Do some mods cause more lag than others?

[Lothrazar]

I am running a small server for friends, and we are getting a bit of lag with a new map. One member claimed Thaumcraft can cause lag with VIS calculations, i am unsure. We already removed Twilight forest just because we never plan to go there.

Is there any truth to this rumor?

 

[tribalthomas]

yes some mods do cause lag.

 

[Dravarden]

I can tell you redpower could be the laggiest, too much redstone/lighning/rendering updates with the timers/cables/microblocks respectively.

If you guys are getting so much lag that you cant handle it, you should wait for the lite pack that is comming out soon.

 

[Democretes]

The laggiest mods are Factorization, Redpower, Buildcraft, and Soul Shard ( if you have a Tier 5 Spawner). Redpower and Buildcraft pipes usually cause quite a bit of lag, and a lot of the redstone updates because of Redpower can cause a nice bit of lag.

 

[Omicron]

It's true, Thaumcraft used to gobble a lot of the world tick just to do its aura calculations. However, Azanor then went and revamped the system; it should now do a heavy calculation burst on server start and then only light updates unless something major happens to the node network (nodes merging etc).

The only way you're really going to find out if Thaumcraft is causing your issues is to make a copy of your world and load it without Thaumcraft.

 

[WTFFFS]

I haven't noticed ongoing lag due to Thaumcraft there is a fair amount if you regen your world of course, RP2 does have a fair amount of lag inducing qualities when you start using a lot of logic tiles\wiring\piping, another culprit for lag is EBXL the big trees (redwoods) can bring my computer to a screaming halt when I walk into range of them (the Legend Oaks do as well but you can't turn them off) and it pretty much continues for long enough to make it unplayable so I disabled those biomes in the config. IC2 can also be a culprit in causing lag if you have a lot of small packet energy producers, the calculations for that are known to be a problem hence the creation of the Compact Solars mod.

 

[Dravarden]

The EBXL lag is just because the ammount of leaves, try using fast graphics/use optifine and disable fancy leaves.

 

[NTaylor]

The laggiest mods are Factorization, Redpower, Buildcraft, and Soul Shard ( if you have a Tier 5 Spawner). Redpower and Buildcraft pipes usually cause quite a bit of lag, and a lot of the redstone updates because of Redpower can cause a nice bit of lag.

From what I know in terms of pipes Redpower tubes are a lot less lag inducing than Buildcraft pipes though that may simply be as items are normally going through in stacks so less entities but yeah things like timers can be murderous to the less powerful computers.

 

[ilja]

Now, this is slightly off-topic but can help quite a bit if you experience a lot of stuttering or lag:

One big thing is being smart when building pipe/tube systems. Pipes (barring logistics pipes which I know pretty much nothing about) are generally the worse option prestandawise, partly because overflows are solved with sucking up stuff instead of by not sending more stuff and partly because if it's incorrectly built there can be massive overflow quite easily. The second issue can be overcome through smart building but the first is harder, and I don't know that much about piping so I can't tell you much more than that.

Tubes are generally better IMO, in that they send whole stacks, they stop sending if there's no correct inventory, and they have a logic that to my mind is easier to build smart around, stacks going to closest inventory rather than going randomly. Building those in a smart way generally comes down to two main things: Use buffers when possible, and avoid long-distance tubing if possible.

- What buffers do is they stack up input in an inventory, and after some time they send it along again. If you have macerators hooked up that output like 3 items per second, and sending them 80 meters away in pneumatic tubes, you'll have a thick steady stream of hundreds of entities going around your system. If you throw on a buffer, they'll collect those and send groups of 15 items every five seconds. You have to wait a liittle longer to get your stuff, but it reduces the amount of tube cluttering by 80%.

- Avoiding long-distance tubing can be done several ways. It's not the distance that's relevant actually, it's the amount of seconds the entities spend in the system. Using magtubes severely reduces this, but what is even better is having a bunch of ender chests (though it doesn't look as awesome). You can also try to build your factories in a compact way - while 20 meters isn't a long distance, if every segment always has 10+ items in them, halving that distance does quite a bit for the stuttering.

Sorry for the slight derail but hope it was useful.

 

[NTaylor]

Now, this is slightly off-topic but can help quite a bit if you experience a lot of stuttering or lag:

One big thing is being smart when building pipe/tube systems. Pipes (barring logistics pipes which I know pretty much nothing about) are generally the worse option prestandawise, partly because overflows are solved with sucking up stuff instead of by not sending more stuff and partly because if it's incorrectly built there can be massive overflow quite easily. The second issue can be overcome through smart building but the first is harder, and I don't know that much about piping so I can't tell you much more than that.

Tubes are generally better IMO, in that they send whole stacks, they stop sending if there's no correct inventory, and they have a logic that to my mind is easier to build smart around, stacks going to closest inventory rather than going randomly. Building those in a smart way generally comes down to two main things: Use buffers when possible, and avoid long-distance tubing if possible.

