Revolutionary Loading Screen Mod

[thale5 58]

18 hours ago, Judazzz said:

Also, memory usage seems to decrease significantly once everything is loaded (when I open the Resource Manager while running the game, it uses about 7-8GB instead of the 13GB mentioned during the loading process), so I'm not quite sure how to read those values.

One little request: would it be possible to add a target="_blank" attribute to all Workshop links

Memory: the Garbage Collector works hard to remove the garbage created during loading, so memory usage does drop a little. However, make sure to look at 'Working Set' to get a comparable figure, not 'In Use' or similar.

Links: that's a good idea.

[thale5 58]

2 hours ago, Matthias King said:

When it says an asset is not found, what does that mean? It seems simple, but it said that about assets that I have, and were loaded. The Kleikie Sophia Hospital for example. It was loaded into the game, but I had to replop it. What's that about?

And when it fails to load something, what causes that?

Assets not found: could you enable the HTML report in mod options and perhaps share the report with me? (Gist/pastebin/similar). I would have a better idea.

Assets failed: this is an asset loading exception of any kind. Often a bit stream error. Surprisingly, I have noticed that the following scenario is perhaps the most common: Asset creator updates his/her asset. The main asset is updated fine but by mistake, the asset package also contains something that does not belong there, for example an older version of the same asset, causing a name conflict during loading. The result may look quite confusing because the main asset may end up fine in the game, yet the package threw an exception during loading. So far there has been something wrong in every failed asset package, i.e. no false alarms yet.

[Matthias King 348]

I'll enable the HTML report. Where do you find the report once it's generated?

[boformer 3,169]

I got another idea for the mod: Asset name change detection.

In the past it often happened that whole blocks of your city disappeared because the asset was updated with a different name. The workshop ID is still the same, so it's quite easy to detect such a name change. No idea why CO didn't include that.

It only works when the asset folder only contains a single crp file, which is the case in 99% of all workshop items.

[Judazzz 1,936]

That would be genius!

[thale5 58]

19 hours ago, Matthias King said:

I'll enable the HTML report. Where do you find the report once it's generated?

%localappdata%\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\Report\LoadingScreenMod

Assuming you have Windows.

[thale5 58]

18 hours ago, boformer said:

I got another idea for the mod: Asset name change detection.

In the past it often happened that whole blocks of your city disappeared because the asset was updated with a different name. The workshop ID is still the same, so it's quite easy to detect such a name change. No idea why CO didn't include that.

It only works when the asset folder only contains a single crp file, which is the case in 99% of all workshop items.

Yes, good thinking. In one-to-one situations such substitution seems safe. I have think about the loading sequence in more detail.

[Matthias King 348]

I just checked that directory and it was empty. I'll have to try again to get it to generate a report.

[thale5 58]

2 hours ago, Matthias King said:

I just checked that directory and it was empty. I'll have to try again to get it to generate a report.

Could you consider sharing an output_log.txt as well? The issues you have reported are all things I never see. A mod conflict perhaps? Investigating this would help a lot.

[Matthias King 348]

Ok, I got a report this time. Where do I put it? Also, where do I find the output log?

[pxljce 17]

7 hours ago, Matthias King said:

Ok, I got a report this time. Where do I put it? Also, where do I find the output log?

Hey Matthias, I found this guide on steam very usefull for finding/posting the output log.

[thale5 58]

8 hours ago, Matthias King said:

Ok, I got a report this time. Where do I put it? Also, where do I find the output log?

The log is here: Steam\steamapps\common\Cities_Skylines\Cities_Data\output_log.txt

It contains the latest game session only.

Could you save the files to Gist or pastebin and post the links here? Thanks!

[Matthias King 348]

I'm sorry if this sounds stupid, but I've never used pastebin. I'm looking at it right now and I'm not sure what to do? Do I copy the contents of the HTML report and paste them into there? Or am I supposed to be able to attach the file itself somehow?

I'm sorry this is so difficult. I've never done any of this before.

[xonedl 341]

Seeing the assets taking up so much RAM makes me wonder, did everyone stuck some 4K textures (or unoptimized) on their assets or something?

