Age of Conan

Originally posted by ladyattis

 

---

Originally posted by Thachsanh

---

Originally posted by ladyattis

 

Debugger in this case we really don't have one, because debuggers are interactive like GDB and the line, where you can setup breakpoints and check call stack data and the like. What our client programs have are loggers that take delta dumps (things that were last saved just before the interrupting state/operation) and with a simple network client sends it to the host server for analysis by the developers who can take the same states into the real debugger and run all the stuff related therein. Even though such loggers do take some memory, it's not enough to hog your CPU over the host program, not by a long shot. If it does, get another logger, because it's terribly designed.
-- Brede

---

It actually dump everything to console and redirect standard out to a file later on. Odd way to do a logger if you ask me. No idea why they didn't get a better one.

---

 

Yeah, that's why I don't like this logger at all if that analysis you got there is right. In theory, you'd just have the logger take a small segment of the operation at its state (n-1 usually...) and save that to a log file, then send that log file plus whatever was necessary to the devs, but nothing else. Okay, enough nerdfesting here. :-P

-- Brede

Combined with uncompressed textures, it really put a punding on the system.

---

Originally posted by Wharg0ul
Thachsanh, which beta versions have you paticipated in? Are you speculating, or speaking from personal experience, as I am?
And by the way, as of the day of the FP release, there was already a more stable, more advanced client version available. I would assume you would know this if you were in CB.
In fact, there are a few things you have said which leads me to believe that you are not in CB.
If that's the case, then you know a lot less than we do about the state of the game, and Funcom's testing habits.
If you are in CB, then spend some time reading, and educate yourself.

---

I don't doubt the QA team has a better client, but if they're a decent development team pulling off the last tested build (or even the last assumed 'nice' nightly build) from the svn repos would be dead easy and then compile the boy for us and patch. *geeks out* Hmmm, does geek out into Tortage? Sorry, I have to be silly about this because I think we're all taking games too seriously and that's scary.

-- Brede

well, some days (like today) cb testers will see three different client builds.

the core remains the same, but different shaders may be used from one build to another, for example.

According to Jason Stone's radio interview last week, they are still putting the polish on cheetah2 shaders, so they give us a set to test, performance drops because they are un-optimised (and thus worse than cheetah1 shaders), but a couple days later give us updated ones to test.

Performance can vary wildly from one build to another, depending on what they are working on at the moment.

From what I gather, the "gold" version of the client is using nicely optimised and smooth cheetah1 tech, while we continue to test the other things they really want to get in for launch day.

The OB client used for the stress test was very similar to the one they patched us to today for stress testing the euro servers. Once our test was done, they dropped the servers, and are updating us to the next build...for better or worse :P

Well, here's to hoping they get the shaders right, because there's not many shader languages that are forgiving on honest mistakes. >_>

Anyways, I think a good chunk of my own system lockups I can attribute to the client having issues with the network. I don't know exactly why because my ISP is fairly decent on latency and packet reception, so I'm just putting it up to network growing pains at FC's side. What I do notice about their client most of all: it's not multithreaded. How do I notice this? Even on my C2D CPU here it runs stable when I shunt it to one of the cores instead of trying to balance the load of the client across both of them. So, I wonder if FC has their Intel compiler handy, because I'd *love* for them to just make an Intel friendly version of the client right now (lol).

Also, I love the game so far, despite having issues with crashing in Tortage. The Herald of Xotli is like a cloth/magey version of the EQ2 Shadowknight. :)

-- Brede

P.S. Why do the guys only get the slave girl? I save her, but no hug is offered. Not even a cookie. :( *pouts*

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

 

the real problem is the memory and page file footprint, which grows and grows the longer you play. After 5 hours, it's over 600mb.

 

Combined with uncompressed textures, it really put a punding on the system.

Textures resides in Video card memory, not system memory. The memory usage of Age of Conan.exe jump right to about 750 ~ 800 MB right after you start the game.

Originally posted by miagisan

Solareus makes a great point here.

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/177041

 

the gold version, has never been tested.

What do you think will happen when you install the gold version and try to play.  It will patch.  Now you are using the current version.  All the gold version will do is get the bulk of the art assets and core engine to your computer.  Day 0 before you can play you will have to patch up to the current version with any (hopefully) bug fixes that are addressed between now and then.

Originally posted by ladyattis

Well, here's to hoping they get the shaders right, because there's not many shader languages that are forgiving on honest mistakes. >_>

Anyways, I think a good chunk of my own system lockups I can attribute to the client having issues with the network. I don't know exactly why because my ISP is fairly decent on latency and packet reception, so I'm just putting it up to network growing pains at FC's side. What I do notice about their client most of all: it's not multithreaded. How do I notice this? Even on my C2D CPU here it runs stable when I shunt it to one of the cores instead of trying to balance the load of the client across both of them. So, I wonder if FC has their Intel compiler handy, because I'd *love* for them to just make an Intel friendly version of the client right now (lol).

Also, I love the game so far, despite having issues with crashing in Tortage. The Herald of Xotli is like a cloth/magey version of the EQ2 Shadowknight. :)

-- Brede

Plus, the network issues you're having could very well be related to the nature of the stress test. They are intentionally limiting the zone instancing to force more players into an area than it is designed for. As one FC rep said, they're "packing 50,000 elephants into an elevator".

It could very well be that this old client version was specifically chosen to make this test possible.

HoX is fun, I have a little one that I play with once in a while.

Necromancer is a BLAST. Not only can you summon your own pets (and more than one at a time), but several of your spells have a chance to spawn more pets if they cause a fatality. You can end up with a small army.

Other than that I tend to stick to the soldier classes, my main being a conqueror, and I also have a DT that I'm quite fond of so far.

Hopefully they give you guys a real client to play with at some point, as a reward for this insanity they're putting you through.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Thachsanh, which beta versions have you paticipated in? Are you speculating, or speaking from personal experience, as I am?

And by the way, as of the day of the FP release, there was already a more stable, more advanced client version available. I would assume you would know this if you were in CB.

In fact, there are a few things you have said which leads me to believe that you are not in CB.

If that's the case, then you know a lot less than we do about the state of the game, and Funcom's testing habits.

If you are in CB, then spend some time reading, and educate yourself.

WTF are you talking about? The ClosedBeta and the Open were the same client version until they patched Open to .501 on launch .  They just pacthed Closed to .501 today.