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Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Wednesday, 21st March 2012, 18:37
by phonix
Hey, long time player and lurker first time poster here.

I've been playing Crawl since 0.7 and just recently got into playing online after getting my first win offline. The problem is webtiles runs like absolute dirt on Windows 7 64 bit. I recently even did a fresh format and it still runs as bad. I get about 1 second of input delay on every single action, playable but extremely not enjoyable.

Webtiles work perfectly on the same machine using ubuntu, almost indistinguishable from playing locally, which makes the problem even more frustrating. If anyone has any ideas what could be causing it I'd like to know. All my drivers are up to date and I've tried using all of the 3 big browsers (Chrome, Firefox and Firefox Nightly and Opera) and its exactly the same.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Wednesday, 21st March 2012, 19:15
by mumra
Hmm, this makes me wonder if I'm seeing the same problem. The game itself runs a bit better than what you're describing but it still always feels a bit laggy (perhaps more like 200-400ms), but I've noticed when spectating that other people's games seem to run really well. I just assumed it was my proximity to the server but I haven't tested any other OS's.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Wednesday, 21st March 2012, 19:17
by BlackSheep
Phonix, which browser do you use under Ubuntu?

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Wednesday, 21st March 2012, 19:19
by phonix
BlackSheep wrote:Phonix, which browser do you use under Ubuntu?


Firefox or Chrome. Its the same.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Wednesday, 21st March 2012, 19:50
by TehDruid
Running win7 64 too, got into online tiles for the tournament, cause I normally only play offline. Webtiles input lags quite a lot for me but so does ASCII online, (I've tried it with PuTTy). Webtiles is not unplayable, but fairly annoying. What was killing it for me during the tournament was Shoals and Swamp. The delay was terrible between input and the screen drawing. I did notice that making the game window smaller helped a bit. I'm normally running webtiles in a maximised window on my laptop's 1920x1080 resolution. On firefox.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 22nd March 2012, 05:59
by MyOtheHedgeFox
Is Websocket technology using something like OpenGL?

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 22nd March 2012, 06:35
by mumra
MyOtheHedgeFox wrote:Is Websocket technology using something like OpenGL?


It certainly shouldn't be ... Websockets is about persistent web connections, nothing to do with graphics.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 22nd March 2012, 08:16
by defen
I've run it on XP, 7, and whatever recent MacOS my girlfriend uses. It lags on all three with Chrome. (7 is the worst, but it is also running with the crappiest Internet connection of the three).

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 22nd March 2012, 10:33
by phonix
I'm almost certain it has nothing to do with my internet connection. I have a 100/10 line with outstanding stability, never ever had any kind of packet loss or other issues with it.

Upon looking closer into it seems like my turn timer updates right away after the action but the delay is with the screen being updated.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 22nd March 2012, 15:57
by mumra
What spec is your machine (processor, graphics card)? Have you installed the latest versions of motherboard and graphics card drivers?

Webtiles uses the html5 canvas system for rendering the graphics. This is always going to be way less performant than a proper native graphics library. So this might be purely a performance thing and Ubuntu only works better because that OS has less overhead.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 22nd March 2012, 16:34
by phonix
mumra wrote:What spec is your machine (processor, graphics card)? Have you installed the latest versions of motherboard and graphics card drivers?

Webtiles uses the html5 canvas system for rendering the graphics. This is always going to be way less performant than a proper native graphics library. So this might be purely a performance thing and Ubuntu only works better because that OS has less overhead.


My processor is E5400 clocked to 3.3ghz and my GPU is a 9800gt. I have my drivers up to date.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 22nd March 2012, 16:54
by edlothiol
Is there a lag only when you move by hand, or are the steps slow even when autoexploring? Especially if you're not in Europe, there will be a certain amount of lag since CDO is located in Germany. Other ways to check this are pinging tiles.crawl.develz.org and trying to play via SSH.
If you're sure the problem is the drawing speed, please mention the exact browser versions you've tried, and for chrome go to about:gpu and check whether hardware acceleration for canvas works. Also, make sure you have the newest drivers by the graphics card vendor, not the ones that came with Windows (the OpenGL support in Windows 7 is abysmal out of the box).

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 22nd March 2012, 17:32
by phonix
edlothiol wrote:Is there a lag only when you move by hand, or are the steps slow even when autoexploring? Especially if you're not in Europe, there will be a certain amount of lag since CDO is located in Germany. Other ways to check this are pinging tiles.crawl.develz.org and trying to play via SSH.
If you're sure the problem is the drawing speed, please mention the exact browser versions you've tried, and for chrome go to about:gpu and check whether hardware acceleration for canvas works. Also, make sure you have the newest drivers by the graphics card vendor, not the ones that came with Windows (the OpenGL support in Windows 7 is abysmal out of the box).


