Weird lag - feydark illusionist shadowblade

[marinersfan]

Wondering if this happens to anyone else -- every time I start a new quest, the first time I cast "Shadowblade" from the illusionist tree, my computer locks up for several seconds, then when I can move again, I see that the blade does 1 point of force damage to my target. For the rest of the quest, the spell functions normally (no lag, significantly more damage per cast), unless I go too long between casts, then it'll lock me up again.

I'm not a fan of this, because it's made me die a few times, particularly when I get ambushed by reapers at the start of a quest

Not sure any specifics will help or if there's a known bug report I can't find. I'm a lvl 12 human bard nuker/singer. This has been an issue since I took this enhancement at like..level 3 maybe? My computer is not good, but aside from this spell, can handle ddo without too much trouble.

[marinersfan]

So maybe it's just me? Does anybody know if there is a setting I should adjust to try to avoid this lag?

Interestingly when I was playing earlier today someone else in the group was casting "fan of shadowblades" and that was also locking me up if I was close to him on cast. It's like my graphics can't handle those specific spells.

[CSQ]

So maybe it's just me? Does anybody know if there is a setting I should adjust to try to avoid this lag?

Interestingly when I was playing earlier today someone else in the group was casting "fan of shadowblades" and that was also locking me up if I was close to him on cast. It's like my graphics can't handle those specific spells.

Seems like there might be an issue with a particular effect/animation/texture if shadowblade effects in general cause issues. I don't remember ever noticing lag when using shadowblade imbues, but I think that's the only shadowblade feature I've used with any regularity and I didn't even use that one much. Since it seems to happen consistently with Shadowblade once per quest, it seems like maybe it's trying to cache a shader or something and failing, but I don't really know DDO's architecture much to troubleshoot what can cause it, so I'm afraid my only advice is the generic "games doing something weird" advice:

1. Check files for errors using the repair option in the launcher (click the downward triangle > "options" > "repair"- don't use Steam's validate tool).
2. Update graphics drivers if they're not up to date.
3. Restarts/updates/etc. for basically anything else that might be causing conflicts.

I would be interested to see if your system has any resource usage indicators when this happens, like memory faults or spiking CPU/GPU usage. If you have a second display, try having resource monitor open on the other screen and it might give at least a heads up about why. Even if there were something with the server, I've never heard of it locking your machine when something goes funky (even though the one point of damage does seem weird and is probably something related to the server, it could be a display issue as a side effect of your system freezing).

I do have a few diagnostic questions: Do you have any metamagics enabled or manually configured for Shadowblade? When the game freezes, does audio play? Does the SLA trigger after the delay, or does it "play" while you're frozen?

My guess would be that there's a corrupted asset that is freezing the game, probably a graphics asset related to Shadowblade but not necessarily.

[marinersfan]

Seems like there might be an issue with a particular effect/animation/texture if shadowblade effects in general cause issues. I don't remember ever noticing lag when using shadowblade imbues, but I think that's the only shadowblade feature I've used with any regularity and I didn't even use that one much. Since it seems to happen consistently with Shadowblade once per quest, it seems like maybe it's trying to cache a shader or something and failing, but I don't really know DDO's architecture much to troubleshoot what can cause it, so I'm afraid my only advice is the generic "games doing something weird" advice:

1. Check files for errors using the repair option in the launcher (click the downward triangle > "options" > "repair"- don't use Steam's validate tool).
2. Update graphics drivers if they're not up to date.
3. Restarts/updates/etc. for basically anything else that might be causing conflicts.

I would be interested to see if your system has any resource usage indicators when this happens, like memory faults or spiking CPU/GPU usage. If you have a second display, try having resource monitor open on the other screen and it might give at least a heads up about why. Even if there were something with the server, I've never heard of it locking your machine when something goes funky (even though the one point of damage does seem weird and is probably something related to the server, it could be a display issue as a side effect of your system freezing).

I do have a few diagnostic questions: Do you have any metamagics enabled or manually configured for Shadowblade? When the game freezes, does audio play? Does the SLA trigger after the delay, or does it "play" while you're frozen?

My guess would be that there's a corrupted asset that is freezing the game, probably a graphics asset related to Shadowblade but not necessarily.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to troubleshoot when I have time this weekend. Some additional comments, and answering your questions:
- the spell to imbue effects on my weapon, or to summon the shadow blade as my melee weapon works fine. Just the projectile spells freeze me.
- it does seem like the spell does 1 damage when it freezes. On enemies that have their hp totals visible to me, they do lose 1 hp
- I don't have a second display, sadly. I might be able to alt + tab and watch for issues
- I have empower, maximize, quicken, and I think heighten all turned on (right clicked the sla to set it only on them, not normal spells). This has been an issue since like.. level 3 and at that point I think I only had maximize
- DM narration continues when I'm frozen and enemies continue to beat me down. I think other sounds continue, but the spellcasting sound does seem to freeze and repeat until I unlock.
- I freeze at spell windup, then when I unfreeze I'm standing there as if I'm done casting. I don't shoot a blade, at least that I see


*Edit* just tested for spikes in usage. The first cast of the dungeon spiked dnd's CPU usage from 18% to 26%. Heavy action gets my rig up to around 23%. Doesn't seem like enough to explain the whole story. Memory usage doesn't change at all. Old desktop with integrated graphics, so the GPU monitor says 0% no matter what I do.