is a brand spanking new issue related with the new "we found one of the EC crashing issues" publish.

No, it's not new. The EC client has always done this.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

No, it's not new. The EC client has always done this.

Not in the manner of which people are complaining. Also I have never had this issue before I noticed it...yesterday I believe. So "No, the EC has not always done this, it is new." To put it how you did.

"One persons experiences are not the experiences of the people, but that of the individual and their perspective of the experience."

 

[muscle n flow]

We need to realize we've been talking about many different problems in the same thread. Many of us are describing symptoms that aren't like the others. But I do think the caching issues that aarons and Barok have been describing sound exactly like what Violence and myself are describing, but the EC has always done it to them and only recently started acting up for us. I have been having to reload items in my house and others around more frequently than I remember.

I turned down my animation setting to Medium and it seems to be helping a lot. I'm freezing in places where I would have before, but not for anywhere near as long. I'll try logging on later when Luna is packed to see if it has fixed my problem.

 

[Ludes]

WebSphere Application Server Version 6.1

I haven't given up.

 

[Violence]

Interesting but it looks like it could mess up your PC potentially..

I finished my 3rd Format and UOEC seems to play well enough now, though definitely I get Freezing. I wouldn't want to PVP like that. I did nothing different from any other Format I went through(Except accidentally installing 32Bit Win7 Ultimate yesterday as I was a bit drunk- Hence the 3rd Format to go 64Bit again) and all the Apps I installed are absolutely the same. It's not my ISP. It's not my PC.

I can't see how it could just improve on its own. I have to wonder if EA did that. And whether there will be a 100% fix eventually. And I'm definitely curious about the cause of this.

 

[Ludes]

How could running an app mess up my PC?

P.S. This is for Violence and people following this thread.. please don't jump in with a bunch of newb post on how apps can harm. My statement was for people familiar with my pc knowledge.