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SWR Productions Forum _ Rise of the Reds _ Unit Limit

Posted by: Craptastic 12 Feb 2018, 1:23

Hi there, first of all I really love this mod: Generals was one of my favorite games that I grew up on, and this mod keeps it fresh for me.

So lately I've given up ROTR because the game gets so laggy to the point where it becomes unplayable: i.e. units will freeze at point A and not move after telling them to go to point B

Here is some general information:

I am running the game as administrator
I am using Windows XP service pack 3 (for compatibility)
My options.ini looks to be correct
I notice this happens in both Vanilla, and ROTR maps.

I don't think this is a bug with ROTR, since (from what I read) people said there was a unit/object threshold limit. My main question is whether or not this is true, or if there is something I am forgetting to do. Also, I doubt this is a hardware performance related issue since I have a more than capable CPU and GPU (and 16GB of RAM).

Posted by: Jakato 12 Feb 2018, 2:25

As far as I know, Generals runs on a single thread and is CPU intensive and not GPU intensive. So if you have a powerful PC but the power is spread across several cores, that could be a problem.

Posted by: NikCaputnic 12 Feb 2018, 6:57

You are correct: it is not ROTR's problem. Neither of your PC. It is a common hardcoded "unpleasant feature" of SAGE, which have been around since the original Generals: when a total object count on the map reaches a certain point (can't remember the exact numbers), the engine bugs out and freezes all mowement except with flying locomotor.
Since you are using mods, you may encounter it more often, because mods' AI usually use more units than in vanilla. You may also encounter that while playing on very detailed maps.

Posted by: Jakato 12 Feb 2018, 15:09

I'm wondering how many units are being used in these matches?

I consider my armies of ~50 units massive. Obviously I have other units for guarding my base but they are far less than 50 units for defense. This is for PvE, 2v2.

Posted by: X1Destroy 13 Feb 2018, 4:24

The object counts included tree, civilian buildings and units as well as yours. Up to more than a hundred and it will be a bit buggy. About 2500 and above, shits stop moving. There is a reason why you don't see extremely high detail maps with lots of trees or civilian props that often.

Posted by: Skitt 13 Feb 2018, 10:36

It will still run at 4000 objects though extremely poorly. WB throws a warning and hard blocks any placement on a map over 3000 objects.

however out of curiosity whats your cpu?
generals relys on single core power rather than multicore. doesn't matter how good your cpu is overall if its single core power is shocking. for eg theres some I3 cpus better at single core performance than i7's and i9's.

Posted by: H3adSh00t 13 Feb 2018, 11:10

So better start spamming Red Guards and Volunteers and hope the enemy crashes!

Posted by: Alpha Sinister 13 Feb 2018, 23:38

I'm thinking there should be a population cap to limit the amount of units in the map, very much alike other RTS games like warcraft and company of heroes. That's an effective way to reduce lags and the freezing units problem.

Posted by: X1Destroy 14 Feb 2018, 5:00

That's not gonna happen without changing the game entirely from the ground. China especially would have most of its stuffs gone, since it's all about throwing the biggest amount of inferior units as fast as possible via optimized productions. And no, even if you make ten battlemasters cost the same pop as 2 Overlords or 20 hoppers they still won't be equal.

Posted by: Mizo 14 Feb 2018, 12:00

It's not even the amount of units only, but rather most Art Models here have a high number of polygons compared to the original/other mods ,, hence why the lag.

Posted by: Craptastic 15 Feb 2018, 6:33

Alright, for those wondering what my specs are:

Ryzen 5 1600 @ 3.8ghz
GTX 1070ti SC (stock)
16gb Trident Z RAM @ 3200

I turned the resolution up to the highest, max detail, and my CPU wasn't under heavy load

The freezing occurs only on 4v4 maps (two teams of 4). I can have an 8-player free for all, no problem, so I think whats happening is that the maps were designed so that the CPU player doesn't attack unless an enemy is within a certain range, thus troop hoarding is occurring at the home bases.
I used to have an older computer with a dated FX processor and it ran the vanilla version fine (4v4), so I think that this maybe a map design flaw rather than an actual bug.

This freezing occurs on both vanilla and ROTR maps.

Also, what I left out, is that I have starting $$$ set to max (im here to have fun right?), so maybe this an issue as well.

I will turn the detail down, and set the $$$ to 10k and see what happens and report back.

Posted by: Craptastic 15 Feb 2018, 6:52

Edit: Turning down detail and starting $$ did not help

Posted by: X1Destroy 15 Feb 2018, 7:25

Maps with bridges, river and tight chokepoint is pretty damning for AI pathfindings. Also, vanilla Hard AI is ki da brain dead compared to ROTR 1.87 AI.

Posted by: Skitt 15 Feb 2018, 8:39

how stable is the fps on 2 player and 4 player maps?

and what 8 P maps did you test some of the 8 P ones are laggy buggy messes

Posted by: ZunZero97 17 Feb 2018, 17:41

SAGE's bad coding.