Missing things from Vanguard

[Xitix]

I took a look at what VG is doing using FileMon (available from FileMon for Windows v7.04) and it highlights one huge inefficiency in VG and some areas it could be improved.

1. A lot of reads from mesh and texture files are in pairs. It reads a chunk of a file followed by reading a smaller piece of what it just read. This is an insanely dumb thing to be doing as a memory copy would be orders of magnitude faster. At least 100x faster in most cases with such small reads. A lot are also two adjacent reads of adjacent parts of the file that could be coalesced into a single read.

2. Music/sounds constantly re-read the same parts as needed when even a small cache of recently played parts would easily cut the number of reads by 75-90%. It also reads sequential parts a lot that could be coalesced into fewer reads but a cache would lessen the need/benefit for doing that.

3. Far too many small reads that could be coalesced into larger ones. Spend some effort to list all that needs to be read and coalesce those parts that are adjacent. For instance when peaking into a dungeon or building where a lot of related geometry and textures suddenly becomes visible and is loaded from the same file.

Alternate #3. For areas like a dungeon/chunk read the whole file in and grab the bits as needed from the copy in memory instead of doing 1000's of small reads from the file system to access every little object as it comes into view.

4. After trying to load an asset from a file that doesn't exist in doesn't cache that fact and tries to open it over and over and over. Here it was for a file named \Vanguard\bin\Chunk_n11_n9.int which it tried to open 40 times in a row.

5. The compiled vertex and pixel shader cache files are both read and written in 100's of little bits even when they are 233k and 2,892k here. Coalesce all those parts in memory into one write. Read it all and chop it up from the in memory copy for reads.

6. On shut down the large parts of the VGSettings.xml are written out sequentially one *BYTE* at a time. This is thousands of writes for a file that is only 54k. Again do all that parts stuff to a chunk of memory and do a single write to the file. At least on start up it's read in using three large chunks here.

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Fixing up the worst of these file read/write ineffeciencies would lesson a lot of the slowdowns in the game. Hitching on asset loading would be lessened and the game would load and shutdown faster.

[Mithrull]

Edit

[Vilgan]

Originally Posted by Mithrull

I've always wanted to see something more robust than that: an automated group former for people just wanting a basic pick-up group. Imagine instead of /lfg merely tagging you, it places you in a queue for players looking for pick-up groups. You would also have access to group forming tool if you wanted to lead a group which would select from that queue. The tool allows search paramaters such as maximum number of zones (or chunks) away, minimum and maximum number both specific classes and class archetypes, level etc. The groups are formed automatically and you could flag each class search parameter as being necessary to form e.g. no sense forming at all if you haven't found a healer but ok to form if you haven't found any casters (sorry casters). Obviously people who want to do somethign specific wouldn't use it but for those who just want experience in a group and don't care where or what they do it would be nice. Something tells me Vanguard would consider it anti-social.

Bleh, I'd personally love to see the whole concept of meeting stones die a well deserved death. Give people the tools to see lots of info about those lfg etc and leave it at that. Show distances, zone, class, level, notes etc and people should be fine.

Meeting stones were an idea that should die completely and never be reborn.

Vilgan

[The Hiram Key]

Originally Posted by Vilgan

Bleh, I'd personally love to see the whole concept of meeting stones die a well deserved death. Give people the tools to see lots of info about those lfg etc and leave it at that. Show distances, zone, class, level, notes etc and people should be fine.

Meeting stones were an idea that should die completely and never be reborn.

Vilgan

Actually, Meeting Stones are enjoying a bit of a Renaissance, you can now use them to summon your party to the stone, all you need is 2 players to activate it. I agree the old concept was retarded, but I rather enjoy the new funtionality.

[Delenar]

Yes, Meeting stones are now 95.3% awesome.

[Nailius]

Something missing is the fact that I can't cancel my account. I cancelled it a few days ago... or so I thought, but it still says active and it still plans on billing me in a few days. Oh I'll be pretty pissed if I get charged another month for this piece of shit.

[MetalNeo]

Originally Posted by Aztlan

LFG tool suggestion. If they updated it with a tab that told you how many kilometers each person was from you, I think it'd help on knowing who to ask to join your group. There are too many zones currently that I am not familiar with and I'm like, "Wonder if that person is even on the same continent".

On Travel. I like the ideas being tossed around here regarding bind spots for each continent available and making travel on roads give you a significant boost in speed. Say 100%? Makes sense since you wouldn't have to travel through rough terrain on a well traveled road.

Travel can be a pain but to be honest it doesnt bother me so much as finding a steady group to go here hit it totally up then go somewhere else. In otherwords get fellowship up and fix LFG tool and travel no longer becomes a main issue.

[Xitix]

Originally Posted by Nailius

Something missing is the fact that I can't cancel my account. I cancelled it a few days ago... or so I thought, but it still says active and it still plans on billing me in a few days. Oh I'll be pretty pissed if I get charged another month for this piece of shit.

There should be a line on the Subscription Details page that says "Account Status: Non-Recurring Billing Method or Cancelled*" You account stays active until any remaining time you already paid for runs out.

[Jabberwhacky]

Ya I just went to check mine and it was still active, but I "cancelled" it 3 weeks ago. This is not cool.

This is what it shows:

Account Status: Active
Orig. Purchase Date: October 24, 2006
Account Open Until: March 3, 2007
Next Billing Date: March 3, 2007
Next Subscription Plan: Vanguard Subscription, 1 Month

I've clicked "Cancel Subscription" twice now, but times it says it's successfully canceled. How the hell do I not pay for this shit?

[kcxiv]

best give CS a call.

[Jabberwhacky]

They're not open on the weekends, unless I found the wrong billing department for SOE. For anyone else that cancelled, what did you do? Just click the "Cancel" button there at the main billing screen?

[Nattac]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

Actually, Meeting Stones are enjoying a bit of a Renaissance, you can now use them to summon your party to the stone, all you need is 2 players to activate it. I agree the old concept was retarded, but I rather enjoy the new funtionality.

AND it's awesome for World pvp =) God i love jumpin off my birdie and gankin away =p

The lfg tool is the same concept now right? if you put auto join. I never use it though, cause it sets up the worse groups evah!

[Veronica]

That would be funny if canceling a VG sub was like canceling AOL service.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Jabberwhacky

They're not open on the weekends, unless I found the wrong billing department for SOE. For anyone else that cancelled, what did you do? Just click the "Cancel" button there at the main billing screen?

Ring your credit card company and get them to cancel payment.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Veronica

That would be funny if canceling a VG sub was like canceling AOL service.

It's all part of the Vision! If cancelling a Vanguard sub was easy, you wouldn't get that sense of satisfaction that comes only after hours upon hours of working at something!