Zugg Software :: View topic

Newbie Joined: 10 Dec 2002 Posts: 3 Location: Sweden

Hello. I am having this big problem with the mapper. In the mud which I currently play on (the two towers), the areas are very large. I prefer to separate the zones at natural choakpoints, such as fords and bridges, so that each area links to the other in just a few rooms (2-3). The areas often become very large, such as 2-3000 rooms. It makes the mapper very hard to use.

Every time i switch from one zone to another, i get lag. With the biggest map (4500 rooms) the lag can be 10-15 seconds. Even though I'm using a 2,5k mhz brand new computer.

I have solved it temporarily by making one zone out of all the "usual" rooms, such as the fastest way between the usual towns etc. That works pretty well, and i only lag when i leave that zone which is not very common. It feels like a bad solution though. Also, with the 6.16 version of zmud i cannot walk past zones with #WALK aliases, which makes the mapper not a useful tool, but a fun one.

I have also tried to use trigger and lables for the rooms where you enter citys, for instance
#TRIGGER {The west gate of Bree} {#TE west_gate_bree eriador}. It works too, but is slow and unreliable.

My questions are:

Is there a way to speed up the mapper even when using large zones?

If not, will the mapper ever become useful for very large maps/zones? Will the speedwalking work when passing over like 100 rooms, without lagging you down so much that its practically not usable?

Can it be more useful to divide the zones into smaller ones? That is - does passing several smaller zones lag less then passing one larger?

Thank you for any replies.

/Andreas

GURU Joined: 15 Jun 2001 Posts: 654 Location: USA

quote:
Is there a way to speed up the mapper even when using large zones?

Well, you could always eliminate the zones altogether and end up with one very large zone. Otherwise, waiting for the next public version of zMUD (due out before Christmas!) or an upgrade to the latest beta version (6.39a at the moment) may be in order. The mapper module has been completely rewritten and optimized using a different database component.

quote:
If not, will the mapper ever become useful for very large maps/zones? Will the speedwalking work when passing over like 100 rooms, without lagging you down so much that its practically not usable?

Yes. Additionally, colors will be more vivid and children will laugh and play in the streets when the new zMUD public version arrives. (Can you tell I'm looking forward to it? :P)

quote:
Can it be more useful to divide the zones into smaller ones? That is - does passing several smaller zones lag less then passing one larger?

The lag is mainly from the time it takes to load the zone you are moving into. So smaller zones would reduce the duration but increase the frequency. Putting everything in one zone would eliminate it altogether at the expense of initial load time.

- Charbal

Newbie Joined: 10 Dec 2002 Posts: 3 Location: Sweden

I am using the newest beta as for this evening and it works better. Although its still some weird lag. Problem is mainly that it's a 25k room map so far. (will reach about 30k rooms when done. That's gonna be one gigantic zone heh.

Anyway, thank you for the answers. I will rearrange the map and try. I think ill be in touch if anyone's interested in hearing how it goes.

/Andreas - have fun mudding.

Newbie Joined: 10 Dec 2002 Posts: 3 Location: Sweden

When trying to put over 5-6k rooms in one zone the cpu usage (obviously) exceeds 100% and zmud crashes. I believe using small optimized paths and trigger are the most useful way though.

Besides that, I must say that this mapper thing is an extremely useful tool. In a matter of months (when DB code changes etc) i would say there will be two cathegories of mudders, the ones thats using zmud maps, and those that aren't. :)