Lag Goggles

[Drbretto]

Someone help me understand this mod more. I've only recently discovered it, but as simple as it seems, I'm not sure it's actually helping me find anything.

For example, I go into my laggiest chunks and run a scan and it does its thing for 30 seconds and highlights all the blocks that are causing lag, supposedly, in color-coded shades I can see through walls. This is where my RS core is, so not surprisingly, I can see that this is the single laggiest thing on my property at 1,000 u-something (nano, micro? I can't remember, lol) per S, whatever S is.

But any random skeleton is throwing back ridiculous numbers like 200,000. And if that's true, then the lag being caused by my RS core is negligible.

And it's makes even less sense when I move over to the chunk where my canola farm is. This is *actually* the laggiest chunk in my whole world and it's the only thing in it, top to bottom. It does show a couple of components using up 75ish per whatever, but that's it. And this chunk takes me down to like a quarter of my FPS.

I get that I'm gonna get some lag with machines processing all over the place, but honestly, I really don't have THAT MUCH processing going on. I don't get why my frame rates are dipping so much in these zones. And, in fact, most of my processing is happening in a chunk where there's really no lag at all.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I dunno about lag goggles, but canola farming shouldn't cause a lot of lag. Even if it is also where you are processing, it shouldn't be too laggy unless you've got canola or seeds dropping more frequently than they should, in which case you need to check the droppers. If the droppers are out of sync, or dropping more than they should, you can get a pileup of objects that can lag you out pretty easily, which is why I am less than fond of using it, and of Actually Additions in general.

 

[Drbretto]

Oh, it's not even that much. It's literally a single 9x9 patch of dirt, 9 worms, with greenhouse glass above it. I do have a few too many canola presses and fermenting barrels from a time when I couldn't figure out that the issue was not enough power, so I added like 8 of each machine thinking it was actually producing that much. But still, there isn't even canola seed dropping. They're all getting pumped directly into storage for now. That's literally it. Dirt, worms, greenhouse glass, canola presses, fermenting barrels and 2 canola generators running it all. And this is my single laggiest chunk, and only when I'm near it.

The RS core chunk(s) is laggy, too, but it really shouldn't be. True, it has like 25 crafters but they're not always running or anything. Though, now that I think about it, that's all run by an array of canola generators. In fact, they're connected directly to the fermenting barrels.

My AA is what's broken!!

Ok. I was going to go full lightning power anyway so maybe it'll be worth it to redo some of that now...

 

[Drbretto]

Does just building stuff cause lag? Like, not even moving parts, just a more complex collection of blocks?

 

[rhn]

FPS lag does not equal TPS lag.
From what I understand the Lag Goggles will show you the processing time of the individual components. If you have too many demanding blocks chunkloaded, then the "server" part of your game will be too bogged down to process its 20 ticks per second. This is what the goggles help you avoid.
FPS lag will come from a bit of a mix of rendering stuff and processing blocks. If you play on a server it will handle much of the processing part, but not all. Regular static blocks will require next to nothing to render. So build all you want with those. Special blocks of various kinds can demand a lot more, so be aware if you decide to build with loads of them. It is almost always active automation that causes the greatest FPS drops.

 

[Drbretto]

Actually, I mixed up my scans in my post before. I believe it does an FPS scan as well as a TPS scan, and the numbers I listed for the RS machine (1000ish) and the skeleton (200,000 ish) were from the two different scans, though the spirit of the issue is the same. One skeleton seems to be worth more than pretty much everything else in the area combined and that's on the FPS scan. Though, I could be misunderstanding that button.


Aaanyway. So, what about things like architecturecraft (slabs and whatnot), chisels and bits, things like that that don't move, but are misshaped? Or Things like dark ethereal glass? Because I am using aaaaaaa buttload of those. Thousands. But none in the canola chunk, so that still doesn't explain anything....

Now I'm worried it's those blocks, though. And if it is, that means I'm going to have to live with it because I built this whole damn thing with them.

 

[Drbretto]

Solved!

This is also where I do my quarrying, and in the problem chunks, I had openned up a hole with an oil deposit above it, big ol openning, probably 50ish flowing oil blocks. Only, they dripped down over a river of lava, which was catching the oil on fire, so it was caught in this big loop of flowing liquid, burning up and constantly flowing/updating. I patched up the hole and we're running solid again.

 

[Golrith]

Solved!