- What buffers do is they stack up input in an inventory, and after some time they send it along again. If you have macerators hooked up that output like 3 items per second, and sending them 80 meters away in pneumatic tubes, you'll have a thick steady stream of hundreds of entities going around your system. If you throw on a buffer, they'll collect those and send groups of 15 items every five seconds. You have to wait a liittle longer to get your stuff, but it reduces the amount of tube cluttering by 80%.

- Avoiding long-distance tubing can be done several ways. It's not the distance that's relevant actually, it's the amount of seconds the entities spend in the system. Using magtubes severely reduces this, but what is even better is having a bunch of ender chests (though it doesn't look as awesome). You can also try to build your factories in a compact way - while 20 meters isn't a long distance, if every segment always has 10+ items in them, halving that distance does quite a bit for the stuttering.

Sorry for the slight derail but hope it was useful.

All of this is quite true for reducing lag though in response to the buffers solution to reducing lag if you have a filter on the edge of a macerator pulling out item stacks by simply slowing the attached timer you not only reduce entity spam but also pulse spam from the timer pulsing.

One other solution to do with reducing lag due to pipes is using Thermal Expansion machines instead as they can be placed next to each other so no need for pipes between them and while they can only output into BC pipes you can then place a relay in line to move it into RP tubes either directly from the TE machine or after a small ammount of BC pipes (to connect multiple machines to one relay)

 

[ilja]

All of this is quite true for reducing lag though in response to the buffers solution to reducing lag if you have a filter on the edge of a macerator pulling out item stacks by simply slowing the attached timer you not only reduce entity spam but also pulse spam from the timer pulsing.

That works for macerators when it's a single-slot output, true. For induction furnaces it doesn't work as well unfortunately.

One other solution to do with reducing lag due to pipes is using Thermal Expansion machines instead as they can be placed next to each other so no need for pipes between them and while they can only output into BC pipes you can then place a relay in line to move it into RP tubes either directly from the TE machine or after a small ammount of BC pipes (to connect multiple machines to one relay)

Oh, I hadn't thought of that. That's really smart! I've just recently started using TE machines after installing gregtech due to easier access and higher yield, but that's an excellent idea.
Note that it seems TE machines can more often than not connect directly to tubes, though, so a relay shouldn't be necessary.

 

[NTaylor]

Note that it seems TE machines can more often than not connect directly to tubes, though, so a relay shouldn't be necessary.

I was unsure about this so just gave it a test and could only get the input to connect with tubes the outputs would however not connect without a relay or filter connected to the machine.(That was tested without gregtech so it is possible that that changes it to make it work though I doubt it)

 

[ilja]

I was unsure about this so just gave it a test and could only get the input to connect with tubes the outputs would however not connect without a relay or filter connected to the machine.(That was tested without gregtech so it is possible that that changes it to make it work though I doubt it)

You're right I see now, input works but not output. One more question though, how do you effectively use the pulverizer output into the furnace? More specifically, if you make an output go into the next machine, what happens if it isn't an item that can go into that machine? (what happens when the pulverizer has crushed some bones and it's output is to a furnace?)

 

[WTFFFS]

It sits there (in the input slot of the next machine) and does nothing (though your specific example if you have Gregs Lighting installed would do something).

 

[NTaylor]

You're right I see now, input works but not output. One more question though, how do you effectively use the pulverizer output into the furnace? More specifically, if you make an output go into the next machine, what happens if it isn't an item that can go into that machine? (what happens when the pulverizer has crushed some bones and it's output is to a furnace?)

There is no way to make it do anything else aside from sit there as the other guy said though normally due to the lack of overclockers if I am using TE machines for my system I will normally use a sorting machine and have one separate pulveriser and one separate furnace in the system so that I can sent things like bone to them instead. Early in the game where you can not afford to do that you could leave a 1 block gap between the machines and put a diamond pipe into it and say dusts go to the furnace and everything else that may come out go to a relay and into a tube network.

 

[tedyhere]

Also using Chest Carts to transport your items instead of tubes or pipes can reduce your lag. I have my TE machines set up to loaders and unloaders with chest carts dropping off ores, the ores are processed and dumped into a chest cart which takes it to my main sorting system to be sorted by a sorting machine feeding multiple sorting machines to relays into routers into barrels. Very slick and clean, only problem is not being able to have a chest with just what I want in it.

Basically I would need a manager for each barrel to pull out and feed another manager which would keep my chest stocked with say a stack of each ingot, wood, powder and whatever else.

 

[ilja]

That does sound like a really cool solution, but isn't it kind of obnoxious to have to lay down tracks everywhere you mine? or do you use tracklaying carts?

 

[tedyhere]

I use enderchests plus ender pouches