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L2's performance

Pratt2112Pratt2112 Member UncommonPosts: 1,636

Hi all,

Just curious of something.

Is anyone else finding that Lineage 2's performance is getting worse and worse over time?

I originally played back during Prelude and, fairly steadily, up through the launch of GoD (which I wasn't a fan of, but that's another subject).

There's always been chop/lag in L2, especially due to the fact that they're using a game engine that was never intended for open, seamless worlds. But still, the game has always been quite playable, and you'd only really get the chop/lag when nearing chunk lines in the map, where it had to begin streaming in assets for the next chunk over, etc.

I'm noticing that since GoD's launch, the game's performance has been steadily deteriorating.

I just tried to play again earlier today and, forget it. It's utterly unplayable now. I literally watched my character stand there - in an empty location, with hardly anyone else around (ie. I wasn't in Dion, Gludio or Talking Island Village or anything like that) - and while standing still, the game would just keep freezing up, then un-freezing, then freezing up.. then un-freezing. It's basically the kind of lag I'd get while running through the game world, only worse, and it was happening while standing perfectly still. 

If I try to run, forget it. It freezes up for 5-6 seconds at a time, and the effect is that I'm warping around.

I'm on a plenty fast internet connection, and my hardware is far more than capable of running the game - certainly far better than what I was playing on back in the early days of the game, and I had very little trouble back then. 

So what's the story? Is this a known issue? Has NCSoft been doing anything to try and fix it?

I'd like to try and play again, but - no exaggeration - it's literally impossible to play with all the chop/freezing. 

It's as though when Shilien game back to mess things up, she took the game's performance out with it.

 

Comments

  • MikehaMikeha Member EpicPosts: 9,196
    I have no idea what going on with yours because I don't get any of that. To me its actually better because I remember the game use to crash a lot now I never get crashes. Its still choppy as always when in a crowded area but other then that its the same to me but more stable. I am on Chronos btw.
  • Pratt2112Pratt2112 Member UncommonPosts: 1,636
    Originally posted by Mikeha
    I have no idea what going on with yours because I don't get any of that. To me its actually better because I remember the game use to crash a lot now I never get crashes. Its still choppy as always when in a crowded area but other then that its the same to me but more stable. I am on Chronos btw.

    Same here.. My main characters are on Chronos.

    Though, I hopped over to Bartz to see if it might improve... but it's the same. No idea what's going on, but it's kind of a bummer. Would like to play again.

  • KabulozoKabulozo Member RarePosts: 932
    The game is very poorly optimized, GW2 in my laptop runs better than L2. L2 dev team hasn't changed the game source code in order to harness newer hardwares. As a result, newer games like GW2 run much better because they take the advantage of up to date hardware as L2 runs like dog poo.
  • MikehaMikeha Member EpicPosts: 9,196
    Originally posted by Pratt2112
    Originally posted by Mikeha
    I have no idea what going on with yours because I don't get any of that. To me its actually better because I remember the game use to crash a lot now I never get crashes. Its still choppy as always when in a crowded area but other then that its the same to me but more stable. I am on Chronos btw.

    Same here.. My main characters are on Chronos.

    Though, I hopped over to Bartz to see if it might improve... but it's the same. No idea what's going on, but it's kind of a bummer. Would like to play again.

     

     

    That is so weird. You might want to post this on the official forums to get a better answer.

  • MikehaMikeha Member EpicPosts: 9,196
    Originally posted by Kabulozo
    The game is very poorly optimized, GW2 in my laptop runs better than L2. L2 dev team hasn't changed the game source code in order to harness newer hardwares. As a result, newer games like GW2 run much better because they take the advantage of up to date hardware as L2 runs like dog poo.

     

     

    What server do you play on and whats your level / class?

  • KabulozoKabulozo Member RarePosts: 932
    Originally posted by Mikeha
    Originally posted by Kabulozo
    The game is very poorly optimized, GW2 in my laptop runs better than L2. L2 dev team hasn't changed the game source code in order to harness newer hardwares. As a result, newer games like GW2 run much better because they take the advantage of up to date hardware as L2 runs like dog poo.

     

     

    What server do you play on and whats your level / class?

    Played in Chronos until 2012 with a summoner up to level 95, nick Kraudete. I have given up the game and haven't logged in since then I ended forgeting my acc-password.

