Zugg Software :: View topic - Strange Mapper semi-hang.

Magician Joined: 25 Oct 2000 Posts: 461 Location: USA

FYI - If you are using WinXP, realize that MDAC and Jet database updates are available via 'Windows Update'. You should always make use of this when possible, as it ensures that you are getting the latest (and appropriate!) versions for your system. Jet SP7, if your machine is lacking it, will be under the Recommended Updates section.

As others mentioned, make use of the zMapper or Microsoft standalone compression utility. I managed to bring a 10MB map database back down to 5MB with it.

I have a mediocre 5k rooms in map maps. The only slowdown I currently notice when when trying to utilitze Move Rooms to Zone (I have over 300 zones, and it is beginning to take 10+s to open the zone dialog). Mapping performance is quite acceptable still, with at most a 2sec delay in creating rooms (though this is usually lag-related, not zmud related). Most rooms still map in under 1sec.

Newbie Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 5

I have the same problem.
It takes about 5 sec to make a new room and i have about 2k rooms on my map. Even in follow mode it takes 2 secs to change the room that is in rooms that were created by mapper in ver. 6.62.

!!! BUT !!! I have most of my rooms converted from old ver 6.16 .zzz file and the zone subfiles and when moving through those rooms it works allright. No delay at all.

(EDIT)
Oh yes, and i have the latest versions of MDAC and Jet
(/EDIT)
Krono

Novice Joined: 18 Aug 2001 Posts: 43 Location: USA

... Ok, now THIS is weird.
I'm beginning to hate Microsoft.
As I posted earlier in this thread, I used the MDAC component checker once and it told me my version was: '2.7 RTM Refresh (2.70.9001.0)'

I just ran it again (since the first time I have re-downloaded the 3 available MDAC/JET components from the Zuggsoft site and re-installed them), and now it's telling me my version is: '2.0.3002.20 (GA)'

Why in the world would me running the service packs downgrade me to an older version?

This is very annoying, I must say.
Any ideas on what I'm supposed to do to fix it?

[EDIT]
Btw, as posted above, I am using Windows 98SE, not XP.
[/EDIT]

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Heh, lovin' that. What I was particularly fond of was running the mdac upgrade for xp, and having it say 'done' (but not actually copy any files) and the version stayed at 2.7 RTM Refesh... wasn't I the happy camper!

I guess I could do it the easy way and download XP service pack 1, except I don't trust some of the fixes MS has reportedly done with it :P If Steve Gibson says that there's some questionables in it, then I'll take his word over MS :P

Novice Joined: 18 Aug 2001 Posts: 43 Location: USA

Well, I went to the Microsoft site and downloaded MDAC 2.71 SP1, and I also downloaded JET 4.0 SP7.
Using the MDAC checker it says I'm more than up to date (all my file versions are either 'passed' or are a higher # than what is expected by the checker) in both MDAC and JET.

However, I'm still having a delay on new room creation =(
Would room creation speed be effected by the fact that I don't capture room descriptions? It doesn't seem like it would, since the 'hang' occurs right after the room exits are displayed and before the prompt appears.

[EDIT]
Also, I compressed my database again with the Microsoft JET compression utility. I had made some map changes when my MDAC version was reading as 2.0, so it was messed up again. It should be streamlined now, though.

And when you run the automapper configuration wizard, it asks you within how many seconds do you want to capture output from the MUD. I have this set to 2 seconds. Could this have anything to do with it?
[/EDIT]

Wanderer Joined: 01 Jul 2002 Posts: 81 Location: USA

I am having the exact same problem.

My map database has over 700,000 rooms so far with many more to add. It takes an unbelievably long time to create a new room using zMUD. zMapper is faster, but not great. I used zMapper to compress the database.

I started playing a different mud and only have a few hundred rooms mapped there. zMUD zips right along with room creations in the smaller database. It is only the larger database that lags so miserably.

I am running Windows XP, have installed both updates, with 384 MB of RAM, and a Pentium 4 CPU 1.5 GHz.

Beginner Joined: 21 Oct 2000 Posts: 19 Location: USA

I managed to get microsoft's database compressor program to work on my database, but it didn't really affect the size of the databse, or the performance in Zmud at all. I also used Zmapper to compress my database to the same affect. I've tried it on all the computers I own and several different operating systems. The only thing that seems supicious to me is my map file is very old and I've imported it through three years of zmud updates. Perhaps the map file is messed up in someway that the compressors can't seem to fix?

Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 5:20 am

Well, if the indexes are missing, the compaction routine can't fix that. And missing or bad indexes can cause slowdowns. But I'm not sure how to fix that without opening the map database in a tool like Microsoft Access or something. There was some early beta versions of 6.3x that had problems with indexes, but the public version is supposed to detect missing indexes and add them, so I'm not sure if that's really the problem.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I would like to ask anyone that is having this problem and has the current zMapper beta to test and see if the same slowness zMud exhibits occurs when adding a room with zMapper.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Last I heard zMapper beta wasn't compatible with the new 6.6x format map databases, Zugg was going to upgrade zMapper to load them soon.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

They are compatible, both products were beta and being updated simultaneously until the database format was stabilized (v6.39). Since then there were no changes to the DB structure, but there were a larger number of changes to zMud to better script and accelerate some map activities. I think it is worth checking to see if there is a difference. Since I don't experience any slowness on my system, I can't test it.

Wanderer Joined: 01 Jul 2002 Posts: 81 Location: USA

For me, creating rooms is faster with zMapper. zMud takes about 1-5 minutes to create a room, zMapper only takes 7 or 8 seconds. I like to use zMuds makeroom scripting abilities and will just let it run overnight. I can create about 400 rooms in 8 hours.

Adding links between existing rooms is also faster with zMapper. zMud takes about 10 seconds, zMapper takes about 2 seconds.

However, opeing the room properties window is noticably slower in zMapper. zMud it happens almost instantly. There is a 2-4 minute lag opening the window in zMapper.

Merging rooms seems much slower with zMapper than with zMud. zMud took about 2 minutes and zMapper took 4 minutes to merge two rooms together.

I have not found a way to change room types for multiple rooms using zMud, it only allows me to change them one at a time, so I can't compare that to zMapper. They both take the same amount of time changing the room type for one room.

Changing the colour of a block of 10 x 10 rooms took 15 minutes using zMud and took 24 minutes with zMapper. zMud's merging two rooms took about 3 minutes, zMapper took 4 minutes to merge two rooms together.

I am using a map that I started in with zMud 5.15 and have upgraded several times as new versions of zMud were released. There are over 700,000 rooms. I have used the repair utility on the database and used zMapper to compact it.

Running Windows XP, have both updates installed, 384 MB of RAM, and a Pentium 4 CPU 1.5 GHz.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I recently had the opportunity to test a 20K room map sent to me by YpsiloN2. He sent me the 6.16 map file backups so I could run a clean conversion. After receiving the files everything converted perfectly, and preforming tests similar to those parrotslave did above yielded the same pattern, but delays were measurable in seconds as opposed to minutes. Compacting the database through zMapper resulted in a shrinkage from 24.6Mb to 20.6Mb, but did not provide any noticeable change in speed.

It would seem that speed is related to map size for tasks that require changes to the indexes, but there also still appears to be a larger delay for XP users. This difference between OS's is exhibitted by YpsiloN2's results with his map. In his orginal post:
http://www.zuggsoft.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12397

quote:

have winXP, 512MB ram, MDAC 2.7 SP1, and 1.8+GHz CPU so dont tell me my computer is too slow for zmud ... maybe the thing cant handle my map with has about 20k rooms (200+ zones)?

He does not cite specific or general amounts of time, but I believe them to be considerably more then seconds my tests resulted in, based on his choice of wording.

System Specs:
Win2K SP3
MDAC 2.7SP1
JET 4.0 guessing SP5, I forgot to archive the install on it, but is newer then those included in MDAC above.
Athalon 1GHz, 384Mb 2100DDR

It appears to be yet another bug with XP. If someone experiencing this problem wishes to be brave and try the latest Jet4.0 release from MS you can find it here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=282010

Who knows they might have finally released a piece of software that gets things done faster.

Magician Joined: 25 Oct 2000 Posts: 461 Location: USA

Here's something odd. Normally my map has maintained acceptable speeds while mapping (only about 5.7k rooms currently mapped). One afternoon it was suddenly quite slow, on par with the reports here (and of course right after I had posted that things were fine). I opened up the mapper config, unchecked the 'Room Description' box, mapped a few rooms, and the speed returned. I went back to the mapper config, turned 'Room Description' back on, and continued mapping and the speed has remained fine since. I'm sure this is purely a fluke, but it worked...

Novice Joined: 18 Aug 2001 Posts: 43 Location: USA

Wow, I didn't realize this thread was still alive ;)

To Vijilante's question, I have zMapper BETA 1.15 and as far as manually deleting/creating/linking rooms, it runs much faster (on the same database) than the automapper within zMUD for me.
I can delete a room and as soon as I click the yes button, it's gone (although zMapper does re-center the view when you delete a room, which is kind of weird). Deleting/creating links is just as fast.
I still have the 'lag' within the internal automapper in zMUD, though.