sirdeiu wrote:(...) (using opensource radeon+mesa drivers), the game is hanging while loading a new area. For example while in a highway and entering a new sector, the game hangs for a while (while either the area is loaded or maybe shaders get compiled), or entering a station and walking etc. (...) Any way to fix this ? If it's shaders, maybe the new shader cache support in mesa will help ? (...) Or am I the only one getting this and it's something on my end.
You aren't.
But first, __huge__ thanks to @timon37 from me as well! I've been genuinely impressed and even amazed with the quality of this port -- particularly on the open source drivers -- from the very first alpha. The love and devotion that had obviously been put into this has certainly made me a devout follower of Egosoft -- and I'd gladly prove my devotion with my wallet on every possible occasion. So, @timon37, if you haven't yet asked for a pay rise -- now may be the time.
Seriously though, great job, indeed!
Back on the locking issue: I've had this -- or very similar -- problem since the first alpha. It is most pronounced in the highways, indeed, where the game would freeze for a second to several seconds very often, usually (but not always, at least from what the human eye can see) when new objects pop up. In the alpha, this also lead to white rectangles being visible during the freeze, before an appropriate object icon took their place once the freeze was resolved. I made some tests back then on the lowest settings and resolution and noticed that during freezes one thread seemed to occupy the whole CPU time: AssetEnabler if my memory serves me well. The white rectangles problem has been since solved, but I'm mentioning that for the record.
The latest experiences: just before HoL, the freezes seemed to be fewer in general, but travelling on the highways still could become a PITA at times. Worse though, I've had on a couple of occasions freezes -- interestingly, not on the highways, but just flying around stations -- that never seemed to resolve, at least for many tens of seconds.
As for the newest 4.0 version, unfortunately I haven't yet tested a civilized enough sector -- I just fell in love with Toride -- but the experience outside of highways has been so far extremely pleasing visual quality- and performance-wise. The freezes outside of highways still _do_ happen, and in one case (strangely enough, it was simply near an empty jump gate) it took quite many seconds (probably 10-15) to resolve.
From what I've read around, the culprit probably is indeed the shader compilation, and the shader cache (even not being a true on-disk one) will likely help (a lot, perhaps?), but I suppose @timon37 can better answer this. Sadly, Mesa built with these commits currently leads to nasty GPU faults for me, so I haven't yet had the chance to properly test them.
Once again, though, truly outstanding job on the Linux port!