     

    Some players that currectly play both GW2 and L2 also agree with me, GW2 runs better in better hardwares than L2.

  • MikehaMikeha Member EpicPosts: 9,196
    Originally posted by Kabulozo
    Originally posted by Mikeha
    Originally posted by Kabulozo
    The game is very poorly optimized, GW2 in my laptop runs better than L2. L2 dev team hasn't changed the game source code in order to harness newer hardwares. As a result, newer games like GW2 run much better because they take the advantage of up to date hardware as L2 runs like dog poo.

     

     

    What server do you play on and whats your level / class?

    Played in Chronos until 2012 with a summoner up to level 95, nick Kraudete. I have given up the game and haven't logged in since then I ended forgeting my acc-password.

     

    Some players that currectly play both GW2 and L2 also agree with me, GW2 runs better in better hardwares

     

     

    95 toon in 2012? image

     

    Back on topic

    I own GW 2 also and yes it does run better but the OP is having a problem. I play the game every day and what he is getting is something that I never get. Nobody would be playing Lineage 2 if they were getting what he says he is getting. It would be all over the forums.

  • MikehaMikeha Member EpicPosts: 9,196

    Just made this video with everything on High Settings with 2X AA. I remember when I could not run the game with these settings.

     

    I have no idea what going on with the OP's game.

  • Panther2103Panther2103 Member EpicPosts: 5,768
    The game has always been relatively poor performing on my computers, I usually just attributed it to it being on the Unreal 2 engine, and it couldn't handle an MMORPG how it was optimized by ncsoft. But recently it's been a hell of a lot better for me than it used to be but I also didn't have the same computer. If anything some of the newer settings could be causing it like the depth of field or the new shadows? 
  • MikehaMikeha Member EpicPosts: 9,196
    Originally posted by Panther2103
    The game has always been relatively poor performing on my computers, I usually just attributed it to it being on the Unreal 2 engine, and it couldn't handle an MMORPG how it was optimized by ncsoft. But recently it's been a hell of a lot better for me than it used to be but I also didn't have the same computer. If anything some of the newer settings could be causing it like the depth of field or the new shadows? 

     

    Yea, his best bet is to post it in the Tech forums on the official site. Somebody may be having or had the same problem.

  • Octagon7711Octagon7711 Member LegendaryPosts: 9,000
    I haven't played since they had that big update to get players to return and added faster leveling at lower levels.  I always remember the game running pretty well. 

    "We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa      "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."  SR Covey

  • saurus123saurus123 Member UncommonPosts: 678

    l2 uses one core only

    thats why never pcs have problems running it

    i  saw big hit in perf when i moved from dual core to quad

  • ReizlaReizla Member RarePosts: 4,092
    Never heard of the problems OP is talking about with official servers (both NCWest as Innova). I did however have similar problems on NCWest during sieges and PvP because of cheaters using some kind of packaging tool that slows down everyone but them selfs, which is why I quit playing on NCWest servers (even when having a couple of boss jewels there)
  • Pratt2112Pratt2112 Member UncommonPosts: 1,636

    Hey all...

    So, because I know the game can run smoother than it was for me (seriously, it was bad lol), I decided to try a few things. I tried a VPN setup, like WTFast, which surprisingly, didn't help (or maybe it shouldn't be surprising? Anyway...).

    Tried defragging the hard-drive it was on, which is a Seagate Barracuda... It wasn't very fragmented, at all, so it kinda surprised me it didn't load/perform better on that, considering I've played the game on slower drives, and it worked better.

    Finally, I decided "screw it, I'll move it to my SSD" - which is usually reserved for more "mission critical" stuff, and other non-MMO games. 

    Well, that seems to have been the thing it needed, because the performance smoothed out *a lot*. So, I guess maybe L2 just doesn't play well with the Barracuda's setup? I know there's some weird technology Seagate uses in those drives, so maybe that's something to do with it? No idea, I'm knowledgable about computers.. but not that knowledgable :p.

    In any case, here's a quick vid of me running around in Dion a little bit...

    Now, to just figure out what I want to do in-game. I'm in that initial "just came back to game, and have to get up to speed with everything again, then decide what to do..." mode right now.  I'm thinking maybe I'll switch my DE here to their Tyrant sub and have some fun with that.

