Issues with Lag

[Guardinthena]

I wasn't sure where else to post this, so I thought I would try here.

Straight to the point, I have been having issues with lag in my game and I do not know what to do or how I can fix this issue. I believe it is caused by plugins. I have come to this conclusion because I have opened a new project and watched the FPS (using the F2 key) and it is a steady 60. But in my project where I am having the problem, I have watched it lag on map transfers and simply walking around the map! The FPS has dropped to 17 in some instances, but mainly floats between 30-60 with even lower dips! The sudden spikes hang up the game and, quite frankly, it's embarrassing I'm having problems like this in a game system like RPG Maker MV.

My maps do not have that many events on them, certainly less than a hundred on my large maps, but this issue is even on my smaller maps where there is less than 10 events!

The majority of my plugins are Yanflys, with some oddballs in there like Moghunters(visual eye candy), Orange (for day/night) and some odds and ends.

I tried turning off the plugins that were not Yanflys, not all of them, but the lag persisted. (Will have to go further with this testing later). In addition, I downloaded Irina's Performance Upgrade Plugin and had limited success. The lag disappeared with what I had already turned off, but once those plugins were reactivated the lag came back.

I am at a loss, as I do not want to lose the plugins I have installed, (am willing to trade out for something of equal capability) yet something (or multiple things) are causing serious lag on map and between transfers.

Has anyone experienced this before and how do I deal with this?!

 

[Trihan]

Do you have any parallel process events running continuous effects in your game? If so, they can cause some major lag issues. This can almost always be fixed by adding a wait 1 frame to the end of the event, but if you don't have any parallel process events I'd have to take a closer look at it to diagnose what might be causing it.

 

[Jeremiah Eastman]

Many of us have experienced lagging in mv with multiple possible causes. One thing I would start out with on your end is, test the game out with a deployed version of your game. Test play is much more laggy than the actual deployed game. You may find there is no actual issue and it's just mv.

The next thing I would look at if it persists is your parallel processes. If it happens on all maps then it would have to be processes that are always running so, if needed, I would look at those next. Some things in them could be causing issues with the way it's running and could be fixed by simply reworking aspects of problematic processes.

I would start there and see where it takes you. Let us know how it goes.=)

 

[estriole]

I wasn't sure where else to post this, so I thought I would try here.

Straight to the point, I have been having issues with lag in my game and I do not know what to do or how I can fix this issue. I believe it is caused by plugins. I have come to this conclusion because I have opened a new project and watched the FPS (using the F2 key) and it is a steady 60. But in my project where I am having the problem, I have watched it lag on map transfers and simply walking around the map! The FPS has dropped to 17 in some instances, but mainly floats between 30-60 with even lower dips! The sudden spikes hang up the game and, quite frankly, it's embarrassing I'm having problems like this in a game system like RPG Maker MV.

My maps do not have that many events on them, certainly less than a hundred on my large maps, but this issue is even on my smaller maps where there is less than 10 events!

The majority of my plugins are Yanflys, with some oddballs in there like Moghunters(visual eye candy), Orange (for day/night) and some odds and ends.

I tried turning off the plugins that were not Yanflys, not all of them, but the lag persisted. (Will have to go further with this testing later). In addition, I downloaded Irina's Performance Upgrade Plugin and had limited success. The lag disappeared with what I had already turned off, but once those plugins were reactivated the lag came back.

I am at a loss, as I do not want to lose the plugins I have installed, (am willing to trade out for something of equal capability) yet something (or multiple things) are causing serious lag on map and between transfers.

Has anyone experienced this before and how do I deal with this?!

since you already tried turning off plugin other than yanfly... then you might want to try turning off all yanfly plugin one by one... until you found the culprit...

but maybe you can also try reverse order... turn off ALL your plugin... if the problem stays... then it's not plugin issues but parallel process event / common event problem like above suggest... and that might be fixed by adding wait event command...

then proceed to turn ON your plugin one by one... until you found which one cause the lag...

hope this help...

 

[dopan]

i once had some major lags when using repeating never_ending move routes on events..
(a balloon that was flying around in a circle/square)

i guess it could be ,that not a plugin is the problem but 1 or more events.. only thing i can advice is to use "tryal and error" and remove one thing after the other..
(and replace it back if it doesnt change anything)
.. in order to figure out where the problem comes from

->after you found the reason , you can think about how to fix it..

 

[Rugman]

Hopefully the problem is a parallel process that could use some cleaning up and some “wait” commands, so it’s not making unneeded checks a thousand times a second like estriole suggested. If that’s not the case then this has been a fantastic performance increase for me that I’d recommend you check out.

 

[turbobumblepuppy]

Hopefully the problem is a parallel process that could use some cleaning up and some “wait” commands, so it’s not making unneeded checks a thousand times a second like estriole suggested. If that’s not the case then this has been a fantastic performance increase for me that I’d recommend you check out.

Your link doesn't seem to work, Rugman.

