Client Instability - Potential Causes.

[Incarnate 34]

As I'm one of those who're affected by client instabilities and being unable to join, long loading times without being able to successfully load in.
I did some investigation to try and dig a bit deeper, where what I've found, might be one of or the main reason behind the client instability that players get when the attempt to join a server.
I used the windows task manager and the windows resource monitor to do this. So what I did was I opened the task manager, resource monitor and the Atlas it self, then set the resource monitor to filter for Atlas.exe, which basically means it shows what the Atlas program is doing, both in terms of cpu, disk, network and memory. The most important part here is what it's doing with the disk, basically what it's reading or writing to.

What I've been able to find so far...
The menu animation is a windows media video file named AtlasTitle.wmv, which also seems to be running when the game is attempting to load in the actual game.
The loading screen animation is a windows media video file named LoadingScreen.wmv, where several of these are being run simultaneously from the disk after clicking the button to join/connect.
The Atlas.exe is running it self from the disk - this could potentially be a very serious issue, to the point of it being one of the main reasons, if not the main reason for the client instability issues when trying to connect and load into the game.
I've also noted it using the msdmo.dll to compress data, which as far as I'm aware is only used when fragmentation to data happens, which I can only assume it's because fragmentation of data has been caused.

I don't know why the Atlas.exe is reading/writing to the executeable itself, as it's loaded into the memory, so it should not be necessary to read from the program on the disk, it would be other files that would be accessed, primarily to read them or run them, but some files could be written to like configuration files.

Anyone reading this, you're more than welcome to try and do what I've done to see if you can recreate the same results I got - on your systems, or maybe even get similar or different results that you can share with us here, this will help the developers more accurately pinpoint what could be going on as it is a very widespread issue. In whatever case, please do share what you find and if you happen to have expert knowledge in terms of computing, programming, etc. feel free to chime in and elaborate or share your thoughts as to what you think is going on.

/Inc.
 

[crowngamingx 9]

ssd/hdd disk? i did the same before i found your topic. I'd atlas an my second disk/hdd now i'm about Uninstall from the HDD and Intsall to the SSD because my 1tb HDD couldn't handle the Speed of defragmenting and writing that Atlas was using. When it's done on my SSD we will see how it goes.

[Incarnate 34]

1 hour ago, crowngamingx said:

ssd/hdd disk? i did the same before i found your topic. I'd atlas an my second disk/hdd now i'm about Uninstall from the HDD and Intsall to the SSD because my 1tb HDD couldn't handle the Speed of defragmenting and writing that Atlas was using. When it's done on my SSD we will see how it goes.

It's a harddrive (HDD).
If the case is that it can't handle the writing speeds of what Atlas requires, then they seriously need to change some things in order to make it less demanding in that regard.
HOWEVER, from what I've found out, it doesn't appear to be the issue what you're thinking, but obviously an SSD would be able to handle that strain a lot better, though it doesn't really change the fact that it seems they've made it in a way thats really inefficient and downright sloppy job, otherwise it's indicative of certain levels of incompetancy being present.

[crowngamingx 9]

well, i did the test with ssd it's faster (we all know that) but it makes no difference with the issues wherever they comes from-.-

 

[Incarnate 34]

1 hour ago, crowngamingx said:

well, i did the test with ssd it's faster (we all know that) but it makes no difference with the issues wherever they comes from-.-

 

So you got the same results or not?
Is your game client also suffering from instabilities, being unable to load in, and so on?

[Incarnate 34]

[UPDATE 1]

I've done further testing, specifically to see what is cause the most amount of load, to see what could be impacting performance during loading, again using the windows resource and performance monitor. It turns out that the two main files that is being read and loaded by the Atlas.exe file, is LoadingScreen.wmv being the highest and some times having several of the files being run simultaneously, and the other one is Atlas.exe itself, those are the two with top highest amounts of reads. Whats even more weird, during the loading screen the AtlasTitle.wmv where also read, meaning it was being access for a purpose, which I only can think would be to display it, but wasn't, and the LoadingScreen.wmv were also present simultaneously, even with several duplicates of it.

