Forums » Linux

Game display lag after jumping

Jun 03, 2009 kihjin link
It doesn't happen every time, but when it does, it has *always* occurred after doing a sector jump. Most of the time it occurs when I enter a sector that has an ion storm, but it has occurred after entering a normal station sector.

The game remains playable, it doesn't crash and audio is fine.
It is as though the game is displaying at 1 FPS, yet this contradicts what is reported by /fps: +100 FPS. The game still responds to input, but very slowly.

OS: xubuntu 9.04 AMD64
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 Quad Core 9850
Memory: 6GB
Card: XFX Geforce 8600GT 256MB

The work around for this behavior, oddly, is to switch to a tty, then back to the X display. (ctrl+alt+f1, wait a second, ctrl+alt+f7) After doing this the game becomes playable, but the system mouse cursor shows up on the screen, stuck in the lower left corner of the targeting widget.
Jun 03, 2009 roguelazer link
Are you using an up-to-date graphics driver?
Jun 03, 2009 kihjin link
I was using driver version 180.44. It is the most current driver provided via the ubuntu software mechanism. I saw that nvidia has a somewhat newer version available, 180.60 so I decided to install that.

Some good came of upgrading. I was able to setup my second monitor on a separate screen. Now I need to figure out how to switch to it when in VO... moving the mouse over doesn't do it.
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But back to the problem I was having. I was able to reproduce the "lag" very quickly with the new version. All I did was start the game up, and before I even log in, I switch over to F8, and switch back to F7. This caused the game to go into its slow response mode, *and* display two mouse cursors, the system cursor and the custom VO cursor. The system cursor doesn't move. Doing the switch again fixes returns the game back to a rate.

Further attempts to switch to F8 and back don't reproduce the lag, and the system cursor remains.

[edit] Even after restarting the game, doing switching over to F8 (at the login screen) reproduces the issue.
Jun 04, 2009 roguelazer link
That's really odd. Are you using a compositing window manager?
Jun 04, 2009 kihjin link
Actually yes. I disabled the compositing functionality. It seems to prevent the display lag situation I was getting at the login prompt, however, the system cursor still does appear after switching.

In addition to disabling the compositor I have disabled my plugins and plan to play for a bit to see what happens.
Jun 06, 2009 kihjin link
Haven't experienced the lag recently... I might re-enable the compositor just to see if that brings it back. For now, seems to work good.