[hlcoders] Help with strange performance problem

geotavros

2015-02-17 09:12:12 UTC

Hi,

Sounds like a memory leak. Did you check how much memory is your mod
using over time? If it use a lot of memory it can probably start to use
swap file memory which leads to significant frame rate drop. If your
hard drive indicator is blinking or shining constantly during framerate
drops this is a sign of using the swap file. You can use some profiling
apps to check how much memory your mod is using or may be there is a
concommand for that.
Anyway, if this is a memory leak you'll have to find it and remove.

Post by Shokunin
Hello everyone,
I'm a long time lurker who is on the verge of completing a mod I've
been working on for a couple years. I've run into a very strange
performance problem that has me completely stumped and I think I need
some help.
This only occurs on the final chapter of my mod when playing
completely through in one sitting. It's only about 1-1.5 hours so I
expect this to be fairly common. (I hope!) When the final map loads
performance drops dramatically (< 10 fps) due to dynamic light
rendering according to the +show_budget breakdown, but again this only
happens when playing through the whole mod from the beginning (3 map
transitions + background map in the main menu).
There are no env_projectedtexture lights on, no light_dynamics on, and
no normal lights or light_spots with custom appearances on. If the map
is loaded directly there are no performance problems.
Even more strange, by pure luck I've found out by setting the cvar,
r_unloadlightmaps 1, performance is immediately recovered. I can't
find any documentation on what exactly this does and it appears to be
an engine cvar so I can't look at the code to debug. Sometimes leaving
that on for 30 seconds then setting it back to 0 keeps the
performance, sometimes it needs 45 seconds, sometimes it needs 90,
sometimes it needs more.
-Can anyone at valve or on the list help me?
-Would anyone know what exactly r_unloadlightmaps does? It seems
obvious, but I can't see any difference in any of the lightmaps or
lighting.
-Can I leave r_unloadlightmaps set to 1 as a work around?
I'm still using Source SDK 2007 since I've added hundreds of code
changes and I really want to avoid switching to 2013, plus I'm
basically done at this point minus this one issue. I've also applied
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Env_projectedtexture/fixes
TBH, some of the fixes listed on that page are a bit above my
knowledge, I'm afraid I've created some performance or memory leak
that way. Thanks! Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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