What does the above actually mean and what are the consequences in terms of impact on loading times and results?
Generally speaking, the impact can be quite high and it reduces the amount of reads that can be done to other files, as harddrives and even solid state drives have actual hardware limitations, and amount of reads per second is no exception to this limitation, in fact it's one of the main ways to measure how fast the drive actually is. So in other words the more NON-ESSENTIAL reads it performs the less efficient it actually will be in terms of effiency towards loading into the game. This directly translates into unnecessary longer loading times and potential not being able to log in due to the initial networt connection being dropped or being unable to be maintained until the loading is complete, hence why a lot of people get the "Host Connection Timeout" message once the loading is actually complete. As mentioned before, the .wmv is a windows media file, which only has the purpose of making it look nice while it's loading, but this comes at a cost, namely loading times, efficiency and stability. Furthermore, the game isn't the only thing that relies on and needs the HDD/SSD to operate, in fact the operating system, in short the OS, also continuously uses the HDD/SSD to remain operational and responsive. So when the game is attempting load into the game after one has clicked join/connect, it will attempt use all of the drives resources and read capacity to load, and it would seems it tries to use ALL and not whats currently available for use, which would make the game become unresponsive and the system will also become unresponsive at some point or at several times during load. There could also be another reason why the game immediately becomes unresponsive, which could be due to the fact that the Atlas.exe seems to be reading itself from the disk rather than from memory to perform various things, which also seems to be quite unnecessary as it's already loaded into memory when you run it, and also makes it affect loading times, stability and efficiency, and above all it might be the sole reason why the game and system ends up becoming unresponsive.

So with the above being said, why do not all seem to be suffering from it? There can be many reasons, but generally speaking the most likely reason simply is that they have much stronger systems and thus more stable system that can handle these kinds of issues caused by this. But even if this is the case, there is absolutely no reason to make it this way, as it's very inefficient and could handled a lot more efficient and smooth.

I would like to recommend that the developers consider some options, both for stability and performance issues but also to make it more efficient and smooth, which would make require even less resources and which will translate into better game experience. The possible solutions below are not mutually exclusive, in fact I recommend that all of them are implemented ASAP!

1st Solution
Add a debug option for the players to enable, this should be to collect important key information about various things, such as system specs, what processes were performed during load, load times, crashes, etc. Basically put any type of information that will identify the problem. WHY? First and foremoremost, since this is in early access it's EXTREMELY IMPORTANT and I cannot stress this enough, because this is still in development and in early access the technical feedback from players are extremely important, especially when it's accurate information that help pinpoint the problem but also provides more information in regards to the problem that also might point in the direction of a solution.

2nd Solution
Make it possible to disable the AtlasTitle.wmv and LoadingScreen.wmv and replace those with a static image of them. According to the resource and performance monitor, the amount of reads being doen

3rd Solution
Make it read from the Atlas.exe loaded in memory, rather than from disk, especially since both HDD and SSD has actual hardware limitations, and by making it read from the memory rather than the disk, it would actually leave more room for the other files that needs to be read from, and also most people are using HDD rather than SSD.

[Incarnate 34]

I've dug a little further using a friends .dmp file, who also were using my fix, but were crashing to desktop without any kind of error message.
It turns out that there is an issue with the Atlas.exe and the Kernalbase.dll, which could be due to several things, and very likely compatability issues with the clients current .NET framework and the Atlas.exe.

I would recommend that the developers begin to collect .dmp files from players with these kinds of crashes to get more accurate debugging information.

[Shrewdcrow 5]

I was having the issue every 15 to 30 minutes, but after this last patch it started crashing every 5 to 10 minutes. I seem to have it sorted out now though. I was using WiFi and noticed I was dropping packets and having downloads fail. I decided to just run a cable to my computer and since doing that I've not been crashing. It seems like my issue was from not having a reliable connection. 

As to why my WiFi was dropping so much I'll deal with that later, I have some Atlas to grind

Some things others might try along this line of thought is to go with a cable if possible and make sure your network drivers are all up to date. If those are already sorted out, perhaps it's your modem or ISP dropping the ball. Do some speed tests and check for any issues along those lines to make sure your good.

Good luck everyone!