"Slow PC" Testing

This is a problem that mainly mapmakers have, and I want to discuss it.

The problem exists in the fact that most of us mapmakers have a fast pc, well, MOST of us, and we can't see what spell effects, SFX's and scripting will slow down slower pcs with less RAM, lower grade graphic cards and lower grade processors. So we use what doesn't slow our pcs, which is a huge mistake to do, because then the majority that doesnt have the latest specs will have problems with slowdowns, because to be honest, a spell that moves two phoenixes and creates a unit near each one in many angles does not slow down my pc one bit, while it slows down my nephew's performance and MANY many other players, and i'm saying this from BNET experience.

Thats just a small example of whats the problem.

Solution.. well, i just wanted to ask; is there any program out there that anyone knows that will cause my pc to act as a slow pc with, per say, a bit lower specs, but not TOO low? For example, I want my 3GHz pc to act as a 1.5GHz and my GeForce 7200 act as a GeForce 5200, etc, for testing purposes. Anyone know how to do something similar?

You may try MS Virtual PC and run another Win XP (or vista, if your computer is really too fast) on it. I will be much slower than the original machine.

LINK

Or get a program like CPU killer which can be used to take up a % of your CPU time with pointless actions.

k sounds good, thanks.

or maybe be you can set you CPU clock multiplier lower. reduce voltage etc. =) but it's not 100% what you motherboard alows that.
you could also slow down you GPU but it's bit a full solution =) (also you can set better video options 1600x1200, 4x multisample (antialasing) and 16x antisotropi texture filtration)


// and btw it's a good topic ^^ jass == CPU fx == GPU (Video Adapter)
amount of RAM is almost unimportant. (well 256mb would be enought)

Ehm I wouldn't think so. It depends on how much stuff you are running in the background and your OS (burn XP). Creating lots of handles can burn it up. I know my old computer with 378mb (and a crap graphics card) chokes badly on anything with a decent number of units on the map (not on screen and lowest settings anyway).


To the original topic, I would say a healthy dose of common sense would probably be most useful. Don't overload on units, effects or hugely intensive calculations repeated many times a second. Just think of the maximum lower end systems can handle and try to plan not to have more than that going at one time. Good coding can also aid in this, but no brilliance in coding will help unit and sfx spam.

It's probably from the way it's programmed... many abilities in AoM seem laggy infact...

If I have some kind of speciality in WC3 it is to make crazy movement-related abilities run as efficiently as possible. I can look at it if you want.

I guess there's a common misconception that WC3 can't handle tons of calculations... it can in fact handle an incredible amount of math. There are just "certain things" that cause lag which can bottleneck everything else.

Actually, moving a few units in 0.05 timer rate didn't even lag on my old pc, and both of the phoenixes move at that rate. The problem is the unit creation so it seems. Personally I dont get one bit of lag, but i'm trying to avoid this greatly in the next winter edition.

creating any kind of handle, not just units, in a periodic function will cause a bit slowdown and memory waste.

Creating units is exceptionally costly in terms of resources.

Yeah, a good example of this are parabolic movements, since to get those correct over uneven terrain you need to use GetLocationZ(), which obviously requires a location. Nowdays the standard solution is to have a global location and move it around as needed, but before we had globals declaration freedom that came with preprocessors, this practice was not possible if you wanted to make a JESP spell.

Even so, for every code optimisation you do there is a computer that will still have trouble computing it all in real time, but then again, for computers with the minimal wc3 specs, running a 4v4 melee is a problem already, so optimising triggers and minimising their use is not the one and only answer to the question how to make a game run with more fps.

I think someone should post a guide, even not an official one, about how to make a map work smoothly, that includes using boolexpr, avoiding GroupEnumUnitsInRange when you can use TriggerRegisterUnitInRange in periodic timers, avoid using multiple timers when you can use a few, etc. Would be helpful for new map makers.

Speaking as someone who used to run warcraft on a now-6-year-old PC; creating locations and moving units are NOT expensive enough to worry about. You need to be incredibly wasteful or careless before things start to grind.

Creating locations in a periodic can change your framerate by 10... I've seen it happen before...

Perhaps you haven't created them enough.