[Solved] Quest Menu Lag

[Wark]

I've got a problem with the quest menu (F9) lagging up my map a lot when it is first opened.
Any other time after first accessing the menu, it does not lag the game.

Does anyone know why it does that, or how I could eliminate that initial lag?

 

[Dr Super Good]

I forget the exact cause but I am guessing its due to loading the text/icons in the quest menu.

Adding fewer quests might help. If you use icons for the quests, try preloading them before using them to reduce asset stall time.

 

[Wark]

try preloading them before using them to reduce asset stall time

Thank you for the advice, Dr Super Good. I gave that a try, and it seems to reduce the initial lag a little bit.

See, I'm using the quest menu as a help menu of sorts. I am using 21 different text fields in that menu to explain things.
Do you have any other recommendations?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Do you have any other recommendations?

Try preloading the quest dialog frame and item textures. Maybe your computer has very slow IO speed resulting in long asset stalls.

 

[Wark]

You can preload the quest dialog frames? I thought that was limited to the icons and models.
How would you do that? For the record, they are already in Map Initialization.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You can preload the quest dialog frames? I thought that was limited to the icons and models.

What do you think the frames are? I am pretty sure they use some blp/tga file as a source for the frame textures.

Find the texture paths used for the frame and other quest dialog graphics and try preloading them.

 

[Wark]

Alright. I found some UI\Widgets files related to it. They were .blp files. Preloading them didn't do it though.
I may just have to resort to using more in-game features like commands or items for a player tutorial.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Might be a good idea to find out what is causing the opening performance bottleneck. Do 20 quests with a lot of text load slower than 40 quests with half the text?

 

[Wark]

Huh.
Well, I tried it with double the quests added in initialization, and with zero quests added.
Both instances have the same 5 second lag when hitting that F9.
Therefore, it is definitely not an issue of the number of quests.

I did however change the text for the button, as well as the tooltip. I'll check if changing the game interface values is causing it.

Edit:
Resetting the game interface to default also did not reduce that 5 second lag.
The only triggers that do something with the quest log is in Map Initialisation.
I am even more confused now.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Try playing the campaign. Does it have the same lag? If so then maybe the quest button always has such lag.

Also try a new blank map with the simplest quest triggers. Does that still lag?

It is possible that it is the quest dialog sounds (scrolling, clicking etc) causing the lag when they are first loaded.

To rule out the cause being your computer maybe post a sample map where clicking the quest dialog for the first time causes this lag.

 

[Wark]

Well, there are other maps I have that do not have this lag.
Their menus are even modified, and open without a problem.

Edit:
Major breakthrough: the amount of purple fields in the object editor, for some reason, affects quest menu lag.
I got this all figured out now, and need to let Xonok know about this. Thanks, Super!