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Good Map, Bad Map


So what really is lag?

First you have to define lag.

Are you talking about lag in the real since which refers to the speed at which data is transferred across the internet. If so the causes are numerous: Poorly configured PC, Packet loss, ISP bogged down, To many hops between you and the server, routing problems, even a poor up-load speed. I'm not an internet genius so I can't help you with these problems.

But if your talking about, what a lot a people in the DF community perceive as lag, frame rate loss (FRL) then the solutions are a little simpler to for me to explain.
The easiest solution for FRL is to get a very powerful video card. The GeForce 64mg or Voodoo 5 5000 64mg are two very capable cards.

Now on to things to consider when making maps.

  1. Total Item count. Lots of Items. Lots of FRL. Try to keep the TOTAL item count (i.e. spawns, flags, trees, way points, targets...) under 500. PC's have a horrible time keeping track of where everything is.
  2. The number of items in a given area. 20 trees in a 16m area will cause FRL. Try to keep things spread out a bit. Really very few things go well together closer then 4m.
  3. Textures. Many different textures ie. Pyramid walls, Mayan buildings, wooden houses, two kinds of trees, small bushes, guard towers ect, all in one map, all with in a 200m area will cause FRL.
  4. Poorly configured blink groups, see FAQ #2 on the map making page to learn about this.
  5. Overlapping objects will cause FRL. So when you put walls together, don't overlap them, butt them against each other (FAQ#3 explains how to align objects perfectly).
  6. Certain objects just naturally cause FRL. Fences are the most common culprit for this. ("put an object here, but I have to see through it" The video card doesn't like that one very much) Others such as birds flying, helicopters flying, parachute spawns (noticing a trend here)
  7. The number of players in the server will cause FRL. As the PC tries to keep track of everyone, where every one of their bullets go, painting bullet holes, drawing explosions the shrapnel from the explosions, drawing blood spatter, keeping track of mines, ect ect ect. it has to take resources away from your video card and allocate them to your processor. So the whole mechanics of the game causes FRL.


I'm sure there are a lot of other things that will cause FRL in any of the DF games but these are some of the more controllable ones and the ones I can think of right now. I will add more to this list as I remember them.

The biggest thing to remember is, "How many different things am I going to have to look at all at one time?" and don't think "All I see is this wall" but "What's behind that wall and the tree behind that and the building behind that, ect."
If it's not that many, then things will go smoothly.