[Resolved] Blackout of the map when switching out of game

[ushas]

(v15, linux)
After switching from and back to the game by Alt+Tab it can happen that the map disappears. I see only the interface and black background, cannot get the map back. So it's reload. This didn't happen to me in v14 at all. And in v15 not with every map but often. Possibly os specific. I'm not aware any graphical settings influencing this so far.
 
Here comes a clue, not sure if false or true:
As said before some maps report to me as 'BattleScene' when the m key is used (one of them was DowntownMed4). It seems that those are the ones I get the blackout from. Which is statistically unfounded claim, and doesn't happen every time.

[Daithi]

Thanks, I'll try to recreate. That sounds like a possible problem with Unity. I've heard about some issues with textures being blacked out in the current version of Unity. If time allows, will update Unity in this version.

[ushas]

Ah, I didn't realized you're also updating Unity with the builds. Good luck then!
The game continues to play, so yeah definitely just textures, but not the interface ones.

[Daithi]

I don't update very often, as it's time consuming, but there's a bug with textures in the current version, and they are claiming performance improvements and there are some new visual upgrades with 5.6, which is the last major release in this cycle. This will probably be the last engine update for Vigilantes. What you described sounds like an engine issue, so the hope was that upgrading may resolve it. If you get a chance to look at V16, please let me know if this has fixed it.

[ushas]

ok

yeah performance of Unity based games...

Do you think this upgrade will also help to make camera controls reacting faster?
(especially scrolling is extremely slow when zoomed out)

[Daithi]

Is the issue with the speed at which the camera reacts, or the movement speed itself, or both? Movement or rotation? Delay likely relates to how it's coded - I'll take a look at this. I don't think the slow scroll speed when zoomed out is linked to performance - the move speed should be constant, likely the increased distance creates the perception of it being slow. Is a while since I worked on camera code - this can likely be fixed easily though.

Mind me asking what sort of FPS you're getting, and your hardware?

[ushas]

Ok, since I've already derailed this thread (feel free to move):

I think on the battle fps are 20/30+, depends, will try to pay attention more. But, hm, centering works much faster when the unit is more far away, so perhaps this isn't peformance related at all, indeed.

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9300, 2.50GHz×4
GeForce GTX 750 Ti, linux nvidia drivers
8GB memory

So in case it's not Unity related and can be improved:
- reaction times of all commands not only camera are too slow
(meaning the time from giving an order to when something starts to happen)
- scrolling itself at all zoom levels is really slow
- in case there is constant distance by which it scrolls, this needs to scale too when zooming in/out
- zooming / 45deg rotation could also benefit from speed up

There are a whole bunch of delays which could benefit from trimming, but don't relate to camera -> I can try open a new thread and pinpoint some of it later with v16, if you think it would be useful. But it's really hard for me to understand what's going on and what's feasible. For example, when an enemy unit gets a turn you watch a unit highlighting to go around a whole circle before anythings at all starts happening. I don't know if calculations take so long or it's deliberate.

[Daithi]

Thanks for info. I'd guess it's the CPU that's causing the bottleneck - the 750 TI is fairly modern, and should be capable of 60FPS. Any chance you could screenshot your settings?

Sure, do that, and if there are any levels which are slower than others, flag them and I'll see what can be done. Worth keeping in mind that night missions are more demanding because of the additional lighting. Some of the delays are unavoidable - some are required for timing animation/input/etc, whereas the one you described at the start of an enemy's turn is the AI figuring out what to do for the turn - it has to process a very large amount of data to make a decision.

[ushas]

Turned on the FPS indicator. So far, after some juggling with settings, for example on the night Suburbs1 map, when I put Lightning Quality to Low and turn HBAO OFF it's 60fps zoomed in, 30+ zoomed out. If I turn those to High and ON, it's 30+ and 25+, respectively. Other options don't seem to matter so much, but I didn't try every combination. Scrolling seems just drop it few points very shortly. I'm not sure whether this is useful for anything, as Player.log reports that some things don't work or are turned off for this platform, so it may be different on win or mac.

[Daithi]

I'm going to mark this one as resolved - it's 99% an engine issue, so won't be able to do anything with it, since the update failed. Have split the lighting issue into a separate thread, and will work on that.

[ushas]

I usually do other stuff when playing so it isn't probable I wouldn't alt+tab from the game during a mission when playing v14. And I don't remember this happening with v14 at all on the same maps (by this I mean the camera stopped showing the scene when alt+tabbing). Then do I understand it right that you did some engine upgrade between v14 and v15 and that is the cause of the issue?

Also not sure if it relates to anything, but in case: does the game use the fullscreen mode or the borderless one?

[Daithi]

Is it happening all the time now? No, the engine upgrade was attempted and then rolled back in V16. At a guess though, it might be related to the visual improvements and the shaders being used. I'll add in shortcuts to allow you to switch off the shaders, see if that helps.