GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

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Contrary to popular belief, we are not all-knowing-all-seeing magical beings!

If you want help you're going to have to provide lots of info. Like what is your hardware, what is your operating system, what version of GZDoom/LZDoom/whatever you're using, what mods you're loading, how you're loading it, what you've already tried for fixing the problem, and anything else that is even remotely relevant to the problem.

We can't magically figure out what it is if you're going to be vague, and if we feel like you're just wasting our time with guessing games we will act like that's what you're really doing and won't help you.
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whirledtsar
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GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by whirledtsar »

So I woke up today and GZDoom (both 3.1 and 3.3.2) has suddenly started to lag hard on every startup. Sound will play, but it won't register any commands. It takes about 5 seconds for it to start responding normally. And this isn't on the loading screen, it's in the menu after loading (or on the map if I launch straight to a map). This happens with seemingly any wad.

I didn't change any settings in the program; the only change in my computer between yesterday and today was a Windows update, so I suspect that's the cause. Using Windows 10.
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Rachael
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Rachael »

The Windows Update may have done it, but it's a very important one for security purposes. Lately updates, especially kernel updates such as what OS vendors have been releasing, have been doing more to address the "spectre" vulnerability, which unfortunately comes at the cost of performance.

While I am not 100% positive that this is the case here, it's an almost sure bet that's what it is. Unfortunately we just have to live with it, until you start buying computers with CPU's that are hardened against the vulnerability, which pretty much means only computers with chips made this year or later.
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Kinsie
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Kinsie »

I briefly talked about this with someone else who had the issue on Discord, and it seems like a common thread is running in "exclusive" fullscreen. Try running the game in windowed mode or "borderless windowed" fullscreen and let us know how you get on.
Accensus
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Accensus »

Running in windowed mode works just fine. Haven't tested borderless fullscreen. For the record, I experienced the same issue. Thought it was my HDD (again).
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Agony
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Agony »

Hi team,
Just wanted to confirm that I also have the same problem (v3.3.0 and now v.3.3.2)
Running in windowed mode seems to be a fix.
Hope this can be sorted in the next update - but glad to have found a fix here on the forums.
Thanks team and keep up the extremely great work!
Accensus
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Accensus »

Just tested - borderless works just fine. No lag. Seems to be an issue only with exclusive fullscreen, indeed.
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Rachael
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Rachael »

Another nail in the coffin for exclusive fullscreen.
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InsanityBringer
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by InsanityBringer »

ah, good. your post makes me very confident that we'll be able to run all this "old" technology 5 years in the future. that's a good part of software evolution, right?

in any case, I'm still having issues even with gzdoom set to borderless windowed mode, only full windowed works nicely. I'm very glad that MS is trying to evolve their platform by making it impossible for me to iterate on any of my work without having to waste time on it not lagging.
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Rachael
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Rachael »

Exclusive fullscreen is pretty much a hack and it doesn't play nice with modern systems at all. You can blame Microsoft for that, for not providing the same required facilities in OpenGL that they did for DirectX to make it work.

Windows 8 and above (at the very least, perhaps even earlier versions but I am not sure) all support Borderless Window nicely because the taskbar hides itself any time a game window size is >= the screen's geometry.

That being said, being sarcastic about it isn't the way to get what you want.
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Graf Zahl
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Graf Zahl »

The main problem, of course, being that a borderless window is always the same size as the desktop. So whatever gets done here, I think it is inevitable that we will have to separate the legacy handling from the modern code. They are already getting too divergent and into each other's way.

We really need to define a roadmap here how to proceed because it increasingly gets harder to support everything without making unacceptable compromises.
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Rachael
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Rachael »

Well with that said, if you have any bugs to report with the borderless mode, you'd best report them ASAP, or else be eventually stuck using the legacy builds.

Luckily we have someone in this community who is patient enough to compile them and maintain them.

If the code needs to be fixed on Non-Windows 8 platforms, I need to know now.
Accensus
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Accensus »

I have an update. Seems like this got fixed when I replaced my HD 7770 video card with a GTX 970. AMD strikes again?
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Graf Zahl
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Graf Zahl »

More likely being stuck with an old driver? I haven't followed AMD's deprecation mania recently so I got no idea if that card is already off the support list.
Accensus
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Re: GZDoom lagging/hanging on startup

Post by Accensus »

Got no idea how to check what version I was using. AMD lists only the release date for its Catalyst. I also don't have the card around me anymore, so putting it on for testing is out of the question.
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