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Fed up with map editor slowness


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I have a Geforce2 MX (32Mb) and for a long time I have used the good ol' 30.82 just because it works best with CM. Recently I have started using the 56.64 driver, and I find it considerably faster in 3d! However, I also make scenarios, and regrettably 56.64 still seems to have the problem that has persisted in releases after 30.82, that the map editor is insanely slow to scroll. One click on the arrows takes four seconds to process. The same problem was there with the 4x.xx versions when I tried them. And I did take notice that the same problem has been mentioned here before, but no solution was invented.

So, apparently, whenever I want to edit a map, I should uninstall 56.64 and re-install 30.82. And when I want to play the game, I should reverse that. I just wonder if anyone has any clue if this could be solved with some tweaking within the adapter settings?

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I recall extreme slowness in scrolling the map with *some* of the post 30.82 drivers, but not all of them. In fact, I thought everything after 43.xx was okay, or at least was on my Nvidia card.

One thing to try is to lower the anistropic and mipmap levels. See if that makes any difference. I seem to recall that the bug in those drivers that caused the extreme slowdowns was related to those settings.

Madmatt

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To adjust settings for your videocard go to Control Panels > Display control panel > Settings tab > Advanced button > GeForce2 MX tab > on the menu pop-out select 'Performance & Quality Settings' > in the 'Global Driver Settings' area of the panel check the 'Show advanced settings' box. This will now show all of the available settings (those that are available without a tweaker). When you select a setting in the box, the slider near the bottom will be the method to change the current setting. Mipmapping will probably be related to two settings, 'Image settings' and 'Force mipmaps'. You can set 'Force mipmaps' to None and possibly reduce the 'Image settings' for Performance or High Performance (which I believe reduces mipmap quality, etc.).

You can also download a tweaker, but I'm not sure of the nomenclature of the settings to change. You can get some at Guru 3D (Videocard utilites > Overclocking & Tweaking). I'd recommend either RivaTuner 2.0 or the GeForce Tweak Utility (the RivaTuner is a bit more up-to-date however).

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Didn't work. Actually, I'm not totally convinced mipmap would be involved, as that would be a 3d thingy while my problem is purely 2d-related. Maybe you misunderstood my problem, Madmatt?

The problem does not lie in 3d map scrolling, but in scrolling the 2d map in the map editor. Each click on the arrows causes a four second delay. If I turn off the height level display, then it's half that.

I have no such problems with other 2d games like TOAW, and not with CM when using driver 30.82.

Also, drawing onto the map is not any slower. It's just every time that the whole map is refreshed (when you scroll it or change editing mode).

Interesting - this thread details the very same problem as I have. It's from two years ago. The chap solved his problem:

I've just installed the official Nvidia drivers to cure the transparent white graphics problem and, lo and behold, this problem was cured as well.
Hmm... April 2002, that must be older than 30.82. :confused:
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I was the one who had the problem Sergei is referring to. It was cured by installing the 30.82 drivers as I recall (although it might have been an earlier set). I didn't actually upgrade from 30.82 till the 56.64 drivers came out (when I also installed a GeForce FX5700 graphics card). I've just tested the map editor in CMAK for the first time since the upgrade and it does seem a bit sluggish again...about 3 seconds to shift a randomly generated 2800x2800 or so metre map.

[ April 01, 2004, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: SteveS ]

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  • 3 weeks later...

I find scrolling in the map editor takes 2 seconds either direction and for any map size. It's not instantaneous but it's not too troubling.

How much RAM do you have? What processes running in background?

System Specs:

P4C-2.8 GHz/800 MHz

ASUS P4P800 Deluxe (BIOS 1.0.15)

1 GB DDR RAM (800 Mhz)

MSI FX5900XT-128VTD Video Card - 56.64 Drivers/8XAA, 8XAF

SB Audigy Gamer

2 X WD 120 GB (8 MB Cache) - ATA RAID 0

1 X WD 120 GB (8 MB Cache) - ATA

Samsung SD332 DVD/CD-RW combo Drive

19 " Dell Monitor

XP Home (up-to-date)

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Yeah, it should be about two seconds. That's what it is when I use Detonator 30.82. When I use later Detonator versions including the latest, it doubles. Nothing running in the background.

Here's some specs of mine and couple others for comparison:

Sergei: AMD Athlon 1GHz, 256MB RAM, GeForce2 MX, Windows XP SP 1, DX9

Alkiviadis: Athlon 64 3200+, Asus K8V delux MoBo, 1 gb ddr400 ram, BFG FX5950 ultra Graphics Adapter.

Eichenbaum: PIV, 3.2GHz - 1GB DDR 400Mz - nVidia Quadro FX500

I would be pretty convinced that this has nothing to do with processor or memory capacity, since especially those others have pretty high end systems and in particular because this problem doesn't occur with 30.82. But there must be a reason for why some suffer from this and others don't. Others who don't have the problem, please state your specs. I will check my motherboard brand, BIOS and memory type.

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Actually it shouldn't take even 2 seconds. I rolled back to 30.82 to import a map from Mapping Mission, and no matter what the size of the map, each click takes less than a second to execute, half seconds or so. Which means that 56.64 causes that action to be 8 times slower!

Yet this odd slowdown doesn't appear anywhere else than in CM map editor. I hope we can find out why, and what could be done.

But now I'm off to make some maps... ;)

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It's the combination of bitmaps and numbers. If you show the 'setup colors' you'll notice the screen srolls much faster. I guess if the bitmaps would be hard-coded colors the problem would have been solved.

I can't go back to older nVidia drivers becasue I have applications that run on the newer versions.

I fully understand Sergei. It's often real frustrating to work with. I'm not gonna buy a new graphic card because of this problem.

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Originally posted by Sergei:

*bump* Any ideas?

Alkiviadis also suffers of the same problem. His adapter is BFG FX5950 ultra. Just for record, do any Nvidia users with the latest Detonator's NOT suffer from this problem?

When I want to move around the editor map quickly I go into setup mode and turn off the height. Then the movement around the map is about as quick as it should be.

On a large map that is a good fix. Not so much on a smaller one because you have to move into and out of setup mode.

Panther Commander

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  • 11 months later...

So this is in the 2D screen?

Technically while it looks 2D it is a 3D scene as far as the graphics card is concerned, this is drawn in Direct3D.

RAM cannot be the problem because that doesn't explain why the old drivers are normally fast.

Does this appear for both CMBB and CMAK?

Does it get worse or better if you show evevation numbers and does it get worse or better if you show setup lines?

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  • 1 year later...

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