Omen - Ace Threat Meter - Page 4

aurae · 05/30/07, 9:31 AM

Originally Posted by nuno

As an aside from the original conversation..

Although technically inclined, I'm far from a LUA/WoW modding expert I see many people just as ignorant as myself constantly asserting ACE USE LESS MEMORY and I'm pretty sick of it. Just because something was written with a certain framework doesn't make it the second coming. "Ace'd" isn't a guarantee of good design, just as "Modular" doesn't mean more efficient (a basic paradigm in industrial design, for example).

This forum prides itself on proper theorycraft, and when a mechanic is put into question, it is tested and the tests put up for public scrutiny. When is the same standard going to be held up for mod discussion?

No but what it does mean is that every mod doesn't have to (re)write the same small pieces of code & functionality over and over again, thereby consuming memory, increasing load times and increasing the chance of bugs in the process.

Modularity and resuability in software are almost always good things.

Umph · 05/30/07, 9:33 AM

Originally Posted by nuno

Although technically inclined, I'm far from a LUA/WoW modding expert I see many people just as ignorant as myself constantly asserting ACE USE LESS MEMORY and I'm pretty sick of it. Just because something was written with a certain framework doesn't make it the second coming. "Ace'd" isn't a guarantee of good design, just as "Modular" doesn't mean more efficient (a basic paradigm in industrial design, for example).

They honestly do use less memory, provided you are using standalone libraries instead of running with Ace mods that come with the libraries bundled. When mods can call upon a library of pre-loaded functions instead of having to have their own, you create a situation whereby the more addons you have that utilize these functions instead of including their own implementations, the more efficient your UI is with its memory usage. Empirical testing also confirms that Ace uses less memory, although take that with a grain of salt because we cannot guarantee the quality of the addons in use prior to ace

.

I agree that simply using the framework doesn't guarantee that the Addon will be efficient or well coded.

Edit: Beaten.

Wobin · 05/30/07, 9:50 AM

Originally Posted by nuno

Although technically inclined, I'm far from a LUA/WoW modding expert I see many people just as ignorant as myself constantly asserting ACE USE LESS MEMORY and I'm pretty sick of it. Just because something was written with a certain framework doesn't make it the second coming. "Ace'd" isn't a guarantee of good design, just as "Modular" doesn't mean more efficient (a basic paradigm in industrial design, for example).

I have to agree. The problem is that all this terminology is being applied without thought, merely because of the Ace relationship.

Yes, modular code can be more efficient

Yes, addons that use the Ace framework properly can assist in more efficient addons, due to shared resources.

However, this is all cause and effect. The efficiency is -aided- by the fact that the shared resources are there, but just because an addon uses the framework doesn't mean it 1) uses it to the full effect 2) is written well.

I've seen many Ace mods that use maybe one or two features of a library, but ignore the rest, perhaps because the function of the addon is limited. But this is a huge waste of resources. If, for example, all you're doing is tracking a single event, then using AceEvent over a self coded solution is overkill. Sure, you may be sharing that resource with other addons, but that's not good design/coding, if you're -depending- on the user to have other mods to validate your choice.

So basically, take the moniker of being 'Ace'd with a grain of salt. The addon may not be well coded, or use the framework to the fullest extent. There will most likely be other non-ace mods that do the same that are better written.

With the SVN available we -do- try and make our code better. That's what the public SVN is there for, aside from distribution. It's to expose our code to other people so they can suggest modifications to make it work better. It's been the cause of a whole lot of collaborations that might never have happened, merely because someone noticed an addon they found interesting and made suggestions to improve it.

On a completely unrelated note, the WAU and files.wowace.com make updating ace addons incredibly easy, which may factor towards your choices.

In the end it's always about what addons you choose yourself, but please, try not to glamourise one over another due to it's framework, tout it for it's efficiency, for how well it's written, it's good use of resources etc.

