Topic

Staff Topic

Test the Experimental Renderer!

I've been working something new and fancy for y'all: A faster renderer so the game plays smoother.

Want to help me test it? Sure you do!

But First Things First:
* You keep an eye out for problems and promise to give me feedback, both positive and, more importantly, negative
* You will use the Bug Report button and mention the "experimental renderer" --  ALSO replying on this thread would be helpful to me
* You understand that, in the very few locations where we have some animations in the background (like waving grass), those animations do NOT currently work in the new renderer, so don't sweat it
* You will give Ilmenskie Caverns another shot, especially Dobak Fathom

Have at it!
beta.glitch.com/game/?SWF_e...

***UPDATE***
The renderer is now enabled by default, as are other optimization I made since the last test.

Posted 18 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • I just gave it a short try in the Caverns.  Went down to the Deeps and up to the Drop.  Pretty smooth.  i saw no wire frames.  I always freeze as I approach the Cooking vendor.  Happened third time too but the freeze was very short, almost not noticeable but still there.  I also had very short freezes when moving from 2 East to 3 East and from 3 East to 4 East.  Again, very brief freezes but I don't recall having that happen anyplace in the past but when approaching the cooking vendor.  No problems otherwise and this freeze thing is hardly noticeable.  This may have been caused by a computer problem at my end.
    Posted 18 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Overall it seemed to work well. The only thing I noticed was that other players thought clouds/bubbles were blank. They were there, just nothing in them. Also the progress bars when you do things like, harvest, water, nibble, milk, etc also did not exist. I could do all of the actions just fine, but no bar above my head showing me that I am doing the action.

    I didn't make it to the caverns. That's after I sleep. However I did walk from the J. tower base all the way home to Estevan Meadows. Everything seemed alright.
    Posted 18 months ago by Bunni3 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Spent 30 minutes skipping through Dobak, merrily mining, no problems to report, Sah!
    Posted 18 months ago by snygyst Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Not sure if this is a renderer issue, but energy changes aren't shown over the energy indicator any more.

    A lot of people had blank action bubbles.

    Edited to add: a lot of the sound effects seem to be missing... collecting jellies, petting trees for example seem to be silent affairs now. Muting the music turns off the meditation music.

    Edit Edit: @Bunni3, I notice that the progress bars lag.  So if you start an action and the server lags in telling your client to display the progress bar, it starts late. If it lags enough, the progress bar doesn't show up at all.  Oddly enough, this seems to imply that making the progress bar disappear is treated as a more important task than making it appear...
    Posted 18 months ago by Blitz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Good morning!  While at Uko Grips in Bortola I could not stop walking until I ran into a tree.  I kept walking while stuck at the tree.  Corrected itself after a couple of minutes.  Just wanted to let you know.  Have a good day!
    Posted 18 months ago by Molly Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Got some serious lag in Flipside and the game froze as I was waiting to go to East Spice. Needed to restart laptop.  Filed bug report.
    Posted 18 months ago by Teena Subscriber! | Permalink
  • (anyone else read this topic as "experimental reindeer"? just me? oh.)

    This completely removed the lag in the caverns for me. yay!
    Posted 18 months ago by Vera Strange Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Imbri-LOL *raising hand and waving it in the air* I did! But then I read the actual posts and since I would also like to raise my hand and be picked for the TIME team I am going to load this thing up and see you in the caves in a bit. ;)
    Posted 18 months ago by Holly Waterfall Subscriber! | Permalink
  • used this renderer last night and today.

    last night was in the caves and had no problems at all, no lag, nothing looking funny...only thing was in the meadow when changing streets 3 different times, I had a disconnect - screen went dark and the word reconnect popped up - didn't last a half second - and no other problems.

    today - haven't been back in caverns, but, instead have been in Alakol, Bartola and Kajuu - a lot of the chickens don't have menus (guess they aren't KFC :) - the only thing I am able to get from many chickens is the info window - yet, same chicken the next time I hit enter it will give me the proper menu - this has even happened at home.  I just used the regular enter the world renderer and the same thing happened with the chickens at home - so - not your renderer Juno!!  I did a bug report for this.
    Posted 18 months ago by Firestone1960 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Firestone: they removed the menu when the chickens are flying. I saw that in the updates thread.
    Posted 18 months ago by Piece of Serenity Subscriber! | Permalink
  • thanks Serenity - I feel dumb now - guess I'll go amend my bug report  :)
    Posted 18 months ago by Firestone1960 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm in Megna Burrow and I see a Dullite rock but when I try to mine it, it says there is no rock to mine. My friend was there and I asked her if she could see it and she couldn't but I certainly can.
    Posted 18 months ago by PittyPat is sad Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I was trying to walk around the caves in Ilmenskie. Thoran Spelunks and Dolak Fathom specifically and froze twice. Experienced flash crash. I get laggy and then comp freezes with these crashes so I am not sure the bug went through. I was on Chrome so I don't know if this is Chrome or the new experimental thing. I do have the debugger version of Flash loaded in so hopefully you learned something from my experience. I am going to try FF now.