[Avanya 2,605]

2 hours ago, xonedl said:

Seeing the assets taking up so much RAM makes me wonder, did everyone stuck some 4K textures (or unoptimized) on their assets or something?

There are sadly alot of assets with way too big LOD textures. MeshInfo is great for finding those too. I've seen buildings with 1024x1024 LOD textures (that's the size of most larger main textures in the game) and small houses with 512x512 LOD textures (again that's the size for many smaller default buildings).

[Macronomicus 128]

1 hour ago, Avanya said:

There are sadly alot of assets with way too big LOD textures. MeshInfo is great for finding those too. I've seen buildings with 1024x1024 LOD textures (that's the size of most larger main textures in the game) and small houses with 512x512 LOD textures (again that's the size for many smaller default buildings).

it would be nice if Steam would show all that info in the given mod/assets page wouldn't it?  And may as well scan for malware and other testing before approval.  lol yea thats asking a lot.

[thale5 58]

17 hours ago, Matthias King said:

I'm sorry if this sounds stupid, but I've never used pastebin. I'm looking at it right now and I'm not sure what to do? Do I copy the contents of the HTML report and paste them into there? Or am I supposed to be able to attach the file itself somehow?

I'm sorry this is so difficult. I've never done any of this before.

No problem, here is some guidance (I like Gist more):

Using http://pastebin.com/

Using a text editor, Copy and then Paste file contents to the Pastebin text box.

Then click 'Create New Paste' and take note of the http address.

 

Using https://gist.github.com/

Click 'Add file' to share two files at once. Then simply drag and drop html or text files from the File Explorer to the Gist text boxes. Copy and Paste works as well.

Then click 'Create secret gist' and take note of the https address.

[Matthias King 348]

Thanks for the guidance.

Here's the HTML report:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/57556c6675a626439dc0b3e9fdae3a69

And here's the output log:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/e23a211feff3f7a6afd693c5707458d9

[thale5 58]

21 hours ago, Matthias King said:

Thanks for the guidance.

Here's the HTML report:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/57556c6675a626439dc0b3e9fdae3a69

And here's the output log:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/e23a211feff3f7a6afd693c5707458d9

Thank you for the files! Quite an impressive city by the stats! I never got that far.

Here is my analysis as promised:

The reported duplicates are harmless. I see you make backups under %localappdata%. That is actually a clever idea. I think I will optimize the loading for this use case because this is something I might do myself in the future. Anyway, when the mod sees a duplicate, it is reported and the duplicate is then simply ignored. So no problems there.

Just one used asset is outright missing: steam id 413813667. To avoid any problems, maybe you could get this building and remove it from the city, if you don't like it?

The other missing assets are just props and trees in buildings and parks. Like the report says, these cases are harmless. Just subscribe to the props and trees if you like to see them.

You mentioned Sophia Hospital earlier. In this load, Sophia Hospital is in the city and it is loaded fine. Did you see any problems with it?

There is nothing alarming in your output_log.txt. Did you see something during the load that I should fix?

By the way, it is interesting how people focus on different things. I have seen HTML reports with over a hundred custom vehicles and five custom buildings. Yours is the opposite.

[Matthias King 348]

Thanks for checking them out. The Sophia Hospital didn't load the first time I loaded a save after enabling the mod, but the next time it loaded and was where it was supposed to be.

The only vehicles I use are a set of recolored default cars and SUVs in grayscale colors, to add some variety to the brightly colored ones. Otherwise I don't use any others. I like some of the vehicles on the workshop, but I prioritize the RAM usage for buildings and other custom stuff, which might seem odd because I'm a car guy.

As far as seeing anything during the loading, it goes by too fast for me to pick anything out. I thought I spotted a few missing props that shouldn't be listed as missing because I have them, and they show up in-game as far as I've been able to see. Aside from that I can't think of anything.

Thanks again, and awesome work on the mod. I'm looking forward to seeing it continue to grow and optimize. I can always use some extra free RAM.

