USB Doomin

[forgettable pyromaniac]

So I've been working on many different computers recently to work on my own wad, so I put basically my entire laptop onto a usb drive and gave the laptop (after resetting it) to my younger sibling, and I am now using the family lappy and family iMac to work on stuff and play games while I wait for crimbus (where I'll have enough money to purchase a new laptop that isnt complete garb at that point), but while using the laptop I noticed something weird:

 

With games like Friday Night Funkin and GZDoom, the game would stutter ever so often, just enough to be annoying but not enough to inhibit my experience most of the time.

 

So what I wanted to ask was this: Does GZDoom require to constantly pull assets from wads? Of course at the start, it will for sure, but I mostly mean during gameplay. Using PrBoom+ seems to not cause these stutters, and my copies of Diablo II and Warcraft II on my USB seem to work fine as well, but it's only FNF and GZDoom that have this issue.

[roadworx]

i don't believe so, no; i would think that it'd load the wad into memory. loading it all from the hdd/sdd would take place at the start, not throughout. i suspect the reason gzdoom is stuttering is cuz the hardware you're using is on the lower end spec-wise, which gzdoom doesn't pair very well with due to it not being the most optimized source port in the world.

 

i suggest maybe trying out lzdoom, as it's specifically meant for lower-end computers.

[forgettable pyromaniac]

Just now, roadworx said:

i don't believe so, no; i would think that it'd load the wad into memory. loading it all from the hdd/sdd would take place at the start, not throughout. i suspect the reason gzdoom is stuttering is cuz the hardware you're using is on the lower end spec-wise, which gzdoom doesn't pair very well with due to it not being the most optimized source port in the world.

 

i suggest maybe trying out lzdoom, as it's specifically meant for lower-end computers.

No, it's actually a quite alright laptop, way newer than my old one. I dont have the specs on hand (I'm in bed atm lmao) but I do remember that it is Intel i7 10510U @ 2.30GHz and 8 GB of ram. Also an NVidia card of some kind.

[omx32x]

1 minute ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

No, it's actually a quite alright laptop, way newer than my old one. I dont have the specs on hand (I'm in bed atm lmao) but I do remember that it is Intel i7 10510U @ 2.30GHz and 8 GB of ram. Also an NVidia card of some kind.

can you record a video of what is happening? that way we can see how it is studdering

[roadworx]

1 minute ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

No, it's actually a quite alright laptop, way newer than my old one. I dont have the specs on hand (I'm in bed atm lmao) but I do remember that it is Intel i7 10510U @ 2.30GHz and 8 GB of ram. Also an NVidia card of some kind.

have you tried running it off the hard drive? just to see if usb is the actual cause

[Doomkid]

GZDoom may work differently, but I’m sure Doom loads stuff into memory as it goes. I distinctly remember seeing the blue floppy disc icon that means the game is loading something whenever I’d wake a monster that calls a previously unused sound effect or w/e. Maybe it would be best to just drag and drop GZD onto the PC temporarily as you play?

Edited June 25, 2021 by Doomkid

[forgettable pyromaniac]

Just now, omalefico32x said:

can you record a video of what is happening? that way we can see how it is studdering

I can tommorow mornin

Just now, roadworx said:

have you tried running it off the hard drive? just to see if usb is the actual cause

I was planning on trying that tonight but it's midnight and I dont wanna wake anyone up cuz I'm a fat fuck and I make noise walkin around lmao

Just now, Doomkid said:

GZDoom may work differently, but I’m sure Doom loads stuff into memory as it goes. I distinctly remember seeing the blue floppy disc icon that means the game is loading something whenever I’d wake a monster that calls a previously unused kind effect or w/e. Maybe it would be best to just drag and drop GZD onto the PC temporarily as you play?

I would but I'm trying to see if I can keep it as clean as possible as like i said, it's the family computer. I was going to try it once to see if the stuttering was the USB itself but cant tonight, it's late lmao

[Edward850]

34 minutes ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

So what I wanted to ask was this: Does GZDoom require to constantly pull assets from wads? Of course at the start, it will for sure, but I mostly mean during gameplay. Using PrBoom+ seems to not cause these stutters, and my copies of Diablo II and Warcraft II on my USB seem to work fine as well, but it's only FNF and GZDoom that have this issue.

Yes, all Doom ports do, it's actually how Doom at its core is designed. Remember that Doom was released in 1993. You could have a system with 4MB of RAM and Doom's WAD file was at a minimum was 10MB, you couldn't allocate all that at once, so the zone heap allocator managed the pulling and caching of assets. Some base assets are allocated statically, such as the menu graphics, anything for the level gets loaded in for that level, and then when switching levels they all get tagged as cache and then either tagged back if needed again, or freed if more memory is needed for something else. Loading in new assets is done either during the level load or on the fly as demanded, and only for what is needed, not everything.

GZDoom still does this (though now with it's own garbage collector instead of Doom's zone memory allocator), and can actually be much worse as its now needs to load and generate runtime assets for things like GPU texture resources, especially if you have numerous filters on. Some assets can be a much higher resolution sound or graphic as well wasting even more time, and the slow uncached cheap NAND access you have off some USB2 controller is only adding to the overheads.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Edward850

[roadworx]

14 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

GZDoom may work differently, but I’m sure Doom loads stuff into memory as it goes. I distinctly remember seeing the blue floppy disc icon that means the game is loading something whenever I’d wake a monster that calls a previously unused sound effect or w/e. Maybe it would be best to just drag and drop GZD onto the PC temporarily as you play?

ohhh my fucking god my brain isn't working right today, that's absolutely what it does lol. somehow that just completely escaped my mind???

 

i forgot that games load stuff in as they go, that's why pop-in exists...

Edited June 25, 2021 by roadworx

[forgettable pyromaniac]

5 minutes ago, roadworx said:

i forgot that games load stuff in as they go, that's why pop-in exists...

That is true, but it doesnt seem to be when loading things like sounds, sometimes I'll be just running around my level I'm working on with no monsters inside and BAM instant fuck you for a half of a second before it goes back to normal.

[roadworx]

1 minute ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

That is true, but it doesnt seem to be when loading things like sounds, sometimes I'll be just running around my level I'm working on with no monsters inside and BAM instant fuck you for a half of a second before it goes back to normal.

doom's sounds are tiny in filesize compared to all the graphics stuff doom has

[forgettable pyromaniac]

Just now, roadworx said:

doom's sounds are tiny in filesize compared to all the graphics stuff doom has

Was just an example.

[forgettable pyromaniac]

alright, so i took gzdoom out from my usb. it still seems to hiccup a bit at first, but the main difference is that it doesn't keep happening, it only does so once or twice and then never again until i reset GZDoom. Just an interesting tidbit. My phone is currently charging so I'll see if I can get a video of some stutters while playing Doom II from USB later.

[Diabolución]

Random writes are the weak point of rubbish solid-state storage devices, such as the usual generic USB stick.

 

Bolds and italics as in the original.

 

Large USB Flash Drive Performance

 

One caution: if you do plan to use your USB flash drive to run applications or even operating systems, pay close attention to the random read and write speeds. Sequential throughput is a good overall baseline, but it's not the entire performance story. While typical portable storage usage does correlate well with sequential throughput, applications running on a USB flash drive are largely bounded by random access throughput.