    ETA: FF much better. My "reindeer" only died once there.
    Posted 18 months ago by Holly Waterfall Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In general, I haven't had any problems with the experimental renderer (a couple of exceptions are noted in a separate post to the Bugs forum). And it does fix some problems with keyboard navigation that I have with the regular player in Ilmenskie Deeps below the two entrance streets.
    With the regular player in this area, holding the arrow keys down moves me only a step or two rather than continuously as it should. The experimental renderer corrects the problem. Judging from some of the comments above, others have seen the same behavior.
    So what is it about the Deeps below the two entrance streets that makes keyboard navigation a problem in the regular version of the player?  Switching out the rendering engine wouldn't affect keyboard navigation in most implementations.
    Posted 18 months ago by greyn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oops - double post by mistake ...
    Posted 18 months ago by greyn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you, Jono .. this is SO worth the longer loading times, having my splines reticulated I mean .. only 1 serious crash this test so far .. mind you, it kilt my pc .. I also experience micro-disconnects, but it is nothing compared to a flash-crash. I might grow to like the deeps:-)
    Posted 18 months ago by Lellie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I tried it out last night and it was yummy! I only got one bug and I reported it w/comments.

    Everything looked awesome. And I didn't notice any missing animation on the background, so unless I wasn't were there weren't any to begin with, nothing went amiss.

    It worked perfectly in the caves and deeps.

    Only one - comment is that it froze up a bit where there were lots of glitches around: the active project area in Kajuu. Firefox said "not responding" like 3 times. But I had other pages open, and it seriously eats my ram, so I couldn't be sure if it was the game or not.

    Otherwise, loved it lots.
    Posted 18 months ago by Joy La Maru Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I had an odd experience following somebody.  It baffled me at the time, but now I  remember I was using the experimental renderer, so that might have been what was going on.

    When I walked away to do something else while following somebody, I could do so as long as they stood still.  But as soon as they moved, I was jerked back into following mode, but with this weird jerky dragged around kinda thing when the followed glitch was walking forward, I moved forward, but was faced backwards.  when he jumped, I followed normally, but then turned backwards and was dragged again when he walked forward.
    Posted 18 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've been using the Experimental Renderer all test and its been great, couple of bugs that I reported.

    I did have a small problem today in that my friend couldn't follow me, there was no 'Follow' available.  I refreshed, made no difference so I went into game normally. 'Follow' was there and we went to the Deeps, where I changed back to the ER and then the 'Follow' was back again using the ER so not sure what that was about.
    Posted 18 months ago by Teena Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'll give it a try. :)
    Posted 18 months ago by daniel5457 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • this helps, and makes dabok fathom bearable, but the client still froze up allowing a bandit to steal my focusing orb.
    Posted 18 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Played with experimental renderer and without. With was much better.
    Posted 18 months ago by Mac Rapalicious Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A quick note to say that the "follow" bugs don't have anything to do with the renderer, and that we're very glad to hear so many reports of performance improvements.
    Posted 18 months ago by eric Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My take is performance and frame rate seemed to rapidly diminish with prolonged game play. My errors and crashes became more frequent near the end. I'm looking at the docs for the Adobe Air framework now. I'm wondering if I can move the game into that rather than have it run in the browser. This might clear up some issues with browser interactions. Kind of wondering about the trade offs with portability for other players. Can I do this without violating any ToS? Can I get permission? Do I need to fill out any NDAs? (I've been under them before and willing to enter others).
    Posted 18 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I really liked it. All my animations were very smooth and I noticed a little 'bounce' to everything that I harvested that I had never noticed before. Garden plots were easier to harvest. Street loading was much faster this test for me. I also had less freezing this test but I did experience it a couple of times but I don't know if that had anything to do with the renderer. I definitely had less flash crashes. I only remember having two the whole weekend.

