Fix Ice Storm Lag Issue

[DarkThoughts]

I've already been in correspondence with Turbine Support concerning this issue but I wanted to post it here to give others the opportunity to chime in as well.

The Ice Storm Spell causes considerable lag on my system dropping the average FPS from the mid 60's down into the low teens or even single digits. I've tried numerous graphics and audio settings as instructed by Turbine but nothing seems to help. The lag is so severe that I cringe whenever I find out there is a water savant in the party and would desperately like to see a fix very soon.

My System:
ATI Radeon 3650HD 512MB Graphics Card
4GB of DDR2 RAM
Windows 7 64-Bit Premium

When I detect optimal graphics settings, the client defaults to Very High. I've tried everything from Very High to Very Low settings and the Ice Storm still bogs down the system to a miserable 10 - 12 FPS. If multiple Storms are casts, my graphics drop to 6 - 9 FPS. These are the speeds I get while standing in the middle of the Storm which is where my Melees always find themselves. If I stand outside of the Ice Storm, my FPS increases to the 15 - 30 FPS range depending on the distance. I've tested this in multiple settings including the Vale of Twilight, the Subterranean, Kobolds New Ringleader and Bringing the Light. The results are always the same.

I've even tried using Game Booster 2.3 to help correct the issue but there was absolutely no improvement.

If you have suffered similar lags with the spell, please post to this thread and let Turbine know about it. I've been told that their QA Team and the Developers will be looking into this, but if I can show that it isn't an isolated incident, a fix may come sooner rather than later.

If you would like to check your own FPS, you can use Ctrl+F and look for the readout on the right side of your screen.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and any additional information you may have to offer to help resolve this issue.

[stille_nacht]

probably your connection, ddo does not have strenuos system requirements at all. what is your connection like?

no ice storm lag here

[Kourier]

I notice that the ice from ice storm falls all the way from the roof - are you playing in open instances or instances with tall roofs?

[Doganpc]

I get ice storm lag too, but I'm pretty sure its because of my low level DX10 card. (8400gs IIRC)

Looking at the product specifications for the HD 3600 series...
http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...fications.aspx

Its rather underwhelming, lots of stream processing but seemingly little texture processing. Then again, i've been looking at 5600's lately as I look to upgrade and utilize crossfire myself.

Dogan
Black Friday here I come!

[Grosbeak07]

Are you getting packet loss when the spell is cast or does your netowrk icon change color? If all your getting is frame rate loss, I would suspect something with your settings and/or video card. If your getting loss when it is cast, then there might be a bug or an issue with your connection.

But I also know the OP speaks of lag when no one else in the party is getting any, so it may very well be a connection issue.

[DarkThoughts]

probably your connection, ddo does not have strenuos system requirements at all. what is your connection like?

I have a 3mb DSL connection. It is my fastest option currently. The only time I see lag with any regularity is in The Shadow Crypt (Underwater and Gate rooms) and when Ice Storm is cast. The lag is worse with multiple castings of the spell.

I notice that the ice from ice storm falls all the way from the roof - are you playing in open instances or instances with tall roofs?

I have tested the Ice Storm lag in four instances: Vale of Twilight, Subterranean, Kobolds New Ringleader and Bringing the Light. All results were roughly the same drop in FPS.

I get ice storm lag too, but I'm pretty sure its because of my low level DX10 card. (8400gs IIRC)

I'm using Dx9 settings. My graphics card is capable of Dx10 but the FPS isn't as smooth as I like when it is activated.

Are you getting packet loss when the spell is cast or does your netowrk icon change color? If all your getting is frame rate loss, I would suspect something with your settings and/or video card. If your getting loss when it is cast, then there might be a bug or an issue with your connection.

But I also know the OP speaks of lag when no one else in the party is getting any, so it may very well be a connection issue.

I haven't actually checked packet loss. I might suspect the graphics settings or card myself had I not been bouncing Emails back and forth with Turbine Support already following a number of troubleshooting procedures and have the FPS drop only during that one spell.

I will have to try a faster internet connection for further testing.

[MsEricka]

People do realize that if you see more than 10Kbps from DDO then there's either something wrong, or there's a LOT going on. Stop talking about connection speeds, it is not related.

What is the issue? Your computer can't handle the graphics.

Solution? Upgrade.

[ImFour20]

People do realize that if you see more than 10Kbps from DDO then there's either something wrong, or there's a LOT going on. Stop talking about connection speeds, it is not related.

What is the issue? Your computer can't handle the graphics.

Solution? Upgrade.

i dunno what you're talking about. but i've seen the same lag type issues with ice storm as well. this is not when just one ice storm is out though. more like when 5-10 gets cast like in the west side of epic into the deep.

sorry, im not going to upgrade my 3ghz 8 core processor, my 8 gigs of ram, nor my 2gb video card.

its not major lag as mentioned in the OP, but is definitely detectable. ill be sure to check my FPS next time I run it

[MsEricka]

Believe what you'd like, but check the data throughput for yourself before you go blaming your internet connection.

[DarkThoughts]

I'm not ready to upgrade either.

If the lag were more widespread, I would consider an upgrade but the fact is that it is limited to one spell. There is no reason for one spell to be that much of a drain on a computer system when everything else runs smoothly at Very High settings.

But thank you for your opinion.

