Repeated freezes on computer only when Godot is running

darkbean

Hi, I'm new to the forums and have been playing around with Godot for a couple of weeks. I'm using a relatively low spec computer compared to the one I have at home because that's all I have access to for now. So I've been noticing freezes here and there while using Godot but didn't really take note of it because I just thought it might be the computer I'm using that was slow. So got 4 GB of extra RAM (8 GB total) and the freezes are still there and even feel like they're getting worse because the rest of the computer feels faster in comparison. The freezes vary from 1 to about 6 seconds and happen a what seems to my like completely random times, whether I'm on a scene full of assets or an empty script. I monitored my processor and memory usage but I see no spikes or overload at any of the times the computer freezes. It only has Intel integrated graphics but I also use other process hungry programs like Blender for 2D, 3D and video editing and the computer doesn't freeze, it just struggles under the weight of heavy processes but keeps running simply at a lower frame rate. Whereas with Godot on a simple 2D scene with barely anything in it, it just completely freezes and I feel like I can't do anything about it.

Here are the specs : Model : TERRA PC-Mini 5000V3 SILENT GREENLINE CPU : Intel Core i3-6100 @ 3.700GHz GPU : Intel HD Graphics 530 Memory : 8 GB DDR4 2400Mhz

I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 64bit and using Godot 3.2.1 stable 64bit.

I don't know if anybody can help me solve my problem, but I'll try anything.

Thanks

Megalomaniak

8gb is not a lot of memory in this day and age, I'd consider it a minimum for just using a computer. 16 is the optimal sum for someone doing basic work with the system, even newer games might require more than 8.

Just upgraded my old mans gaming system to 16 since he had hitches when playing Witcher 3. Alt-tabbed out and checking HWiNFO revealed that indeed, the issue was memory. With discord, a web-browser and everything else running in the background 8gb just wasn't enough.

A detail you are not telling us however is the state of your system drive. how close to full is it? And is it an SSD?

edit: also last but not least try witching your project to GLES 2 renderer.

darkbean

Hey @Megalomaniak and thanks for your reponse. I know it's not a lot, but I get around fine and have taken up the habit of closing all memory hungry programs and being very mono-task. I'm just surprised Godot is the only program I'm having problems with. And yes I forgot to mention : I have an SSD with more than 63 GB of free space out of the total 123 GB available on my partition. I'm also already using GLES 2, but now that you mention it, I feel like the problem wasn't as present when I was using GLES 3. I'll do some tests and see if it changes anything.

darkbean

So I did some tests and I see no difference in performance between using GLES 2 or GLES 3. I took some screenshots with gnome-system-monitor to show you what I mean when I say that I don't think it's a memory issue. (Sorry for the french interface) gnome-system-monitor screenshot On this particular screenshot I had 5 freezes in 60 seconds, each time the computer froze it lasted for about 2 to 3 seconds and about 7 seconds for the 5th one. Godot was the only program running. As you can see I'm not running out of memory, and its not like the processor has too much work. Godot actually runs really smoothly, it just completely freezes often enough that it's a real pain. I'm currently trying to record a video tutorial/workshop for kids (I work in a public library) and it doesn't help that Godot freezes up regularly.

Any ideas ? Should I post this somewhere else like on Github ?

Megalomaniak

It does seem that the freezes you experience aren't related to cpu or memory, but we still have gpu and drive space left as potential culprits. You might as well look into installing a better monitor as well though.

https://www.hwinfo.com/

used to have a headless(no gui) linux version but seems to be gone. :( lm-sensors is the closest thing to it then, but there's got to be a better system monitoring gui...

net-data looks promising.

cybereality

Have you updated the Intel drivers? There should be some graphics options to mess with as well in the Intel control panel (for quality settings, I don't remember exactly since I don't have that computer anymore).

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html

darkbean

Ok I'll check those out and see if I can update my Intel drivers. But I still find it very strange that Godot is the only program having huge hiccups on this computer. To test my integrated graphics chipset's capabilities I just launched a rocket into space in Kerbal Space Program with zero issues. I was using low graphics settings but I never had any hiccups and was getting 30fps+ for the most part of the journey.