[thale5 58]

50 minutes ago, Matthias King said:

As far as seeing anything during the loading, it goes by too fast for me to pick anything out. I thought I spotted a few missing props that shouldn't be listed as missing because I have them, and they show up in-game as far as I've been able to see. Aside from that I can't think of anything.

Yeah they can go fast but it is a positive problem, isn't it. The props you saw are probably examples of the 'Workshop asset requires private prop' asset bug, where by mistake the private version of a prop is placed in a building/park, instead of the workshop version of the said prop. This is very common on the workshop.

[Matthias King 348]

I figured it wasn't a big problem when I got a save loaded and looked for a few of the props and found that they were there and where they were supposed to be.

Thanks and good luck.

[eufl 133]

Heya ! I know, this is an old thread, but I have a question actually.

I remember using this mod, when it came out in my town Goblinton, It worked fine, amd it was the first mod I did put in, when I started playing CSL a few week ago again (Yeah, I was kicked by too much CSL-updates, but I had to return).

So now I started creating a new asset folder in appdata, much smaller than it was two years ago, and WOOPS! The loading screen mod showed red after loading, too much assets? I reduced and reduced until it was whit, but in the end I know, that I haven´t enough assets in my game.
So my question is: When should I stop putting in stuff? My machine has 16 GB ram, and I cannot load more than maybe 800 assets. Can I do anything? More ram for example?

[Avanya 2,605]

If you haven't already, then shut down every other program running while you play. Everything uses RAM, so if you have for example a browser, a music player and Discord running they'll use RAM, which could have been used by Cities: Skylines for more asset.

Next keep an eye on what assets you get. There's a difference in their filesize and the larger the filesize, the more RAM they take up. An easy way to get a look at which ones take up more than others is use the mod MeshInfo to sort them by texture. Textures account for most of the filesize for assets, so an asset with a 2048x2048 texture takes up around 3 times the amount of RAM as a 1024x1024 texture. Ofc for some buildings it's totally worth it to keep them - typically very large buildings won't look good on a smaller texture, so they have larger ones. I've attached a picture with the texture sizes I'd recommend to have as max for different types of assets. Ofc it's a guideline, so you might want to ignore it for certain assets, but it gives you an idea of what area they should be in.

 

Some other things you will want to keep an eye on is map themes and Roads United themes (if you use any). These contain a lot of textures and since you're typically just using one, it might be worth unsubbing the ones you're not using. I keep a collection of my favorite map themes, so I can easily find them if I need them, while only being subscribed to a select few I'm using atm. Same with Roads United. If you're working on an American city right now, there's no need to have the pack for European roads installed too - not when you could have more assets instead!  

To be able to load more assets you can ofc upgrade so your computer has more RAM. Upgrading from 16 GB to for example 24 GB should let you add around 500-800 more assets ofc depending on their filesizes. Once the RAM shows in red your computer uses a page file instead of the RAM to keep things running. That's significantly slower than RAM (it's using the harddisk's speed basically) and in my experience the game runs a little more sluggish like that. I prefer to keep from RAM free, so once the number turns orange on the loading screen for me I start going through my stuff to clean out. But there's also people who run the game with way more assets than they have RAM for. Eventually if you keep adding assets the game will run out of memory and crash (usually at load, but sometimes it will load and crash on saving).

All that said 800 sounds like less than you would typically be able to run with for 16GB. It could be you have a lot of larger assets installed or stuff running in the background, but there's also an issue for some Windows 10 users where Windows either uses all the RAM or at least makes the game think it does. It's pretty easy to spot since the Loading Screen Mod shows the RAM as red at a really low value like 3-4GB RAM. If that's the case I would suggest to just ignore it and consider it fine until the game crashes. Whatever causes the issue it will hopefully be fixed in another update.

Anyways, that's a long enough post. Hope I didn't lose you in all.  

[eufl 133]

Thank you Avanya!

First: I am not using workshop subscriptions. I put all assets and mods into the appdata folder, and it contains only the ones I currently want to use. I am not using custom themes cause CSL won´t load them, and I have no clue why but I can live with it.