[Narmolanya]

I get ice storm lag as well. I also get lag from summoned air elementals passing in front of my camera view, the enemy ones cause no lag. I have been assuming it was my video card as I see the problem on my desktop and not my laptop using the same Internet connection. I am fairly certain it is not a connection issue for people having this problem but still convinced it's a problem on the client side.

[Dulcimerist]

Does the Ice Storm effect have more collision checks than other spells in the game, due to all the hunks of ice hitting stuff?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I get horrible Ice Storm lag!

And also lag from Air Ellies. On My Rgrs I've been casting Barkskin on other people's air ellies and that helps a little.

Wish I knew how to solve it too.

[Osharan_Tregarth]

I get horrible Ice Storm lag!

And also lag from Air Ellies. On My Rgrs I've been casting Barkskin on other people's air ellies and that helps a little.

Wish I knew how to solve it too.

Are you also one of the people that gets noticable lag in the shadow crypt, and in some cases the subterrean?

[LoveNeverFails]

/signed.

but i do find it weird, my husband's laptop is much less "quality" then mine, and he has no problem when he casts that spell. I however move like sludge inside of it, and it is the most irritating thing EVER. I don't want to tell him not to use the spell, for freedom, of whatever, and I don't want to discourage him from trying new things, but i can't help the feral growl that rises in my throat everytime I hear those ice chunks start falling...

[steelblueskies]

one question. does this lag also occur when multiple otto's sphere of dancing effects are stacked close together?(ie multiple disco balls) how about multiple fog effects(incendiary cloud, acid fog)? and lastly have you tried disabling sound effects altogether and testing(yes i know it sounds odd, but seriously try it, the bottleneck might be in system handling of too many sound effects at once, ice storm in particular generates several concurrently, and more if multiple strikes are happening as well).

[fuzzy1guy]

Have you tried turning down your graphics settings. OUTSIDE of the game.
Using the ati tools for the card. CCC or ati tray tools.

On cards much older than that. On computers much older than that. I could never get ice storm to lag much. Even with the entire reaver raid filled with them. and danceballs and clouds.


Ddo might be using 'low' settings but the card is forced to 32xaAA and 32xAF with high quality AF with ai on high with drivers that dont know **** about ddo on a knockoff brand card that's been overclocked to the point of instability on a monitor using 2048x2048 at 300hz while haveing an active virus scanner going plus an active firewall...

it's gonna lag hard.

(extreme example. But not really.)

[DarkThoughts]

/signed.

but i do find it weird, my husband's laptop is much less "quality" then mine, and he has no problem when he casts that spell. I however move like sludge inside of it, and it is the most irritating thing EVER. I don't want to tell him not to use the spell, for freedom, of whatever, and I don't want to discourage him from trying new things, but i can't help the feral growl that rises in my throat everytime I hear those ice chunks start falling...

I know that growl all too well. I cringe when I find out there is an Water Savant in the party.

I also hate asking people to stop casting it for the same reasons you do but I can only take so much and after it has been spammed throughout parts 1 & 2 of The Shroud, usually by part 4 when I'm staring at a nearly frozen Arraetrekos, I start letting that growl out... Off mic of course.

I'm also afraid the spell is only going to gain more popularity because I've heard it labeled as "the new Firewall."

[DarkThoughts]

one question. does this lag also occur when multiple otto's sphere of dancing effects are stacked close together?(ie multiple disco balls) how about multiple fog effects(incendiary cloud, acid fog)? and lastly have you tried disabling sound effects altogether and testing(yes i know it sounds odd, but seriously try it, the bottleneck might be in system handling of too many sound effects at once, ice storm in particular generates several concurrently, and more if multiple strikes are happening as well).

No it doesn't. I've seen too many dancing balls to count and they just don't cause any lag for me.

Air Elementals sometimes cause lag issues, but there have got to be loads of them before I see any problems, even in Reaver's Fate, the animation is usually very smooth with just a few exceptions. ...Now that I think about it... Maybe that lag was caused by multiple Air Elementals and Dancing Balls combined... But even if it were, the lag is nowhere near as bad as that caused by a single Ice Storm.

Have you tried turning down your graphics settings. OUTSIDE of the game.
Using the ati tools for the card. CCC or ati tray tools.

On cards much older than that. On computers much older than that. I could never get ice storm to lag much. Even with the entire reaver raid filled with them. and danceballs and clouds.


Ddo might be using 'low' settings but the card is forced to 32xaAA and 32xAF with high quality AF with ai on high with drivers that dont know **** about ddo on a knockoff brand card that's been overclocked to the point of instability on a monitor using 2048x2048 at 300hz while haveing an active virus scanner going plus an active firewall...

it's gonna lag hard.

(extreme example. But not really.)

I've also checked and adjusted the settings in the ATI Catalyst Pro Control Center to no avail.

[Zerkul]

Not sure, but i've seen some little improvement in the "Ice Storm Lag" or "Ice Storm FPS drop" in this update: in the update 8 used to lag more when multplie Ice storm were cast than i use now, but i still suffer this problem. I clearly get reduction in FPS while one or multiple Ice Storm are casted, especially if i am in the middle of them.

Specifics for my PC are: Windows7, CoreDuo Intel ghz1.6 , AtiRadeon HD 3470 and 4GB Ram. Nothing to be proud of but this PC optimized runs almost all the game at almost full details.