2011-10-10, 09:19 PM
(2011-10-10, 12:10 AM)dmpdesign link Wrote:Its interesting, does anyone else notice that once you play an SOM game and 'zone' to a new map, the next time you come back to that map (assuming you dont quit the game) it loads nigh instantly without the 'pop' stutter that you guys mentioned? Apparently SOM keeps everything written entirely to RAM once visited (hence the issues some folks have with memory leaks I suspect) and it loads up super quick the 2nd/3rd etc time you load a map.I measured the memory use in SoM way back in the early days and there was a permanent (until SoM closes) increase in RAM usage when you enter a new map. It wasn't a significant load by modern standards- probably the map textures or something. The memory leak was that every time you open the menu, SoM loads a new copy of the border BMP and never unloads the old. You would have to play a long time before that became a problem though.
I remember Tom started having big slowdown on the fire level in Maunstraut which led to the theory that there were problems when maps were linked, but now I'm pretty sure the problem was the 'lava water' objects he used for his lava river. I made them as 'lamp Objects' so they were light sources and had the flame animation- I think SoM can't handle that many light sources in one place (around ~30 or so).