    And I had almost given up mining altogether but the renderer has made visiting the caverns not unpleasant
    Posted 18 months ago by MaryLiLamb Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I used this renderer for the entire session this round.  I have to admit, I didn't notice any increase or decrease in speeds/etc.  However, most of my time is spent in my house, so not much time spent in heavy usage areas.
    Posted 18 months ago by Vicereine Linnæa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hmmmm ... just noticed this thread.  I can't say I understand it all. lol  If you are still looking for more people to try it next test I'll give it a try.  I've had horrible lag on level 2 east & level 4 east.
    Posted 18 months ago by Marla Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That's the areas that have had reported problems @Marla. If there was a way to PM me to help you with the "geekese" right now I'd be more than willing to explain things. Since I don't think that's currently an available option just ask questions here. Staff or technically knowledgeable players I'm sure will be very willing to explain.
    Posted 18 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Overall: Brilliant! No problems whatsoever, the only lag I got was type-lag, which was present both in the experimental renderer and normal version. Great work!
    Posted 18 months ago by Hburger Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I switch back and forth between "normal" and "experimental" a few times during the test. Seemed to notice a marketable improvement in most areas. Except for Sunday afternoon, where everything got laggy for me.
    Posted 18 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm playing on a netbook, which was giving me problems with jumps in "normal." Such as, I couldn't complete the Amazing Race. It was suggested to me to use this, and I have to say, gameplay for me has improved 1000%. Extended gameplay lags me up a bit, but I just restart my browser. Like Hburger, I do get a bit of type-lag as well, but I can live with that.
    Posted 18 months ago by Lady J Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I played  back and forth with the renderer this weekend. 
    Most impressive.... very crisp visuals. and faaast.. rather than slow loads, I found streets loaded much faster with the renderer.

    Like others, problems didn't start showing up until Sunday..  problems using keyboard keys in gardens, had to be instigated with mouse first, then keyboard was fine. ( suspect this is not renderer related,)  laggishness showed up Sunday  too. (memory related?)
    Posted 18 months ago by caley dunn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Not sure if renderer related or not-but when I got to Baqala late Sunday I noticed a keyboard movement problem. I would hit the arrow to move and I would continue moving all the way down the street instead of the normal short distance and stopping. Very annoying.
    Posted 18 months ago by Holly Waterfall Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i played approx. 30 hours this test, and loved the renderer. before test i uninstalled flash, reinstalled, dumped all history and temp files. i did experience 2 flash crashes (sent reports), 8-10 renderer reconnects but only two god server disconnects (on sunday). sunday i did see some lag but not till afternoon. my game-play experience improved with the renderer. the largest change for me was the number of interruptions per gameday, which has been reduced to minimal. quite pleased, good work, thank you.
    Posted 18 months ago by coolbettycakes Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Played about 25 hours (eep) this test and most of that was with experimental renderer. Did have three flash crashes, some odd 'reconnecting' screen flashes when entering new streets and keyboard 'running' when my avatar would keep moving in a direction for up to 5 seconds after i attempted to stop moving in one direction.

    Mostly thought I did see improvements in lag issues using both IE8 and Firefox 5 with no real difference I could see using Firefox 4.
    Posted 18 months ago by Jackie Paper Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just saw this thread now after game closed.  I was in the caves several times and had to reboot once or twice got stuck on sign posts both leaving and coming.  Mining was so dang slow I had to teleport out.  I am still unable to climb down and wait until somebody else is there and ask if i can follow them down.  Going up is more of a problem in caves than anywhere else when I can't hold on while climbing up stairs I use spinach, or try and find someone to follow.  If none of these work I teleport. I love teleporting when game gets reset one of the first skills I plan to learn.

    I must be old, they used to have rendering plants where they would pick up large dead animals, horses, cows etc. and render them into other products, maybe hot dogs, not sure on that part.
    Posted 18 months ago by xoxJulie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @xoxJulie - Not that old. ;) And the meaning is similar, that of converting something to a useful form.
    Posted 18 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The renderer is now enabled by default, as are other optimization I made since the last test.
    Posted 18 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hi Jono - does that mean no more superjump parties? ;-)
    Posted 18 months ago by Morticia Addams Subscriber! | Permalink
  • CONGRATS on another job well done, Jono!!
    Posted 18 months ago by sgjo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Awesome job. =)
    Posted 18 months ago by cheater Subscriber! | Permalink
  • YAY! :)
    Posted 18 months ago by Lelu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks Jono, much appreciated, well done!
    Posted 18 months ago by Teena Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There will be more house parties; but first, more work!
    Posted 18 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Fair enough, I'm sure it will take you a while to clear up from the last one anyway LOL
    Posted 18 months ago by Morticia Addams Subscriber! | Permalink
  • this makes the game so much better. so, so much better.

    it doesn't feel like walking through molasses anymore.

    incredible job squeezing this kind of performance out of flash. truly 'best in field' type stuff here.
    Posted 18 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for all the feedback! I'm closing this thread. Move on over to http://beta.glitch.com/forum/bugs/4605/
    Posted 18 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
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