Indeed I went to check about:gpu on chrome and it says Canvas: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled. Like I said drivers are up to date and it works perfectly on ubuntu.
edit: fixed it, no effect.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Friday, 23rd March 2012, 12:38
by mumra
This is weird. I wasn't aware of the GPU canvas option in Chrome either. So I tried enabling it. Manually walking around the dungeon seemed the same as ever, perhaps slightly better. But the really strange thing: autoexplore was noticably slower. Normally it's pretty nippy, but with GPU acceleration it was only about as fast as just using the arrow keys.

For comparison: my graphics card is a GTX 275 (two generations newer), and my processor is an E6550 (twice the cache, and a faster FSB). From what I know about the technology, I suspect that a full-screen canvas @ 1080p will actually be very demanding on both graphics and CPU. I'd be interested to hear other players' experiences with system specs and webtiles.

Couple of questions:

1. When spectating, do other players' games move much faster than yours?

2. Whereabouts in the world are you?

3. Are you on wi-fi?

4. What firewall are you using? (And can you try disabling it temporarily...)

What I'm trying to determine is if it's either your system spec, or a network issue (since you're not affected in Ubuntu this would imply a Windows network bug or a firewall problem).

Also: I want to absolutely eliminate the possibility of simple coincidence. How many times have you tried it in Ubuntu, is it just once, or lots?

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Friday, 23rd March 2012, 14:17
by phonix
mumra wrote:This is weird. I wasn't aware of the GPU canvas option in Chrome either. So I tried enabling it. Manually walking around the dungeon seemed the same as ever, perhaps slightly better. But the really strange thing: autoexplore was noticably slower. Normally it's pretty nippy, but with GPU acceleration it was only about as fast as just using the arrow keys.

For comparison: my graphics card is a GTX 275 (two generations newer), and my processor is an E6550 (twice the cache, and a faster FSB). From what I know about the technology, I suspect that a full-screen canvas @ 1080p will actually be very demanding on both graphics and CPU. I'd be interested to hear other players' experiences with system specs and webtiles.

Couple of questions:

1. When spectating, do other players' games move much faster than yours?

2. Whereabouts in the world are you?

3. Are you on wi-fi?

4. What firewall are you using? (And can you try disabling it temporarily...)

What I'm trying to determine is if it's either your system spec, or a network issue (since you're not affected in Ubuntu this would imply a Windows network bug or a firewall problem).

Also: I want to absolutely eliminate the possibility of simple coincidence. How many times have you tried it in Ubuntu, is it just once, or lots?

I never play full screen. Window size doesn't seem to have any kind of effect I'd notice.

1. Not really much faster. They seem smoother though.
2. Finland
3. No
4. Windows default. Disabling had no effect.

I've played about 20 hours online on ubuntu so it's not just coincidence.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Friday, 23rd March 2012, 14:21
by mumra
If other players' games aren't faster then (in my opinion) it's your system spec. If it's any form of network lag then it shouldn't really matter for a continuous stream of data like spectating. Ubuntu just works better because it's less resource intensive than Windows 7. It'd be good to hear from users with similar spec to get a comparison.

Although, do you still have the canvas GPU acceleration enabled? Disable if so, in light of my findings with autoexplore.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Friday, 23rd March 2012, 16:58
by phonix
mumra wrote:If other players' games aren't faster then (in my opinion) it's your system spec. If it's any form of network lag then it shouldn't really matter for a continuous stream of data like spectating. Ubuntu just works better because it's less resource intensive than Windows 7. It'd be good to hear from users with similar spec to get a comparison.

Although, do you still have the canvas GPU acceleration enabled? Disable if so, in light of my findings with autoexplore.


Disabling all settings but WebGL in about:flags and formally allowing chrome through windows firewall seems to have improved the performance. still not quite as smooth as on ubuntu but definitively playable now.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Friday, 23rd March 2012, 17:16
by mumra
Interesting ... I enabled "GPU Accelerated Drawing" (separate option to the canvas one) and it feels way more responsive.

edlothiol: I have a theory that I'm thinking could slightly improve responsiveness on slower systems. My theory is that if the user is pressing keys quickly, the client is waiting until after the screen updates before it sends the next keypress up to the server. Can you confirm or deny this theory? If so, the lag could be slightly improved by sending the next queued keypress up to the server before the display update.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Friday, 23rd March 2012, 17:57
by edlothiol
Keys are sent as soon as they are pressed.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Tuesday, 27th March 2012, 10:06
by starless
I have been playing Webtiles since it came out but recently it's been impossible to play because of the lag. I used to be able to play Webtiles from different locations and on different networks and it was fine anywhere.

Now it's just frustrating for me. I think I'd have to go back to the offline version.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Saturday, 31st March 2012, 18:16
by graffen69
Phoenix wrote: “The problem is webtiles runs like absolute dirt on Windows 7 64 bit. I recently even did a fresh format and it still runs as bad. I get about 1 second of input delay on every single action, playable but extremely not enjoyable.”