Only I can´t live without enough buildings and props. Usually I am playing with stuff of creators I can trust, so there is a lot of Feindbild, Titan and - well your buildings for sure . A few buildings are made by SvenBerlin and also a few by Lost Gecko. There is no asset bigger than roundabout 4MB. Trees are coming from pdelmo mostly, so yes, they are bigger than others but I am not using thousands of them but only a few packs.

Strange is, that I was able to have around 1200 assets in Goblinton two years ago, and now the game seems to be more restricted. Could it be, that all the stuff CO puts in during updates is using too much ressources  - i.e. ressources I would use for workshop assets instead?

Another question: Some time ago I´ve bought one addon with some art deco buildings. Should I consider to deinstall this one if I don´t need the buildings in my current setting?

And I am sorry, if I am asking that much but my last game ended with a crash and I lost the work of months. After Green Cities came out I bought it, and decided to start again. This time it should not end in a disaster. I will try your suggestions, especially to close every other program while playing CSL.

[Avanya 2,605]

How come you're not using subscriptions? It's way easier and you don't get problems like you have with themes where it doesn't load correctly. At least tell me your mods are subscriptions, so they update automatically.

The updates and DLC do take up some more RAM ofc and if you have Green Cities, then the difference isn't crazy. It added around 300 buildings and while I think the game compresses textures a bit more than for workshop buildings, you'd still expect it to take up around the same amount of buildings. Uninstalling the DLCs you don't use is a good idea to save RAM. That goes for the free ones as well. Ofc you can't do that if you've used something from the DLC in your city, but if you're starting a new city or haven't used anything from the DLC in your current one, you can disable the DLC just fine.

[eufl 133]

How comes...? Well, I am an unbelievable old fashioned idiot, I like to have my folders on my computer only. I would load mods and assets here from simtrop only if it were possible.

And yes, I also prefer the mods sitting in the assets/mods folder instead of having them subscribed. I am aware of updates, and I am looking into the workshop very often, so this shouldn´t be a problem. Also I realized, that some of the mods call for updates though.

Saddest thing is: I want to play with Green Cities, I´ve bought it cause of the ideas, CO put into it. I will make tests with saves to see, what happens if I fill a map with assets, and how much more I can put into the game. Luckily I have time, as the next update will come soon, and then I need to reconfigure everything again I guess. Also I am still working on the map for my town, and I am not really a fast builder.

Thanks again for your answers and thoughts!

[Distanced 114]

What I would suggest is taking those out of the folders and just using subscriptions. Mods and assets can become incompatible with each update/patch and its really good to keep them under the workshop's authority. That being said, 800 is not a lot at all. I have 16 gigs of DDR3 and am pushing 4000 assets and 78 mods. 

[Avanya 2,605]

They're still in folders on your computer and not some cloud drive. But when you install them manually the game doesn't remember the ID. For assets that can cause problems with dependencies, since the game doesn't recognize them. For mods some reference files in their folder where they're automatically installed and then don't work like they should when installed manually. In the end the choice is yours ofc, but you're spending a lot of time moving stuff around and having to manually check for updates, which you could avoid. And you're bound to miss updates on assets, since I doubt you check all 800 on a regular basis.

Having the automatic updates also makes the whole patch process easier - and if you have problems with the game you can easily sort mods by last update to find the ones that haven't been updated to the patch. I just don't get the whole doing it manually when you could be playing the game instead.

Btw when we're talking RAM usage it doesn't matter if your city is empty or has tons of buildings in it. Everything is loaded into the RAM at the start whether or not it's used. RAM usage doesn't go up as you place buildings in your city - it stays about the same all the time maybe going up a bit when you're saving. As your city grows the load for the CPU and the graphics card is increased, but it won't matter for RAM usage.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

1 hour ago, Avanya said:

For assets that can cause problems with dependencies, since the game doesn't recognize them

If you copy a workshop item to the local folder, it's still a workshop item, the prefab name is still with the steam id, and is recognized just like any workshop item, this is why i copy workshop published props to local to add them to my buildings, while still using noWorkshop mode.

But yeah everything else makes sense and I don't see a reason to use them locally, I only think making local backups makes sense as you could roll back to something that was changed, if that's necessary, especially in the case of broken or deleted networks.