How to improve your client performance on Linux (with some hints useful also on Win)

[onemyndseye]

Good HOWTO...

2 notes from my end concerning renice:

1. Renice to +19 causes VERY poor performance on all 3 of my PC's

2. Renice to -X helps but note that this is known to cause sound lags if set to high. -15 works well (about +15fps over the default) on my laptop but -10 causes sound lag on another.

Also you may add that on any Linux PC I have ever run this game on (20+ including testing for the Debian Package)... setting MALLOC_CHECK_=1 helps GREATLY with overall stability.. as well as taking care that RO is launched from its own directory..

I use a small script to launch. (All of these "tweaks" are included in the Debian/Ubuntu package except for resetting the video mode)

rolauncher.sh

#!/bin/bash

## Set variables
## Set this to the full path of your regnum install
GAME_DIR=~/regnum
RO_PRIO="-15"

# Store Current video mode so it may be recalled later.  This is because RO does not
# always return my display to the correct mode.  This part is optional
OLD_VIDMODE="$(xrandr |grep "Screen 0" | awk '{print $8 $9 $10}' |sed '{s|,||}')"


wait_game() {
## Simple function to sleep until RO exits
##

RO_EXIT="0"
while [ $RO_EXIT = "0" ]
do
    TMP1=$(ps -U $USER |grep game |grep -v grep |awk '{print $1}')
    if [ -z "$TMP1" ]; then
      RO_EXIT=1
    fi
    # This is a very short sleep that probably should be increased to reduce CPU cycles
    sleep 0.5
done
}


## Attempt to make sure no other regnum process is running
#
killall -9 game
killall -9 rolauncher

### Setup the env and start laucher
# Change Current working directory to where RO is installed
cd "$GAME_DIR"

# Set MALLOC_CHECK and start RO
export MALLOC_CHECK_=1
./rolauncher

## Adjust Priority Level (Optional)
##
## Uncomment this section and give yourself NOPASSWD access to renice in /etc/sudoers
## if this feature is needed/wanted
#
# example:   myuser    ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/renice, /usr/sbin/rovclock
#
#PID="$(pidof game)"
#sudo renice "$RO_PRIO" $(pidof game)

## Wait for main process to exit. Use a loop to get this done
#
sleep 2
wait_game

## Clean up and reset video mode
xrandr -s "$OLD_VIDMOD"
export MALLOC_CHECK_=0

Thanks again!
-onemyndseye