Since I have been playing a lot of customs recently, I have noticed a lot of tracks have lag problems in them. The track I am making right now has the same problem, and I am desperately trying to fix it. My idea for this thread is for knowledgeable track creators to share what amounts to the most lag, so that these things could be avoided while making tracks.
Reasons for Lag
Effects: Effects are one of the prime suspects for lag, especially when there are many effects in one area. If you have a lot of effects throughout the track it can still slow down, but it is more likely to happen if you have them concentrated in one area.
Physics: Many physics objects on the driving line will increase the amount of lag. If you wish to use physics as decorum, simply set it to "decoration only" to reduce the lag.
Curves: Curves on your driving line can cause lag, especially if they are very sharp.
Environment: Things like trees and bushes can lag if they are used in excess.
Lights: Lights with maximum range can cause lag, as well as too many lights used on the drive line. Use point lights and lights with non-moving shadows.
View distances: If max view distance and object view distance are left on full, they can cause lag.
Driver's light: Turn the driver's light off, unless it is a dark track.
Visibility: Changing the visibility on many objects at once will effect lag
Physics bubble: If your track is static, set the physics bubble to 5m and 20m when the rider bails out.
Visibility of objects: The farther away you put objects, the less detail they will have, and the less lag there will be.
I am fairly new to the editor so I am going to leave it at that for fear of spreading misinformation. Anything posted in here I will add to this post so we can have a definitive list of factors that increase lag.
When there are a lot of physics enabled objects in an area, such as trees, buildings, etc. If you take objects outside of the driving line and set their physics properties to "decoration only," it can help decrease lag. It also hurts when you have a lot of physics enabled items on the driving line, like tracks I've seen where you are going to a hill with a ton of logs.
1. Lots of objects in an area with ohysics activated (limit Physics use)
2. Having a curved driving line can cause problems because your view your track from all the way around.(Limit curves and try not creating circles)
3. Leaving Max View distance and Object View distance on full can cause lag.
4. High amounts of detail and trees and plants too cause lag.
5.Lights with high range and lights on the driving line cause lots of lag (Limit range of light and the lights themselves until the light they emmit is not touching anyother light).
Senior Member
SebbI said that anything outside the physics bubble has no effect on performance if set to decoration only.Originally Posted by InstantNews
It's purely to optimise anything that passes through the physics bubble itself.
Gotcha, that physics bubble still gets on my nerves. It tends to mess up some of my effects, but the more you know.Originally Posted by EuphoricFusion
Great responses so far, all added.
Does the terrain shaping tool cause lag? I used a lot of riverbeds in my track to create big lakes and such and I was wondering if that might affect the lag somewhat.
It's not exactly lag, but I know some of the thick grass variations can cause some screen tear where white lines go across the screen. I had a big problem with that in a track until someone on here pointed it out to me. It's nice when tracks avoid all of these problems, so I thought I would mention it.
Senior Member
sometimes you can reduce lag by using a custom camera and moving it a little further away from the dl, bare in mind custom cameras can upset the feel of the track
Senior Member
Well I've given Skumbag plenty of time but he hasnt posted yet, so I'll save him the trouble and say the headlight causes bunches of lag if you dont turn it off.
Senior Member
If your track is static, set the physics bubble to 5m, and increase it to 20m when the rider bails out.
Avoid changing the visibility of a lot of objects at once.
Keep all lights off by default, and turn them on temporarily only when they're in view.
Use pointlights and lights with static shadows.
Also, like smeghead89 said, the farther away your objects are, the more you can fit on screen at once, since they'll show up with lower levels of detail. This is especially true for trees.
