Interface Performance Profiling and Optimization

Moogul · 01/08/08, 10:05 AM

For a long while now I've been using an entirely custom interface, and it obviously improves my gameplay a huge amount. However, recently I've noticed that my load times are getting longer and longer, and loading into the game world for the first time can take a huge amount of time, that it certainly never used to.

I cannot be sure, but I think that it is likely that at least one or more addons are contributing to this load time. I remember there used to be a mod called 'Warmup' that would track load times for all your addons, but the only version I managed to find it is outdated and doesn't seem to work any more.

Does anyone have a good way to track load in times for mods? I've found plenty of tools for checking memory usage and processor usage, but that's not really the problem - once I'm *in* game, the whole thing plays very smoothly, and I have plenty of memory so that's never an issue. It's just the load-in times that are annoying.

That said, if anyone else has any tips for how to go about optimizing your interface in terms of performance profiling, whether it's load times, memory usage, or whatever, I'd be interested to hear.

Malan · 01/08/08, 10:09 AM

Reduce the use of mods that store large databases such as Auctioneer, any dmg meter mod thats storing obscene amounts of data (sw stats holy crap).

Mikari · 01/08/08, 10:16 AM

You may be able to speed up initial game load, model loading and zoning times by starting up Windows Media Player before you start WoW.

It would take about 30 seconds from clicking enter world to actually having the game load with another 5-6 seconds for models to load without WMP loaded, with WMP loaded it only took 8 seconds to enter world with models appearing instantly, no idea why it works, probably a funky bug with WoW.

Suesse · 01/08/08, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by Mikari

probably a funky bug with WoW.

It sounds more like it modifies Windows' scheduler or some other resource allocation mechanism, but I don't know for certain.

Mikari · 01/08/08, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by Suesse

It sounds more like it modifies Windows' scheduler or some other resource allocation mechanism, but I don't know for certain.

Seems that Blizzard are working on a fix anyhow.

From the tech support forums.

The draw times on those items are usually server-based but that seems a bit too long to be right. Try running Windows Media Player before starting up the game and see if it makes a difference.

LOL datth... you guys are officially suggesting WMP now? :P

When weird things occur and a fix is being implemented in a future patch, sure why not

Episkey · 01/08/08, 12:21 PM

If you're using Ace mods, I suggest using stand alone libraries to reduce the initial loading screen time.

Moogul · 01/08/08, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Episkey

If you're using Ace mods, I suggest using stand alone libraries to reduce the initial loading screen time.

Thanks, but I've been using Stand alones for months.

Malan, talking about damage meters storing data is a good point - I run recount, which (as far as I know) stores a pretty obscene amount of data. Is there a way as far as anyone knows for it to delete all data on shutdown, and so never load old data when I fire up WoW?

Liebestod · 01/15/08, 9:01 PM

Originally Posted by Episkey

If you're using Ace mods, I suggest using stand alone libraries to reduce the initial loading screen time.

Could you elaborate?

Lately my mods have been causing me trouble, I believe. My framerate has been roughly halved, which I can live with... the real problem is that I think they're affecting my latency. I'd be content with the 300-400 ms range but lately it's been in the 700-800 ms range, which is really really bad. I've also encountered, for the first time, loading issues... where if I'm in a raid or even by the raid after I've been kicked, my game will not reliably load at all. These problems have only appeared recently, however, and a few of the mods I've just installed are:

Ora2
Grid (with some misc plugins)
Clique

Before that, I've had the standard Auctioneer, Titan, DBM, Omen mods. It also seems like there's a memory leak somewhere since the "increasing memory use" indicator is always significantly positive.

Any advice on what I could do to streamline these mods would be appreciated. A lot of them are what I'd consider essential and the non-essential ones have been disabled... I'm starting to become somewhat frustrated.

Luxus · 01/15/08, 9:43 PM

please do a simple thing.. start windows media player 11 and then start wow and tell me if it is running better

Ragnor · 01/15/08, 10:26 PM

Install AddonLoader AddonLoader - WowAce Wiki (from files.wowace.com or via WAU) which delays loading of many popular addons until they are needed so they don't all load at 1st login.

