GZDoom Player 1 of 1 Nodes taking several minutes (Solved)

[woofdg79]

Update with solution: The joystick initializer was getting in the way. I had to disable joysticks in GZDoom via "use_joystick = false" in my config

Hi folks,

This is an issue I'm sure plenty of you have seen before, as "Player 1 of 1 nodes" is a topic that's popped up several times in my search for an answer to my own issue. The usual report for Player 1 of 1 nodes (from what I've seen personally) is that GZDoom crashes when this line is reached, or simply takes a few seconds longer for an unknown reason. But what I have not run across yet is my own issue, which is that when GZDoom hits Player 1 of 1 nodes, it will sit for roughly 4-5 minutes and then suddenly load the game like everything is fine. The log file shows no errors of any kind, it just randomly takes ages to get through Player 1 of 1 nodes.

However, this weird super long loading issue is not always happening. Sometimes a system restart fixes it, other times it just goes away seemingly on its own, other times it sticks around for a week. When I'm not having the issue GZDoom loads in well under 1s. The weirdest part to me though is that anytime GZDoom decides to take forever to load, so does Slade! And when GZDoom starts running perfectly again, Slade is right back to normal there with it.

Does anyone have any possible clue how to figure out what's causing this massive delay and nip it in the bud for good? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

My log file and general PC info are below...

PC:
Win 10 Pro x64
RTX 3080 Ti
GZDoom v4.7.1
Vulkan renderer (though this issue happens with OpenGL too, so I left it out of the post subject)

Log:

