[Guide] Solutions to Reducing Lag in SAS4

[DbsR]

(This is a post I made on a whole other thread and would like to share it on here as someone told me to for better experience and quicker answers. Will be sharing with the support.)

I'll try to somehow make this clear and understandable. I will put some questions at the end for some people to answer.

Topic: SAS 4
Problem: Lag/Freezing online, both Mobile and PC.

PC: When this lag and freezing happens, I can't do anything, and I mean absolutely nothing. Turning everything off: visual effects, low quality, no intro scenes, etc. There is no way to fix this problem. There is one specific event and it is Virus. This event is such a "Virus," it causes this lag. (Funny joke. No? Alright.) Anyway, I haven't been able to do events recently because of this. Remember, this is only on online. Single player is not a problem 100%, all the way.

Mobile: Don't get me wrong, mobile isn't really that bad. It has minor lag spikes here and there, but it's alright. Though I have noticed on Vaccine or whatever that map is called, I can sometimes run it fine, but then there are times where it is unbearably freezing and lagging. I have a Moto G, if you're wondering what phone I have, and it's Android too.

Questions: Here are a few questions that will hopefully be answered and for some of them to be implemented or made in the game.

- May we change the quality on Mobile as we can on PC? (Also instead of just making it all pixels and such, possibly make the textures simplistic? Like if there were blood on the floor, remove it. Just make it wood only.)

- On Mobile and PC, may there be an option to disable animations? (Examples are death animations and just disappear the enemy right after you kill it, physics on the grenade where it turns on the ground and instead make it one direction, remove the leg animations on the player and possibly remove the moving animations on the enemies, and possibly the moving screen with your cursor at the very beginning of the game where you load it, also including your info menu and the animation when checking the masteries, all those animations and etc.)

I hope these questions make sense and are understandable, but I want to ask questions of my own.

- What is the browser that is intended or recommended for this game or this website? (Microsoft Edge actually Builds the levels and stuff faster and also turning off the chat, but Google doesn't seem to. What should I do to Build faster like I've seen so many people do?)

- Is there anyway to load the levels simpler than what they are now on PC? (I know that Mobile loads it simply and fast, but I don't understand how the PC version doesn't do the same. What differentiates from the 2?


I hope this was all helpful and resourceful as I just want to play the game because I really love this game and I don't want to do play a game that I can't even play. This doesn't mean I hate the game, I just want to help and improve the game and tell you the problems that needs to be fixed on it. Thank you!

[undefined314]

Suggestions for mobile are best posted in the SAS 4 mobile forums, although they do not attract quite as many users. https://forums.ninjakiwi.com/forum/m...e-assault-4-aa
The version for mobile platforms is essentially independent of the web version. If you played SAS 3 on both platforms, you might recall that the end results became incredibly different, largely due to the mobile version being developed by a (mostly) separate team.

As far as your PC is concerned, here's some suggestions in addition to what's included on the original post.
Chances are, the most effective option for improving game performance on your PC would be to upgrade your hardware. This may not be an option for you, however.

You might get better performance on a 64 bit browser with the 64 bit flash plugin. Native 64 bit browsers such as Chromium and Waterfox may work slightly more efficiently than typical 32 bit browsers on a 64 bit operating system.
I personally use Maxthon (32 bit), but I wouldn't say it has noticeably better performance on flash games.

[Deathsax]

As far as PC is concerned, here's some suggestions in addition to what's included on the original post.
Chances are, the most effective option for improving game performance on your PC would be to upgrade your hardware. This may not be an option for you, however.

You might get better performance on a 64 bit browser with the 64 bit flash plugin. Native 64 bit browsers such as Chromium and Waterfox may work slightly more efficiently than typical 32 bit browsers on a 64 bit operating system.
I personally use Maxthon (32 bit), but I wouldn't say it has noticeably better performance on flash games.

If i recall accurately(questionable) , I've heard accounts of people with good systems getting poor, unaffected, or even sub par performance, but they might have been doing poor things to improve their performance, like neglecting to refresh and free the ram being used on flash. I also recall that the issue is that once you load something, like , say , a zombie, even after you leave the match , it's still maintaining that drain on the system, which accumulates after a few games, but, I could be wrong.

I couldn't say about the bits, but wouldn't it be best to have your browser bit be tandem to your processor?

[undefined314]

If i recall accurately(questionable) , I've heard accounts of people with good systems getting poor, unaffected, or even sub par performance, but they might have been doing poor things to improve their performance, like neglecting to refresh and free the ram being used on flash. I also recall that the issue is that once you load something, like , say , a zombie, even after you leave the match , it's still maintaining that drain on the system, which accumulates after a few games, but, I could be wrong.

I couldn't say about the bits, but wouldn't it be best to have your browser bit be tandem to your processor?

Yes, memory leaks are often a problem with flash games, where allocated memory is not completely released once its purpose has been served. Refreshing the page allows the system to essentially wipe the flash process clean and allow for a fresh start.