Shadowed · 01/15/08, 11:01 PM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

Could you elaborate?

Lately my mods have been causing me trouble, I believe. My framerate has been roughly halved, which I can live with... the real problem is that I think they're affecting my latency. I'd be content with the 300-400 ms range but lately it's been in the 700-800 ms range, which is really really bad. I've also encountered, for the first time, loading issues... where if I'm in a raid or even by the raid after I've been kicked, my game will not reliably load at all. These problems have only appeared recently, however, and a few of the mods I've just installed are:

Ora2
Grid (with some misc plugins)
Clique

Before that, I've had the standard Auctioneer, Titan, DBM, Omen mods. It also seems like there's a memory leak somewhere since the "increasing memory use" indicator is always significantly positive.

Any advice on what I could do to streamline these mods would be appreciated. A lot of them are what I'd consider essential and the non-essential ones have been disabled... I'm starting to become somewhat frustrated.

Addons will never increase your latency by that much, maybe you could see a tiny increase for things that have to do a lot of syncing but doubling it is pretty much impossible.

Bullshot · 01/16/08, 1:29 AM

Patch 2.3 Test Realm Notes: World of Warcraft Europe -> Info -> Test Realm

Loading times have been improved slightly for characters newly entering the world.

Seems like Blizzard is trying to improve things on their end, but if this fix is as effective as the nagle-disabling fix of 2.3.2, I wouldn't hold my breath.

zork · 01/16/08, 2:56 AM

Originally Posted by Moogul

For a long while now I've been using an entirely custom interface, and it obviously improves my gameplay a huge amount. However, recently I've noticed that my load times are getting longer and longer, and loading into the game world for the first time can take a huge amount of time, that it certainly never used to.

I cannot be sure, but I think that it is likely that at least one or more addons are contributing to this load time. I remember there used to be a mod called 'Warmup' that would track load times for all your addons, but the only version I managed to find it is outdated and doesn't seem to work any more.

Does anyone have a good way to track load in times for mods? I've found plenty of tools for checking memory usage and processor usage, but that's not really the problem - once I'm *in* game, the whole thing plays very smoothly, and I have plenty of memory so that's never an issue. It's just the load-in times that are annoying.

That said, if anyone else has any tips for how to go about optimizing your interface in terms of performance profiling, whether it's load times, memory usage, or whatever, I'd be interested to hear.

Try to delete the Cache folder

. It helps to clean it sometimes.

Liebestod · 01/16/08, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by Shadowed

Addons will never increase your latency by that much, maybe you could see a tiny increase for things that have to do a lot of syncing but doubling it is pretty much impossible.

Yea, I guess it might have been my connection recently, though it did seem to vary between whether I was on a character using mods or not. Oh well.

In any case, the framerate issue is definitely there, though I've made some strides in that regard.

I just remember that pre-TBC, someone made a mod that cut down on loading times drastically, I guess the idea was that it made the client ignore combat data that was coming in while you were loading... this seems to be the major reason for load issues, I think. But I forgot its name and I kinda doubt it's still important to have for TBC. But maybe there are other mods that serve the same purpose - reducing loading times.

Shadowed · 01/16/08, 6:10 PM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

Yea, I guess it might have been my connection recently, though it did seem to vary between whether I was on a character using mods or not. Oh well.

In any case, the framerate issue is definitely there, though I've made some strides in that regard.

I just remember that pre-TBC, someone made a mod that cut down on loading times drastically, I guess the idea was that it made the client ignore combat data that was coming in while you were loading... this seems to be the major reason for load issues, I think. But I forgot its name and I kinda doubt it's still important to have for TBC. But maybe there are other mods that serve the same purpose - reducing loading times.

It's been a while so I can't recall the exacts, but there was a list of events that fired while you were zoning into an instance things like bag slots and so on, what the mod did was unregister all of them when you started to zone out, then registered them once you finished zoning which lead to a speed up. This was then added into the game in around 2.0.0-2.0.3.