Code: Select all

Log started: 2022-01-05 19:56:36
GZDoom version g4.7.1
M_LoadDefaults: Load system defaults.
Using program directory for storage
W_Init: Init WADfiles.
 adding D:/DooM/GZDoom/gzdoom.pk3, 666 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/GZDoom/game_support.pk3, 2514 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/DooMWads/IWADs/DOOM2.WAD, 2919 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/GZDoom/game_widescreen_gfx.pk3, 216 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/GZDoom/brightmaps.pk3, 499 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/GZDoom/lights.pk3, 7 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/UDB_Resources/OTEX_1.1.WAD, 5360 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources, 8 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources:doompotpourri.wad, 348 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources:explodingtrooper.wad, 2 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources:goldengun.wad, 18 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources:nb5texd2.wad, 204 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources:nb_flats.wad, 56 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources:plutoniatextures.wad, 85 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources:rocketgunner.wad, 1 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Resources:tnttextures.wad, 212 lumps
 adding D:/DooM/Personal Stuff/DoomWads/Toms Wads/Spillage/Spillage.wad, 4 lumps
 adding C:/Users/Hyp3r-Tom/AppData/Local/Temp/peymc8av/odza3b6u.wad, 4 lumps
I_Init: Setting up machine state.
CPU speed: 3504 MHz
CPU Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
  Name: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900K @ 3.50GHz
  Family 6, Model 167, Stepping 1
  Features: SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4.1 SSE4.2 AVX AVX2 AVX512 F16C FMA3 BMI1 BMI2 HyperThreading
V_Init: allocate screen.
S_Init: Setting up sound.
I_InitSound: Initializing OpenAL
  Opened device OpenAL Soft on Speakers (Realtek USB Audio)
  EFX enabled
ST_Init: Init startup screen.
Checking cmd-line parameters...
S_InitData: Load sound definitions.
G_ParseMapInfo: Load map definitions.
Texman.Init: Init texture manager.
2 Unresolved textures remain
CRLWDL6E
CRLWDL6C
ParseTeamInfo: Load team definitions.
LoadActors: Load actor definitions.
script parsing took 119.53 ms
R_Init: Init Doom refresh subsystem.
DecalLibrary: Load decals.
M_Init: Init menus.
P_Init: Init Playloop state.
ParseSBarInfo: Loading custom status bar definition.
D_CheckNetGame: Checking network game status.
player 1 of 1 (1 nodes) 
I_InitInput
I_StartupMouse
I_StartupKeyboard
I_StartupXInput
I_StartupRawPS2
I_StartupDirectInputJoystick
Vulkan device: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
Vulkan device type: discrete gpu
Vulkan version: 1.2.186 (api) 497.116.0 (driver)
Vulkan extensions: VK_KHR_16bit_storage VK_KHR_8bit_storage VK_KHR_acceleration_structure VK_KHR_bind_memory2 VK_KHR_buffer_device_address VK_KHR_copy_commands2 VK_KHR_create_renderpass2 VK_KHR_dedicated_allocation VK_KHR_deferred_host_operations VK_KHR_depth_stencil_resolve VK_KHR_descriptor_update_template VK_KHR_device_group VK_KHR_draw_indirect_count VK_KHR_driver_properties VK_KHR_external_fence VK_KHR_external_fence_win32 VK_KHR_external_memory VK_KHR_external_memory_win32 VK_KHR_external_semaphore VK_KHR_external_semaphore_win32 VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate VK_KHR_get_memory_requirements2 VK_KHR_image_format_list VK_KHR_imageless_framebuffer VK_KHR_maintenance1 VK_KHR_maintenance2 VK_KHR_maintenance3 VK_KHR_multiview VK_KHR_pipeline_executable_properties VK_KHR_pipeline_library VK_KHR_present_id VK_KHR_present_wait VK_KHR_push_descriptor VK_KHR_ray_query VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline VK_KHR_relaxed_block_layout VK_KHR_sampler_mirror_clamp_to_edge VK_KHR_sampler_ycbcr_conversion VK_KHR_separate_depth_stencil_layouts VK_KHR_shader_atomic_int64 VK_KHR_shader_clock VK_KHR_shader_draw_parameters VK_KHR_shader_float16_int8 VK_KHR_shader_float_controls VK_KHR_shader_non_semantic_info VK_KHR_shader_subgroup_extended_types VK_KHR_shader_subgroup_uniform_control_flow VK_KHR_shader_terminate_invocation VK_KHR_spirv_1_4 VK_KHR_storage_buffer_storage_class VK_KHR_swapchain VK_KHR_swapchain_mutable_format VK_KHR_synchronization2 VK_KHR_timeline_semaphore VK_KHR_uniform_buffer_standard_layout VK_KHR_variable_pointers VK_KHR_vulkan_memory_model VK_KHR_win32_keyed_mutex VK_KHR_workgroup_memory_explicit_layout VK_KHR_zero_initialize_workgroup_memory VK_EXT_4444_formats VK_EXT_blend_operation_advanced VK_EXT_buffer_device_address VK_EXT_calibrated_timestamps VK_EXT_color_write_enable VK_EXT_conditional_rendering VK_EXT_conservative_rasterization VK_EXT_custom_border_color VK_EXT_depth_clip_enable VK_EXT_depth_range_unrestricted VK_EXT_descriptor_indexing VK_EXT_discard_rectangles VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state2 VK_EXT_external_memory_host VK_EXT_fragment_shader_interlock VK_EXT_full_screen_exclusive VK_EXT_hdr_metadata VK_EXT_host_query_reset VK_EXT_image_robustness VK_EXT_index_type_uint8 VK_EXT_inline_uniform_block VK_EXT_line_rasterization VK_EXT_memory_budget VK_EXT_memory_priority VK_EXT_multi_draw VK_EXT_pci_bus_info VK_EXT_pipeline_creation_cache_control VK_EXT_pipeline_creation_feedback VK_EXT_post_depth_coverage VK_EXT_private_data VK_EXT_provoking_vertex VK_EXT_queue_family_foreign VK_EXT_robustness2 VK_EXT_sample_locations VK_EXT_sampler_filter_minmax VK_EXT_scalar_block_layout VK_EXT_separate_stencil_usage VK_EXT_shader_atomic_float VK_EXT_shader_demote_to_helper_invocation VK_EXT_shader_image_atomic_int64 VK_EXT_shader_subgroup_ballot VK_EXT_shader_subgroup_vote VK_EXT_shader_viewport_index_layer VK_EXT_subgroup_size_control VK_EXT_texel_buffer_alignment VK_EXT_tooling_info VK_EXT_transform_feedback VK_EXT_vertex_attribute_divisor VK_EXT_vertex_input_dynamic_state VK_EXT_ycbcr_2plane_444_formats VK_EXT_ycbcr_image_arrays VK_NV_acquire_winrt_display VK_NV_clip_space_w_scaling VK_NV_compute_shader_derivatives VK_NV_cooperative_matrix VK_NV_corner_sampled_image VK_NV_coverage_reduction_mode VK_NV_cuda_kernel_launch VK_NV_dedicated_allocation VK_NV_dedicated_allocation_image_aliasing VK_NV_device_diagnostic_checkpoints VK_NV_device_diagnostics_config VK_NV_device_generated_commands VK_NV_external_memory VK_NV_external_memory_win32 VK_NV_fill_rectangle VK_NV_fragment_coverage_to_color VK_NV_fragment_shader_barycentric VK_NV_fragment_shading_rate_enums VK_NV_framebuffer_mixed_samples VK_NV_geometry_shader_passthrough VK_NV_inherited_viewport_scissor VK_NV_mesh_shader VK_NV_ray_tracing VK_NV_ray_tracing_motion_blur VK_NV_representative_fragment_test VK_NV_sample_mask_override_coverage VK_NV_scissor_exclusive VK_NV_shader_image_footprint VK_NV_shader_sm_builtins VK_NV_shader_subgroup_partitioned VK_NV_shading_rate_image VK_NV_viewport_array2 VK_NV_viewport_swizzle VK_NV_win32_keyed_mutex VK_NVX_binary_import VK_NVX_image_view_handle VK_NVX_multiview_per_view_attributes
Max. texture size: 32768
Max. uniform buffer range: 65536
Min. uniform buffer offset alignment: 64
Resolution: 3840 x 2160

