Posted 08 September 2011 - 04:53 PM
A big couple of common problems since I used to mess up things and scripts for Operation Flashpoint Resistance
I ignore the fact of what is going on on official BIS forums both present and past but:
Islands especially custom island can make the entire experience a lag-fest even if on SP on locals server works flawlessy.This sometimes is cause by the amount of unpolished ridges,mountain heghits and even sea dept,then if let's say you set the dept of water to 20 meters and polished mountains and stuff but you placed a very bigload of custom stuff without unpacking it and join their configs the game will be laggy no matter what.So when you are going to make a custom island (and I'm doing it) you have to forget about the sea/ocean,don't push things with mountains staying on 1000/1500 meters limit,polish ridges very often,unpack any given addon.Well unpacking certain addons since they are locked with their so called keys or HEX strings can be a little painfull but once you get used you will crack it/them in 10 seconds.
Addons,every custom addon so a tank,a mere Zodiac or a stationary machine gun sometimes comes with fancy scripts that will constantly check for certain things like alive,damage,empty yes or no,this on MP will cause some lag,so let's say if you ever played OFP online with the latest custom M1A2 Abrams made but I can't remember who,you were always noticing some lag,or warping.To prevent that you had to remove the addon protection a mere string that was placed there with an HEX editor and then proceed to edit his config maybe sorting out some scripts,mostly explosion and burning ones that you were going to replace using the ones from ECP or BAS.If the script are not causing lag sometimes are the weapons aboard the vehicle,I remember some UH-1 Huey addon who were just there to make the MP experience sad,why?Too many weapons aboard,smoke grenade launcher was the culprit.
Scripts,triggers,events etc for MP custom maps,too many triggers,too many scripts,too many conditions for example the CTI day cycle script will cause lag.Sometimes placing too many AT mines even if they are intert for infantry but not so friendly for tanks could make a big mess.I just remember a CTF map where the mapper placed only a couple of flags with their pole,some sandbags here and there,some non respawning stock vehicles and the classic hospitalt tent,ammo and weapons cache at spawn.Basically it was the original CTF Everon but instead of fighting around Gravette we were fighting near Le-Moule,anyway he placed around 100 or so AT mines making the map a lagfest.
For scripts I remember that on nakedsquid forums the guys there were saying that you had to use round triggers,and make inert scripts that were going to be activated after clearing a certain object,or killing a certain target,after that the script,trigger was delected to lessen the server load and prevent lag.
I can say that on nakedsquid server the laggy maps were usually the older ones,or some maps with way too many enemies and the only natural server killer was CAT Afghanistan because who made the island forgot to polish ridges and hills and some CAT addons were buggy and totally not lag-free
Lastly you have to thing about textures,placing ~4028x4028 is nosense,even ~2012x2012 texture for a soldier or a UAZ is a joke,sometimes is better to have multiple-single textures for certain parts instead of a huge one that covers the entire vehicle.
I'm sure about all of this things cause I used to play on CTI servers were the server load was really big,because the amount of things that our COs were going to spawn while building and defending a base and the only time I have experieced lag was only when the addons,and scripts were not fixed by third party hands,so playing on Skye CTI or Trinity CTI on their server was a pure experience,while playing the same maps on other server was not that funny cause lag was a real killer
Then about -mods like ECP or now the Project Reality Mod can be messy,vehicle chit-chat was a nice touch,even extra lights and chores for churchs,or whatever I'm missing will be,but is an extra server load.Usually some servers will not run that mod,or at least I remember that on nakedsquid server they were not running last ECP version but a revised one and you were free to use or not the latest one,for me it lasted a week then the amount of lag and crashes that I was experiencing was killing me so I reverted to vanilla OFP with custom addons,plus I have tested some of ECP features by adding them in a third addon or folder and didn't experienced any problem,nor lag or crash,sadly I was not able to replace stock vehicles with custom ones,but I have changed textures,mixed up NVG and realistic sky textures,added first-aid scripts for soldiers and flares/ecm script for helicopters,replaced other 3d models and added newer ones with no problem.
Editing things for that game was easy.
My only rant about OFP were the AI tanks on MP,sometimes they fired their entire reserver in 5 seconds,and that was around 35 Sabots in no time,one day I was runned over by an M1 Abrams that was doing around 200 Km/h on reverse simply because he fired his reserve at once against a T-80 that popped out on a ridge,I was like WTF was that because after he ran me over he collided against a bunker flipped over and then another guy with a Bradley managed to put it back on his tracks,get inside cause the AI driving it disembarked,check his health statuts and he writed that the only ammo avaiable were the coaxials rounds,SABOT and HEAT reserve were dry,that means 70 shots that were fired in 5 second,but server allowed us to see only 8 shots.
