Loading is extremely slow

[omgimdead]

Hi, when I try to load a save game, it takes extremely long to load the 'Initializing Teams' part. Also, mounted units movements are jerky. Any ideas to why this is happening? I have not installed any add-ons.

[Yogibear]

Please give more information, otherwise there is a gazillion possible reasons:

- hardware (cpu, memory)
- operating system
- wesnoth version
- scenario
- self compiled or not?
- performance eater running in the background?

[omgimdead]

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5500 @ 1.66 GHz 1.67GHz

2.50GB RAM

32-bit Windows Vista Basic

Wesnoth Version 1.7.3 (Same problem for 1.6.4)

It lags on every scenario I load, more on larger maps.

I used the exe installer provided on the front page.

Only running firefox, but my CPU isn't performing at maximum when these two are running.

[Yogibear]

Hmm, that indeed seems more than sufficient to run wesnoth absolutely smooth. How long is "extremely long", then? More than half a minute?

[omgimdead]

Yeah, I go off doing something else and it still hasn't loaded. Smaller maps do take a shorter time though.

[Gaiyamato]

Actually I have the same problem.

In both 1.6.4 and 1.7.3

In case it helps:

- AMD 5200+, 2GB RAM, Nvidia Geforce 8600GT
- Windows XP PRO SP3
- both 1.6.4 and 1.7.3
- All
- EXE installer
- uses about 4% of my CPU max, always, even when in games, never seems to use any more except when loading some instensive levels like colosseum at the start.
But this issue does not seem to raise it noticably. Uses so little RAM it is awesome.

Starting a new map takes mere seconds. Loading a map can take up to 5 minutes. Sometimes more for larger maps.

[ivanovic]

Are you loading campaign saves? If yes, do you have *huge* recall lists? If you are loading scenarios you started in multiplayer (no matter if local or on the server), do you have many addons installed?

Things that are likely to slow stuff down (in general) are:
1) Many addons installed (basically relevant for everything that is multiplayer/skirmish and not "normal" campaign gameplay).
2) Extreme amount of "stuff" on the maps you load. With stuff i mean eg huge recall lists, many turns happened so far and thus much to place on the screen.

In general it looks like loading on Windows is a lot worse than on Linux. It might be a good idea if you posted some of the problematic savegames to that we got a chance to check if anything strange is happening in the save.

[Gaiyamato]

It is every save game, for campaign or playing multiplayer maps single player etc.
I have not played very far into the campaign. I keep getting runtime errors that crash it (another bug for another day).
Even if I just start it, save, exit and try and load the saved turn 1.
It is less load time for smaller maps and multiplayer maps though..

I have the following adons installed for 1.6.4:

Conquest pack
Gladiators pack
Colosseum
Royal Rumble pack

I have no adons for 1.7.3

If you look in a thread in this same forum I have installed and re-installed the game multiple times due to some wierd issues trying to connect to the main server as well.

I do have dual boot setup into linux. I can try and install it in my nix and play there to see if there is any difference.

[omgimdead]

It seems to be slow even when I just started the map...

[Gaiyamato]

No problems under Ubunutu 9.x
I even tried omgimdead's save game there. Loads really fast.

Must be something we both did the same with our windows install.

[ivanovic]

Since there seem to be no probs on linux, these *could* be a reason, too:
1) Do you have a virus scanner running in the background that does some strange stuff? (Unlikely but possible)
2) Do you have some firewall active (eg the Windows default firewall) and the game tries to upload campaign stats? As test click on the envelope in the bottom right corner in the main menu and deactivate stats upload. If this does help there is some strange problem with networking/the firewall that probably has to be investigated closer.

The windows packager tested things on his Windows box and things were reasonably fast there, so it is most likely not a problem *everyone* has but just "some" (might be many more than we are aware of) suffer under.

[omgimdead]

I unchecked the box, but that didn't work. I also tried closing my AVG then running, but the same problem is still there.

[Gaiyamato]

Yeah neither my firewall or virus scanner make a difference either.
Same problem when they are closed.

[Max]

you can upload a detailed log as described here

[Kip-of-teh-Mud]

do you use compressed saves? there's an option to turn them off, which made it well faster for me.