----------------------------------------

MAP01 - Entryway

Very Happy Ammo Added

[Rachael]

That's usually the point where it inits the video hardware. The only thing that I can think of is that it's having trouble for whatever reason loading the textures to the GPU memory, or maybe a virus scanner is testing every single .dll file that GZDoom loads (and unfortunately, GZDoom has to rely on a ton of them by proxy, since the video and sound driver load a bunch of libraries of their own respectively).

First - what other applications do you have running in the background? This includes web browsers, virus scanners, Steam, game launchers, Discord/Skype/Slack/Zoom/etc, other "apps", video recorders, overlay providers (i.e. overwolf), and pretty much anything else.

Second - How big are those D:\Doom\Personal Stuff\DoomWads things as a combined total? Particularly the images? What format are they?

Thirdly - how much RAM do you have?

Lastly - this appears to be a tech issue so I am going to move it as appropriate. If it is determined to be an actual bug it can be moved back.

[woofdg79]

First - what other applications do you have running in the background? This includes web browsers, virus scanners, Steam, game launchers, Discord/Skype/Slack/Zoom/etc, other "apps", video recorders, overlay providers (i.e. overwolf), and pretty much anything else.

Nothing really, just my normal startup apps. The exact list of what's currently running is as follows...

• Nvidia
• Windows Security (not doing a full scan atm)
• Bluetooth driver
• Logitech GHub
• Corsair iCue
• Everything (search tool)
• OneDrive (not actively uploading anything)

Second - How big are those D:\Doom\Personal Stuff\DoomWads things as a combined total? Particularly the images? What format are they?

In total that folder is about 80mb. The format of the images I'm actually not sure of, I borrowed these texture wads so I'd have to check them in Slade.
That said, the resources I can confirm are not the issue. This issue happens with any map I load, even if its just the pure vanilla IWAD.

Thirdly - how much RAM do you have?

128GB DDR4-3200 ....yeah I know, it's overkill lol.

Thanks for taking a peek at the issue for me!

Update!
As a test I created a new GZDoom folder, re-downloaded GZDoom v4.7.1, and launched it. The game loaded instantly! I changed the video mode back to Vulkan and it still loaded instantly.
Then I copied/pasted my gzdoom-%user%.ini file into that new folder, and the issue re-appeared.
It seems something in my settings is causing this, but that doesn't explain why sometimes it just goes away and runs perfectly fine without me having changed anything.
I'm going to do a WinMerge of the two configs and see if anything jumps out at me as being an issue.

[woofdg79]

I found it!

I decided to painstakingly go through the .ini config line by line, comparing my config against the default.
For each line I found that was different, I replaced my value with the default config value, then attempted to load GZDoom and see if it changed anything.

To my complete surprise, setting "use_joystick" from "true" to "false" let the game load immediately.
I tried setting "use_joystick" back to "true" and the issue re-appeared immediately.

I went back to my original GZDoom folder with my original config, and ONLY changed "use_joystick" from "true" to "false" and that too let the game load immediately, so it's definitely that setting that's causing my issue.

It doesn't make any sense to me why that of all things would cause my issue, so maybe it actually is some form of bug? I'd be very curious what the rest of you think about this.

[wildweasel]

What kind of controllers do you usually have plugged in?

[woofdg79]

I normally don't have any controllers plugged in. The only thing normally plugged in is my Valve Index vr headset. I'll occasionally use an xbox controller but I always unplug it when I'm not using it. I also have the USB dongles for my wireless headset and mouse

[Rachael]

Well that is interesting. There isn't much GZDoom can do about this though, because when it throws to the joystick/gamepad initializer, it's completely out of GZDoom's control what happens and how long that takes. So I'll just opt to sticky this topic in case someone else comes here with a similar issue.

[Graf Zahl]

There's a reason why "enable joysticls" is an option and not on by default...

[woofdg79]

Oh so that flag is calling something other than GZDoom and that thing is most likely what's causing that delay? GZDoom itself was just a red herring it sounds like. Well luckily I dunno why I would have had joysticks turned on anyway since I don't use it, so I don't mind sticking to the default of disabled lol

Thanks to everyone for their help with this! I will edit my top post with the answer