I have exactly this problem as well.
I started trying to play the 2012 tournament but gave up, the lag was so severe. The lag is constant and if I spectate other player’s games it gets worse - the tiles freezes, then 10 things happen in 1 sec. Then the default hefty lag until it freezes again. This cycle is ever repeating and not only in tournament (as in not only when servers were crowded with players).
Trying out a game now after the tournaments finished but no difference.

Playing from Sweden, 10/1 line (getting 100/10 within a month or two) on a dualcore 2,93 Ghz, 4 RAM, Windows 7 64byte, GeForce 240 1GB DDR5, using up to date drivers.
I changed from XP to W7 bout 5 months ago, sad to say I never tried Webtiles out in XP.
Anyways, will update once I get the faster line to see how/if it affects lagg.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Sunday, 8th April 2012, 21:35
by edlothiol
starless, graffen69: same questions as for phonix: What (exact) browser versions are you using, and what does about:gpu in chrome say?

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Sunday, 8th April 2012, 22:52
by galehar
Try this.
Be aware that this is a workaround, and it can have some side effects. Like doubling your upstream bandwidth usage for many things. Also, editing the registry can break the computer and burn down your house and we're not responsible yaddi yaddi yadda...
Here is some technical explanations of this registry key.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Monday, 9th April 2012, 19:43
by Findor
i have the same issue which kinda forces me to play local. i m also using win7 64bit. i made a screenshot of chromes about:cpu so you can see the detail if you want to. you can see it here: http://i41.tinypic.com/erx4cj.jpg
i m from germany, so my ping to tiles.crawl.develz.org is always around 50ms. the fix from your last post didnt change the lag. even after rebooting.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Monday, 9th April 2012, 21:30
by edlothiol
What's your score in this?

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Monday, 9th April 2012, 21:36
by Findor
Benchmark Score: 1873
Average FPS: 40

Im running this on a Laptop with a Core2Duo 2,53GHz and an ATI Mobility HD4650 it still runs most games fine in lower settings.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Monday, 23rd April 2012, 14:53
by starless
It seems it was a browser issue, as suggested by the previous posts.

And that is quite strange because I had been playing Webtiles on Firefox (OSX) since it came out. On Chrome the game runs smoothly - no problems.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 26th April 2012, 14:10
by Indrah
Played dozens of webtile games over the past year on my windows 7 - 64 bit, chrome machine and never really had a problem. Until last week when it suddenly became very laggy, nearly unplayable. The machine at my work (also W7-64bit, chrome) doesn't have this problem, I don't really have an opportunity to play at work though, and I really want to finish my promising lvl 19 HOAr of Beogh.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 26th April 2012, 16:33
by edlothiol
Have you tried it in Firefox? Are you using the stable version or a beta/unstable channel?

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Friday, 27th April 2012, 14:43
by Indrah
Will try Firefox this weekend. I tried playing (stable 10.0 version) despite the lag a bit last night and noticed the following things:

-It's worse in Shoals compared to Lair.
-The screen updates after some 3-8 sec, or about 1sec if I press another button. Pressing enter after every movement command helps speed up things (the enter is received as an "unknown command" and is put on the waiting list, until the next key or if I wait long enough).
-Stepping in water, stepping on a tile with items or combat slows things down. Actions which do not cause any message to be generated are fastest.

Couldn't immediately find the canvas GPU acceleration setting in my Dutch version of Chrome, but I might try that as well. I'm a bit apprehensive about meddling in my registry though, as galehar suggested.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Saturday, 28th April 2012, 13:30
by Indrah
turned out to be a router problem. Switching my router off and on solved it completely.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Wednesday, 9th May 2012, 22:22
by graffen69
Aight, so I got the bandwidth boost up to 100/50 now. Rechecked with both Firefox & Chrome and and although Firefox worked slightly better the lag is still there. I did the enable GPU thingys at http://www.gaslampmedia.com/blog/how-en ... ion-chrome
for Chrome and it seemed to improve the FPS.
Problem I have with Chrome is that there seem to be some missing shortkey commands - like CTRL+? to check learned items, SHIFT+^ for diety status, CTRL+T to tell Followers – instead that opens a new Chrome Tab - and a lot of others many which are crucial with my current HOPr Summoner build.

Checking my Firefox GPU Settings now and supposedly it’s on.

Adapter Description NVIDIA
GeForce GT 240
GPU Accelerated Windows1/1 Direct3D 10

I really don’t know much about computers but I love this game so I’m trying really hard to make this work, hence any help greatly appreciated. If theres a similar fix for Firefox let me know.

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Thursday, 10th May 2012, 06:15
by galehar
you can do * then letter instead of ctrl+letter

Re: Webtiles nearly unplayable on Windows7

PostPosted: Wednesday, 27th June 2012, 13:41
by graffen69
Thx for the tip.
Tried everything i can think of, still same issue.