Great game, constant freezes on iPad2 though

[SteveM]

Hi

Really enjoy to spend time with this game on iPad, reminds me of Arcanum a little even though this game is really unique. Graphics aren't all that bad even though very repetitive and it makes it easy to get lost but anyway I'm having good times overall.

 

One thing that annoys me though is constant freezes on iPad2. It happens every once in a while, the game would just freeze and stop responding to any input for a sec or two. It always happens in combat after each turn ends. And out of the combat also every once in a while. Not game breaking but still annoying because it breaks game flow.

 

Overall I'm still glad to see games like this on the iPad even with bugs and all.

[Randomizer]

That happens even on regular computers. The game is a little slow with graphics calls when a major change occurs.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please leave your sanity at the door. Insanity is the spice of life.

[SteveM]

Thanks.

Also those freezes happen at each turn in combat so it's not like some graphics loading issue since the combat ussualy happens without changing locations.

The combat itself is fairly slow but delays from those freezes make it even more dragged out. Not a game breaking issue but still a bit painful...

[Gerry Quinn]

I played on PC and I remember those. They were slightly annoying but not a game breaker. Can't imagine what caused thewm, though - there is no good reason for them.

[Trasd]

The freezes happen on my Android tablet as well.

 

Has anyone figured this out yet?

[Gabriel]

As a programmer myself, I assume that a freeze on every turn of combat would be the result of a long-running calculation in the same script, or on the same thread, that picks up user input and updates the GUI.

 

Maybe the game is reading the creature script files and deciding what the AI will do for that turn for all of the creatures visible on the screen if not the whole map.

 

The problem is how to avoid the inevitable end-of-turn calculation of a turn-based combat system? In order to do that the AI would need to think ahead and get started guessing its next moves before it knows where everything ended up. Programing AI isn't easy. In the worst case, creatures would be running to where you were during the last turn instead of where you are now, and also targeting already killed dead things or empty spaces.

[Gabriel]

This might be a case for adding multi-threading to the game, but I don't know how to recommend doing this in c++, as I'm a Java programmer.

 

Actually I could be wrong, This game might actually use threads, I don't know if it does or not. In which case, these freezes would be an example of deadlock or resource starvation.

[Alegra]

It always happens in combat after each turn ends. And out of the combat also every once in a while. Not game breaking but still annoying because it breaks game flow.

Same here. I get an involuntary 5 second (at least) break after avery combat round and at other times randomly. Before every combat the break is even longer. What makes it even more annoying: if I tap anywhere in that break, the tap is remembered and guy #1 instantly starts running to that place when the next combat round starts. Argh!

 

Any chance this will ever be fixed? (should I say "improved"?)

 

Overall I'm still glad to see games like this on the iPad even with bugs and all.

 

So was I at first glance, but this bug makes a great game almost unbearable. I didn't have these problems with Avernum.

[Painted Lady]

I have an iPad 3, and there are not too many freezes with Avadon. They still happen, but I wonder if they are more common on the earlier iPad models?

[genralcollecive]

This is a huge problem for me (on ipad 2), it is literally stopping me from playing the game. I do not understand why there is not more complaint, especially if the problem exists on PC as well. This game is unplayable.

 

Freezing of several seconds, every turn of combat, this really disrupts the continuity of the game, and makes it extremely tedious to make any progress.

 

I have never programmed any game before but there is clearly some flaw in the combat system if it must do this every turn. It is worth pointing out there is no such problem on avernum for ipad (or any other sws game I had played.)

[Ohsky]

This has happened to me in g4, g5, avadon, escape from the pit on a 2007 Pc with two cores. But not to the point of stopping playing, though it´s overtly annoying. Seems to be related with that last engine used. Maybe is not optimized enough codewise. I suppose then, it would happen in later avernums, in any game using the same engine.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

Yes, it sometimes happens to me too, turning down the game quality helps with it though.

[Kelandon]

This is odd to me, because I played Avadon most of the way through on a first-generation iPad and had no such problems. The animations played a little slow, but I never had long pauses between events.

 

Oh, um, I closed everything else that was open in order to play Avadon. That might have helped. Double-tap the Home button, press and hold on an icon in the bar that appears at the bottom of the screen, and start closing things when the icons begin to vibrate. It's like you're deleting them, but if you do it from the bar at the bottom after double-tapping the Home button, it just closes them. That frees up memory and makes things run faster.

 

You can also jigger the Preferences a bit.

[genralcollecive]

I did try killing background apps, and turning down quality settings in Avadon, with no change in the problem. It is worth noting that between pauses, there is no slowness of animations and such, it appears to run perfectly except between combat turns.

 

It is interesting that you say it worked fine in Ipad 1... this makes me think it must not be inherently a problem in the game.

 

Perhaps there is some wasteful process in the background, which is not represented by an app and so not shown when one double-taps home? Mail checking, or wifi syncing, or who knows what... It is too bad iOS doesn't include some kind of resource manager.

[genralcollecive]

I made some changes in iOS settings:

Turned off all search indexing in General-->Spotlight Search

Deleted an old VPN profile

airplane mode

turned off location settings

deleted facebook

hit the gym

turned off icloud backup

turned off mail push

turned off mail preview

turned off imessage

clear data and cookies in safari

turned off music-->home sharing

 

 

The pauses are now reduced significantly to 1-2 seconds, which is still too much I think.

[Kelandon]

Hmm. That sounds like the right direction to go in, although now that you've done all of that, I'm surprised that you're still having problems. I wonder if maybe you're close to maxing out your disk space, or some other thing that might make an iPad run slow for a really memory-heavy application.

[genralcollecive]

I have plenty of space, though that shouldn't matter. And this Ipad runs plenty of other memory heavy applications with no problem (including avernum eftp), so the problem is clearly with avadon. It is too bad the appe store does not do refund!