 

[Rugman]

Aetherflow Preload Everything by Kaliya

kaliya.itch.io

 

[SigmaSuccour]

A few things:
- Where is it the lag is heaviest? How big is the map, and number of events there? (While optimizing, you want to work on the laggiest part. If you can improve FPS there, the improvement will trickle down to the less laggy parts.)
- Is the lag constant? Or is it something that just pops up suddenly, and disappears?
- Do you use parallax mapping? Or in-built tile editor?
- Does the lag happen on maps, or during battles? Or both?
- What are your PC specs?
- What's your RPG Maker version? Are you sure your project is also updated to the same version?
- Have you updated your NWJS or Pixi?
- Have you taken any intentional steps to optimize your game, while working on it? (So I don't suggest what you already know.)

If you can, do provide a complete list of the plugins installed on your project. (You can screenshot.)

I can suggest deep optimization methods. As my games are plugins and effects heavy, so I have experience.

Spoiler: How heavy?

 

[Guardinthena]

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who responded. I haven't had the time to respond to anyone till now, and especially not until I found time today to delve into the guts of the matter with the lag. And the lag issue was, indeed, found. Firstly, I did have a common event that did not have a wait command, (I'm surprised that slipped by me!) but I also don't remember if I even still needed that common event. Further investigation is required for that, but the common event was not the culprit. I did as many of you suggested and turned off plugins. I began with turning off all of them that were not yanfly's and the problem persisted. I began to go through my common events (found some that did need cleaning, but they were not the issue). I was about to turn off Yanfly's plugins when I realized the lag issue was, indeed, one of Yanfly's. It was Yanfly's Map Quest Window plugin extension for Yanfly's Quest Journal. The lag was coming from when the on map Active Quest Window was displayed in the upper right hand corner. When turning it off, the lag problem disappeared. When tracking the current active quest, the lag returned with a vengeance.

I know a great deal of many people use these plugins, so I am at a loss if anyone else has noticed this problem. Both plugins are up to date, according to Yanfly's website, so I'm not sure if the problem is that my game isn't up to date or if, like Jeremiah Eastman suggested, the lag is only present in test play.

@Trihan - I do have parallel processes running in my game. I thought I had put a wait period of 6 frames in them, but at your suggestion I went back through and found one that did NOT have a wait period in there...Honestly, I don't remember why I even have the common event running and I'm going to have to go through and backtrack my thought processes on it. It might be a remnant left over from an earlier idea that missed a purge, or it was needed? Don't remember. However, after putting in a wait period I noticed the lag dropped, however I am still noticing issues. I think there seems to be a possible pattern when it drops, but this time lapse seems off sometimes.

@Jeremiah Eastman - I had no idea that test play would be laggy but it had no relation to a deployed game. That is so strange! I'm going to have to test that out.

@estriole - Oooh, I was dreading that part...I turned off all remainder of the plugins that were not Yanfly's, ran around on a couple of my maps, and was about to start turning off Yanfly's plugins when I realized where the lag issue was coming from...Yanfly Map Quest Window plugin...particularly, when the Quest window is active. It is killing my fps.

@Dopan - I was afraid this might be the case, I have Yanfly move routes on to simulate a living, breathing community that is always checking to update their positions. However, I found out today that that was not the case. The culprit was Yanfly's Map Quest Window plugin with the active quest window is on.

@Rugman - I did double check my parallel process events and found that I did have one that did not have a wait command, no idea why. Honestly, not sure why I needed it and wondering if its a left over remnant from something else, gonna have to investigate that further. The culprit however was Yanfly's Map Quest Window.

@SigmaSuccour - the lag was occurring on all maps, where my largest (grand outdoor landscapes) or my smallest (house interiors and small caves). I found out that the lag was coming from Yanfly's Map Quest Window extension for Yanfly's Quest Journal plugin. When the quest window was active in the top right hand corner of the screen, it would kill my FPS.
- the lag was sporadic, happening constantly but with no solid pattern with the FPS dropping at random numbers.
- I do NOT use parallax mapping. Been there, done that. I had no intention of repeating headaches with this project, so I edit tilesets for my purposes.
- The lag was happening during maps, not battles.
- Pc specs, I have no idea!
- I bought MV through Steam and the properties were set to always update. So, I assume that my current project is up to date?
- I would not know what steps to take to optimize my game. I figured optimizing is just...keeping the game clean as I go?

 

[Trihan]

I'm not aware of anyone else experiencing lag with the map quest plugin. Do you definitely have it in the right place in your plugin list as specified on yanfly.moe?

 

[Jeremiah Eastman]

So I don't use the map quest window but I do use one of yanflys that seems very similar. Yanflys map status window. I haven't spent much time tracking it down but I've seen times test playing where I would get pretty bad fps spiking only when the map status window was open. It would usually take a moment to start. I have only seen this with test play but there was one time one of my testers reported what I thought was the same issue, though I never was able to track it down to be sure.