This is also where I do my quarrying, and in the problem chunks, I had openned up a hole with an oil deposit above it, big ol openning, probably 50ish flowing oil blocks. Only, they dripped down over a river of lava, which was catching the oil on fire, so it was caught in this big loop of flowing liquid, burning up and constantly flowing/updating. I patched up the hole and we're running solid again.

Flowly liquid blocks is the biggest fps killer, and so easy to miss. I remember runing multiple quarries back in 1.2.5 days and carved through some rivers. Trying to fix that creatively at 0-1fps was "interesting".

 

[rhn]

Aaanyway. So, what about things like architecturecraft (slabs and whatnot), chisels and bits, things like that that don't move, but are misshaped? Or Things like dark ethereal glass? Because I am using aaaaaaa buttload of those. Thousands. But none in the canola chunk, so that still doesn't explain anything....

This really depends on how they are implemented. Things that are somehow more complicated than a block of stone or dirt, will contain more information. This does in theory cause them to take a tiny little bit extra time each processing pass. But in reality it is completely negligible. I have builds with millions of carpenters blocks and other cosmetic stuff and it has no noticeable effect at all. The automation that I put into it however will kill FPS.
Transparent objects can be a bit iffy sometimes. As long as it is regular minecraft style glass blocks/panes, then it is completely fine. But I recently discovered that Malissis doors with glass take really long to render.

In general I would recommend that you do not worry too much about it. The amount of stuff a normal player builds will never come close to using 1% processing/rendering time of the automation they create. As long as you do not use blocks with some kind of active function, or parts of multiblocks(that do not specify that it is safe), then build away.

PS: The "machine" vs. mob discrepancy is entirely normal. The mob AI in minecraft is VERY resource intensive. Compared a simple machine not doing anything, or not working specially fast is nothing in comparison. This is also why you should be very careful when you do anything including mobs. It is extremely easy to utterly ruin performance(both FPS and TPS) by just using mobs and vanilla mechanics. Dont ever confine too many mobs into too small rooms, or otherwise put them in situations where path finding becomes hard. I have a personal rule that there should be 1.5-2 blocks of floor space for every animal in animal farms or mob spawners.

 

[Drbretto]

On that mob note, I did see a pretty significant improvement when I turned off the mob juicer. But, that was to be expected.

OK, I'm a lot lett paranoid about the dark ineffable glass and the thousands of architecture blocks I'm using. I'm still getting worse FPS than I'd like but it's much much better already. I was rally getting worried that it'd escalate further, but I think that neverending oil spill was the biggest culprit. I need to go through that whole area and kill all the spilled lava and water, too, just to clean it up. I should consider mining with the dirt block replacement method, but I just kind of like that big ol hole in the ground, lol.

 

[rhn]

I should consider mining with the dirt block replacement method, but I just kind of like that big ol hole in the ground, lol.

Yes... You should...
That or a quarry that sucks up fluids as it goes. Performance doesn't drop much just because there is flowing fluids. It drops massively when it has to recalculate ALL of the fluids every time the quarry removes a block.

 

[Drbretto]

ahh, so might that also happen if there's a constant drip from a fluid even if the quarry isn't running? Because that would totally explain why it might have been making such a huge difference. The flowing oil wasn't just flowing as in laying there all squiggled out. It was constantly burning up, disappearing and flowing again, all over a mix of lava and water. I can imagine a situation where it has to do a check with all the liquids around it every time just to make sure it falls right or something.

 

[KingTriaxx]

I always just pre-flooded my quarries to allieviate the issue. Stops lava updates, if water or oil are present it stops spreading and fires.

 

[rhn]

I always just pre-flooded my quarries to allieviate the issue. Stops lava updates, if water or oil are present it stops spreading and fires.

This is the worst thing you can do. This means that EVERY block the quarry removes will cause block updates in ALL the water.

 

[KingTriaxx]

I only found it an issue if the quarry was in render range.

 

[rhn]

I only found it an issue if the quarry was in render range.

Yeah, but it is just eating up processing time on the server part. This was a huge issue for servers way back, which is why mods starting adding quarrying solutions that either replaced blocks, or created blocks out of nothing.
I would personally ban every "open quarry" solutions which did not handle fluids if I were running a server.

 

[Drbretto]

Hats!

Hats is murder!

I had still been getting periodic slowdowns especially at night. In fact, it would straight up cripple at night. I ran an fps scan when it was choopy and freaking Hats was taking up 92% of the load.

Seems so harmless, but the performance since removing it has been incredible. I think that's the thorn in my game's side this whole time.