     

  • txhorns23txhorns23 Member Posts: 2
    Originally posted by Pratt2112

    Hey all...

    So, because I know the game can run smoother than it was for me (seriously, it was bad lol), I decided to try a few things. I tried a VPN setup, like WTFast, which surprisingly, didn't help (or maybe it shouldn't be surprising? Anyway...).

    Tried defragging the hard-drive it was on, which is a Seagate Barracuda... It wasn't very fragmented, at all, so it kinda surprised me it didn't load/perform better on that, considering I've played the game on slower drives, and it worked better.

    Finally, I decided "screw it, I'll move it to my SSD" - which is usually reserved for more "mission critical" stuff, and other non-MMO games. 

    Well, that seems to have been the thing it needed, because the performance smoothed out *a lot*. So, I guess maybe L2 just doesn't play well with the Barracuda's setup? I know there's some weird technology Seagate uses in those drives, so maybe that's something to do with it? No idea, I'm knowledgable about computers.. but not that knowledgable :p.

    In any case, here's a quick vid of me running around in Dion a little bit...

    Now, to just figure out what I want to do in-game. I'm in that initial "just came back to game, and have to get up to speed with everything again, then decide what to do..." mode right now.  I'm thinking maybe I'll switch my DE here to their Tyrant sub and have some fun with that.

     

     

    That nostalgic Dion music tho...iirc Lineage 2 has always run better on an SSD rather than HDD. If you want better fps, especially in crowded areas and during seiges, i'd invest in an ssd for sure. 

  • RavenRaven Member UncommonPosts: 2,005

    L2 suffers from really poor asset loading performance, it is constantly loading and unloading terrain/zone data, the engine is also single threaded which exacerbates this problem further.

    With that in mind, putting the game on an SSD is the biggest gain you can get as someone has said, because you will pretty much optimize the biggest bottleneck, asset loading.

    image

  • Leon1eLeon1e Member UncommonPosts: 791

    OP you need an SSD or RAID 0 HDDs. The game is plagued by I/O seeks ever since it came out. The Unreal Engine 2 uses more hard drive IO rather than RAM (when L2 launched 1gb ram was luxury). 

    Your performance will fly up once you get faster hard drives. SSD being the best option. 

    Edit: Just saw you placed it on your SSD partition. Yeah. Regular hard drives can't keep up to L2's file seek. Even velociraptors (10k RPM HDDs) struggle. L2 does a lot of small reads which is absolutely terrible for single mechanical drive that serves IO to the underlying OS as well. There is no asynchronous load whatsoever, something every new game uses to mitigate the read issue. Which results loading into incomplete scene on slower hardware. I'm sure you can relate. 

  • Pratt2112Pratt2112 Member UncommonPosts: 1,636
    Originally posted by Leon1e

    OP you need an SSD or RAID 0 HDDs. The game is plagued by I/O seeks ever since it came out. The Unreal Engine 2 uses more hard drive IO rather than RAM (when L2 launched 1gb ram was luxury). 

    Your performance will fly up once you get faster hard drives. SSD being the best option. 

    Edit: Just saw you placed it on your SSD partition. Yeah. Regular hard drives can't keep up to L2's file seek. Even velociraptors (10k RPM HDDs) struggle. L2 does a lot of small reads which is absolutely terrible for single mechanical drive that serves IO to the underlying OS as well. There is no asynchronous load whatsoever, something every new game uses to mitigate the read issue. Which results loading into incomplete scene on slower hardware. I'm sure you can relate. 

    Yep. The difference was night and day once it was on the SSD.

    It's just so odd, because I played it almost non-stop for over 4 years, on much older hardware, certainly not a SSD, and not even a higher RPM platter drive, and I remember there being lag when getting near chunk lines, or coming into really populated spots. But I don't remember it ever being as unplayable as it was when I came back this last time.

    Either way, it's all good now.

    I've since settled back into game, started a small clan of my own and am thinking on how I want to develop it. Don't want to get huge, but will likely try to keep it smaller, modeled after the first clan I joined way back in the early Chronicles. Those people became good, long-time friends, and I'm still friends with a few of them to this day. The larger clans I've joined since were nice, in terms of having more numbers, but lost a lot of that sorta close, tight-knit feel of the first one. We were primarily PvE and didn't tend to go looking for fights, but we never backed down from them, either.

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