Originally, Ace was a philosophy that writing better more efficient code made for better addons, and unfortunately this focus has fallen to the wayside due to misunderstandings about how things are applied. =(

◊ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 9:52 AM

I don't think anyone is seriously disagreeing with the above, nor does it need to be repeated.

If someone thinks that Ace is automatically superior to non-Ace by default, or that "Ace'ing" KTM would magically make it better or faster or less resource-intensive, they're an idiot.

But I don't really see people saying that here. Let's talk about Omen, not Ace2.

Imba · 05/30/07, 10:10 AM

Really nice idea! Thumbs up!

Few days ago i discovered that Ace addons are the true thing! I can't live without some addons and Ace helped to up my performance a bit, but i still want more

have ~40 fps during rush hours so this is offtopic question, how do you check in game what mods use most CPU time and other resources?

About Threat meter, haven't read all of the replies, but my idea was to also make a FuBar compatible

Wobin · 05/30/07, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by Imba

how do you check in game what mods use most CPU time and other resources?

You can use FuBar_PerformanceFu.

Athinira · 05/30/07, 10:23 AM

He got the druid threat modifier for Cat Form inccorect. In the Lua file its 0.79 (-21%) while its in fact 0.71 (-29%) like rogues. I messaged him about this just now to get it corrected. Until then, Druids in Cat Form using this mod will generate more threat than the mod suggests.

Malan · 05/30/07, 10:26 AM

I did notice something a little odd for shaman. I went out and earthshocked a mob and the threat did not equal the damage done. (thread modifier for shaman on earth shock was removed and added to frost shock) It wasn't like it was having a large threat modifier added to it, but the threat and the dmg done by the shock did not equate, they were something like 50-100 off.

Kruthal · 05/30/07, 10:32 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

I did notice something a little odd for shaman. I went out and earthshocked a mob and the threat did not equal the damage done. (thread modifier for shaman on earth shock was removed and added to frost shock) It wasn't like it was having a large threat modifier added to it, but the threat and the dmg done by the shock did not equate, they were something like 50-100 off.

Some exact numbers would likely be a lot better

. If the difference wasn't big, l I'd venture a guess that the addon is applying Spirit Weapons to all damage you do, not just melee damage?

Cel · 05/30/07, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Shadowed

Care to provide your facts then? Specifically...events you profiled, functions you profiled, when you profiled it (start/middle/end of combat) along with what method of profiling did you use, were you using a mod that used the new CPU profiling or did it guess it itself. And no "It feels faster" or "It uses less memory" is not a valid answer.

If i'm wrong then i'd like to see the facts to prove it, but updating once every 5 seconds is faster then updating 4 times every 5 seconds, the only time it wouldn't be is during a fight where you have long periods of no combat, which is rather rare and could be solved by disabling polling as soon as you stop seeing messages after 20-25 seconds.

I'm a rogue, my FPS jumped up noticeably during the raid when I installed Omen and uninstalled KTM. Might have been a coincidence, but I'm not gonna complain.

Tasonir · 05/30/07, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by Athinira

He got the druid threat modifier for Cat Form inccorect. In the Lua file its 0.79 (-21%) while its in fact 0.71 (-29%) like rogues. I messaged him about this just now to get it corrected. Until then, Druids in Cat Form using this mod will generate more threat than the mod suggests.

Don't you mean they are actually generating LESS threat than the mod suggests? I suppose it would be meaningless once it's updated, but would be nice to know

Malan · 05/30/07, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by Kruthal

Some exact numbers would likely be a lot better

. If the difference wasn't big, l I'd venture a guess that the addon is applying Spirit Weapons to all damage you do, not just melee damage?

Yah sorry that was last night and I just posted this from work

But yah it wasn't a large gap, so a 15% modifier from spirit weapon might have done it.