The operating system does need to be supported by the processor, but essentially all modern processors support 64 bit operating systems. Most recent systems run 64 bit operating systems, which can run 64 bit programs and 32 bit programs. For most purposes, it is fine to run a 32 bit program on a 64 bit operating system, as most processes are bottlenecked by the speed of user interaction. However, running a native 64 bit program on a 64 bit operating system is typically more efficient (although the more noticeable improvement is to the amount of memory individual processes are allowed to access).

[Deathsax]

Do the memory leaks occur in unity?

[undefined314]

Do the memory leaks occur in unity?

Flash is likely only part of the issue; memory leaks can still be a significant problem for developers and users of the unity web player. Without having programming experience with both of the two, it's difficult to say whether or not it's easier to find and patch memory leaks in unity compared to flash.

[SOVE]

i have a possible solution for lag but its only for apoc mode and lets face it u cant do anything about it.u cant refresh or something.what i noticed is that if the party members split on the map the lag is not gone but its rly reduced.u will still get ur lag spikes but ur screen wont freeze for like 3-4 sec since the number of zombies on ur screen is reduced.at least this worked for me since i told my party m8s to split.try it and reply if that helped u at all.
P.S:at loading screen when the kiwi pops the bloon if i try to set the quality low the game wont load any1 knows why i encounter this problem?

[Deathsax]

It's already been established that less players means less lag.

[KillaZombieForMommy]

P.S:at loading screen when the kiwi pops the bloon if i try to set the quality low the game wont load any1 knows why i encounter this problem?

I would also like to know why the game won't load if we have the flash quality settings windows up in Chrome? I heard clicking low quality does not work unless the game has finished loading first. Is there a workaround for using low quality in Chrome? I did see an extension for chrome that forces all flash to low quality but haven't tried it out yet.

[Perfectard]

this is a bit confusing

[Markus]

You can save ~2 seconds each reload if you have decent Internet connection, and much more time with a bad connection (not to mention a ton of bandwith) if you use a simple trick that will make ISP companies hate you

In Firefox press [CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[K] and paste this:

var d=document; var b=d.createElement('button');d.getElementById('primary').appendChild(b);b.appendChild(d.createTextNode("Quick restart"));b.addEventListener('click', function(){var r = document.getElementById('game');var t = r.cloneNode(true);r.parentNode.replaceChild(t, r)});

now you have a button to restart only flash without reloading whole page (and the flash actually doesn't have to load as well, it only has to restart).

Here's a more readable Greasemonkey script:

// ==UserScript==
// @name        SAS4utils
// @namespace   sas4
// @description SAS 4 utilities by arwil_cipciok
// @include     https://ninjakiwi.com/*/Games/Action/Play/SAS-Zombie-Assault-4.html*
// @version     1
// @grant       none
// ==/UserScript==

function quickRestart(e) {
  var ref = document.getElementById('game');
  var temp = ref.cloneNode(true);
  ref.parentNode.replaceChild(temp, ref);
}

var button = document.createElement('button');
document.getElementById('primary').appendChild(button);
button.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Quick restart"));
button.addEventListener('click', quickRestart);

It will not work on Kongregate, only on ninjakiwi.com. I could probably make it work on Kongregate if you need.

[VodkaHelpMeWin]

Im use my 7 years old notebook with low memory but with USB flash drive with Ready Boost program on it as main source for virtual memory, also im use Thermaltake GOrb2 x2 at most overheating parts of my laptop. Maybe its help someone too.

[datobeng]

Running an intel5Core and 4Gigs of R.A.M with all the right drivers updated, my P.C really sucks when it comes to crowded sceenes.Lag makes it hard even to survive in multiplayer. I think SAS4 multiplayer maps are too much for conventional CPU.

[Ghoulistus]

Hello datobeng,

Apart from zombies, map size could be a huge factor when it comes to performance. (i.e. Vaccine/Ice Station/Meltdown are bigger maps that can run slower compared to Onslaught or Pods)
While reading your specs, I believe that you're facing a separate issue. Do you;

-run the game at the lowest possible graphical settings?
-free up RAM/disk space often?
-use a stable, reliable connection [you mentioned multiplayer?]
-cool from a separate source (not your PC's internal fan)
-use other CPU/GPU's?
-use different browsers (if you use Chrome, try changing appropriate flags - EXPERIMENTAL FEATURES warning)?
-run the latest Flash version?

Also, what's the OS you're running on?
If you're still unsatisfied or concerned... try looking up performance tweak guides such as AskVG (Windows).

[fxPhade]

Im use my 7 years old notebook with low memory but with USB flash drive with Ready Boost program on it as main source for virtual memory, also im use Thermaltake GOrb2 x2 at most overheating parts of my laptop. Maybe its help someone too.

ReadyBoost is not a source of physical, nor virtual memory. It exists purely to shorten read/write operation times on your main disk, as well as to work alongside your paging file. Use this if you're using a hard drive disk (HDD) or a slow/old variant. On solid state disks (SSDs), this is mainly unnecessary to use; disable ReadyBoost & the Superfetch service in that scenario (Windows - 8 GB of reliable RAM or higher).