The thing is I never, purposely, fixed it but it doesn't happen anymore. I tried removing my performance plugins just now but still could not replicate it. Being that it doesn't happen any more to me and both of our plugins are up to date there is a couple things that come to mind. First off I use MV version 1.6.2, do you use that one and are you sure you manually updated your project properly if it was updated from an older version? Another thing maybe, I know there was a period I had a couple yanfly plugins out of order, that could have been the cause so maybe check your order.

The only other thing I could think of is maybe there is another plugin causing issues, in my case, that I have since removed. Probably less likely that's your issue but thought I would bring it up. I hope you get your issue figured out, sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

 

[dopan]

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who responded. I haven't had the time to respond to anyone till now, and especially not until I found time today to delve into the guts of the matter with the lag. And the lag issue was, indeed, found. Firstly, I did have a common event that did not have a wait command, (I'm surprised that slipped by me!) but I also don't remember if I even still needed that common event. Further investigation is required for that, but the common event was not the culprit. I did as many of you suggested and turned off plugins. I began with turning off all of them that were not yanfly's and the problem persisted. I began to go through my common events (found some that did need cleaning, but they were not the issue). I was about to turn off Yanfly's plugins when I realized the lag issue was, indeed, one of Yanfly's. It was Yanfly's Map Quest Window plugin extension for Yanfly's Quest Journal. The lag was coming from when the on map Active Quest Window was displayed in the upper right hand corner. When turning it off, the lag problem disappeared. When tracking the current active quest, the lag returned with a vengeance.

I know a great deal of many people use these plugins, so I am at a loss if anyone else has noticed this problem. Both plugins are up to date, according to Yanfly's website, so I'm not sure if the problem is that my game isn't up to date or if, like Jeremiah Eastman suggested, the lag is only present in test play.

@Trihan - I do have parallel processes running in my game. I thought I had put a wait period of 6 frames in them, but at your suggestion I went back through and found one that did NOT have a wait period in there...Honestly, I don't remember why I even have the common event running and I'm going to have to go through and backtrack my thought processes on it. It might be a remnant left over from an earlier idea that missed a purge, or it was needed? Don't remember. However, after putting in a wait period I noticed the lag dropped, however I am still noticing issues. I think there seems to be a possible pattern when it drops, but this time lapse seems off sometimes.

@Jeremiah Eastman - I had no idea that test play would be laggy but it had no relation to a deployed game. That is so strange! I'm going to have to test that out.

@estriole - Oooh, I was dreading that part...I turned off all remainder of the plugins that were not Yanfly's, ran around on a couple of my maps, and was about to start turning off Yanfly's plugins when I realized where the lag issue was coming from...Yanfly Map Quest Window plugin...particularly, when the Quest window is active. It is killing my fps.

@Dopan - I was afraid this might be the case, I have Yanfly move routes on to simulate a living, breathing community that is always checking to update their positions. However, I found out today that that was not the case. The culprit was Yanfly's Map Quest Window plugin with the active quest window is on.

@Rugman - I did double check my parallel process events and found that I did have one that did not have a wait command, no idea why. Honestly, not sure why I needed it and wondering if its a left over remnant from something else, gonna have to investigate that further. The culprit however was Yanfly's Map Quest Window.

@SigmaSuccour - the lag was occurring on all maps, where my largest (grand outdoor landscapes) or my smallest (house interiors and small caves). I found out that the lag was coming from Yanfly's Map Quest Window extension for Yanfly's Quest Journal plugin. When the quest window was active in the top right hand corner of the screen, it would kill my FPS.
- the lag was sporadic, happening constantly but with no solid pattern with the FPS dropping at random numbers.
- I do NOT use parallax mapping. Been there, done that. I had no intention of repeating headaches with this project, so I edit tilesets for my purposes.
- The lag was happening during maps, not battles.
- Pc specs, I have no idea!
- I bought MV through Steam and the properties were set to always update. So, I assume that my current project is up to date?
- I would not know what steps to take to optimize my game. I figured optimizing is just...keeping the game clean as I go?

about the problem which i mentioned:

it might be possible that my "move route issue" was a combination of the mentionened Event ,its moveroute and the "battlemap-making-events" which SRPG (tacticalBasedStrategie_engine) uses while SRPG battle is active (which is turn based on map battle mode).. but i couldnt say that for sure and my lags ended when i took away the event with its neverending ,repeating Moveroute.. so i guessed that it could be related to your Issue..

However i am happy you found the trigger to your Issue and hope you can solve it for your project (by finding a way to fix the issue or use an alternative which doesnt make such problems)

like Jeremiah Eastman suggested, the lag is only present in test play.

-> or perhaps the problem doesnt appear outside of testplay in a finished game..
(in that case the issue is already solved i guess^^)

 

[OpenTangent]

Thank you @Guardinthena for pointing me in the right direction. For anyone else having these difficult to diagnose performance issues, the solution was to set the [Event Update] plugin parameter to "false" in the Map Quest Window plugin. I assume that option is mostly unnecessary anyway but in the rare case where it would have been useful a manual "RefreshActiveQuestWindow" plugin command call should suffice. I'm glad I didn't have to disable the plugin entirely.