Harem · 05/30/07, 10:58 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a simply Ace'd KTM be better than a non-Ace'd version, assuming you are already using a certain number of Ace mods? For example, just using ParserLib to get the events to act upon rather than redundantly parsing itself?

funkydude · 05/30/07, 11:10 AM

as a BigWigs moderator i don't think it would be a good idea to have it handle Omen's threat abilities, BigWigs doesn't even register most of those as it has no reason to. In the most cases, for example at Leotheras demon phase theres a yell on phase shift, BigWigs registers this for the Demon phase timers but it can also be registered for a threat clear, again BigWigs registering this is not useful to Omen in this situation, as its not synced(we don't sync yells)

In the very rare case where a boss ability is synced, and that same ability clears agro, im sure omen could implement a simple module to pick up BigWigs syncs for that as an additional bonus

Humbaba · 05/30/07, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

I did notice something a little odd for shaman. I went out and earthshocked a mob and the threat did not equal the damage done. (thread modifier for shaman on earth shock was removed and added to frost shock) It wasn't like it was having a large threat modifier added to it, but the threat and the dmg done by the shock did not equate, they were something like 50-100 off.

Do you have elemental precision?

Wobin · 05/30/07, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by Harem

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a simply Ace'd KTM be better than a non-Ace'd version, assuming you are already using a certain number of Ace mods? For example, just using ParserLib to get the events to act upon rather than redundantly parsing itself?

True, but that's assuming you're already using Ace mods that use ParserLib.

Which you might not be.

Imba · 05/30/07, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by Wobin

You can use FuBar_PerformanceFu.

think, found what i needed, but can it be that FuBar it self is using the most CPU? KTM goes after that... can it be that FuBar sucks that much of CPU becouse im trying to see CPU usage?

Athinira · 05/30/07, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by Tasonir

Don't you mean they are actually generating LESS threat than the mod suggests? I suppose it would be meaningless once it's updated, but would be nice to know

Uh yes, my bad. It means druids are generating less threat than the mod suggests :P

Wobin · 05/30/07, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Imba

think, found what i needed, but can it be that FuBar it self is using the most CPU? KTM goes after that... can it be that FuBar sucks that much of CPU becouse im trying to see CPU usage?

Pretty much, yeah =) Since it's being funneled through FuBar, FuBar shows up pretty high on the list

Athinira · 05/30/07, 11:43 AM

Antiarc.

I was thinking about the problem with mobs of same
name. I was thinking, is it possible to implement threat for more mobs of the same name by using and checking the raid mark icons? This of course implies that icons aren't changed during combat, however it can still be considered a possibility.

◊ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by Athinira

Antiarc.

I was thinking about the problem with mobs of same
name. I was thinking, is it possible to implement threat for more mobs of the same name by using and checking the raid mark icons? This of course implies that icons aren't changed during combat, however it can still be considered a possibility.

No, because all that any threatmeter has to work with is the combat log.

Your Fireball hits Lair Brute for 2500.

There are two Lair Brutes in the pull. Which did you just nuke? You can certainly distinguish between two different mobs for other purposes, but not when parsing a combat log.

Malan · 05/30/07, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by Humbaba

Do you have elemental precision?

No I don't have any points in elemental.

Gurruk · 05/30/07, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

No, because all that any threatmeter has to work with is the combat log.

Your Fireball hits Lair Brute for 2500.

There are two Lair Brutes in the pull. Which did you just nuke? You can certainly distinguish between two different mobs for other purposes, but not when parsing a combat log.

I wonder if Slouken could add to the combat log:

Your Fireball hits Lair Brute (Skull) for 2500.

◊ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 12:03 PM

That seems clunky. It really just boils down to a question of how much Blizzard wants to help the playerbase make mods like these.

I have no doubt that each mob has a unique identifier that isn't displayed but which is known serverside. If they wanted, they could make these unique IDs known to the client via an invisible combat log channel for use by addons, kind of like how they added invisible chat channels for addon communication. But I think that Blizzard may want to continue to obfuscate some elements like this.

Gurruk · 05/30/07, 12:10 PM

Maybe so.

However, someone with mod credibility could ask and see what he says. It would make targeting mods, threat mods, and other mods much easier to make and take a ton of guess work out of what's happening in a fight.