Megalomaniak

I wonder, how much of your system memory is dedicated to the intel GPU? Judging by the reported 7,7 GB of system memory in total I'm assuming maybe 256 MB is allocated to the GPU. If you manage to go to your bios you might be able to allocate more. Even just making it 512 MB might be a significant improvement.

darkbean

Hey. So I went and tried to update my Intel drivers by re/installing xserver-xorg-video-intel and mesa-utils. It created some other issue and I had to install xserver-xorg-input-all in recovery mode to fix it. But Godot still freezes up just as much. I tried and built Godot 3.2.1 from source as that was also recommended to me. Never had built anything from source before. No changes. Finally in the BIOS I changed the IGD Memory Size (OneBoard VGA share memory size) from 64MB to 512MB. But still no changes.

On Github I found a thread (#37471) that talks about an issue similar to mine. Zireael07 comments and suggests that GNOME's compositor might be the problem. I'll see if I can find a way to change the settings and I'll let you know if that does it.

In the meantime, if you have any other suggestions, I'm all ears.

cybereality

Just a shot in the dark, what's your swap disk look like? That could cause a hiccup if the machine had to load a memory page from the hard disk. Do you have a HDD or SSD? If you have both, can you put Godot and your swap disk on the SSD?

darkbean

So I installed kubuntu-desktop and awesome to try other desktop environments with a different compositor but it did not change anything Godot-wise. It feels a bit smoother, maybe I'm getting more FPS, but the freezes are still are present... @cybereality I'm using an SSD and I checked my swap file partition, I have 2 GB total but 0 GB used. It's the green line in the screenshot I shared above. So I'm guessing I have enough RAM.

@darkbean said:

I checked my RAM with memtester just in case and it reported no problems.

And finally I installed and ran intel-gpu-tools to see my GPU usage. Here are the results :

This is running Godot 3.2.1 stable on a 2D scene. (GLES 3, but got the same results with GLES 2) : intel-gpu-tools screenshot godot normal

This is right after the computer unfreezes from the above scene : intel-gpu-tools screenshot godot after freeze

This is what is looks like when running Blender 2.82a's splashscreen 3D Grease Pencil scene during a rotation. FPS drops but stays steady and no freezing : intel-gpu-tools screenshot blender 3d scene

And this is during a KSP rocket launch. FPS drops but stays steady and no freezing : intel-gpu-tools screenshot ksp rocket launch

It's all really frustrating because I know Godot isn't using that much resources compared to other programs. But it's the only one I'm having issues with.

Megalomaniak

Well it we can all agree that the system has been reasonably ruled out then it's probably worth considering the project itself. Are you willing to share it or is it under NDA?

darkbean

Well that's the thing, and I guess I failed to mention it clearly but it's not project related. It's Godot-on-this-computer-with-Ubuntu related. I rebooted on the Windows 10 partition, downloaded Godot and cloned one of my projects and it ran so smoothly and the most important is that it didn't freeze at all. I was so surprised since I installed Ubuntu on here because Windows was to slow in the first place, I guess those 4 GB of extra RAM help a lot.

But I don't want to have to reboot to Win10 to use Godot as Ubuntu is my main partition and Linux is my work environment of choice. I'll do some more searching and testing to see if I can find a solution and see some light at the end of the tunnel...

darkbean

Just ran ZorinOS Lite (had an .iso laying around) in a VM with 4 GB of RAM and cloned the same project and Godot ran with no hiccups. I also saw that Ubuntu 20.04 LTS just released a few days ago and it's said to have some performance improvements. I'll see if I can backup and upgrade today and see if that does anything. I was hoping to find the issue that's preventing me from having a normal Godot experience on 18.04 LTS, but if upgrading does it, why not. I'll keep you posted.

cybereality

Could it be some background process that is conflicting with Godot? Maybe a performance monitor, or some other app like that.

Megalomaniak

It could be, there was a issue like this on windows where it turned out to be caused by intel network drivers IIRC.

darkbean

Alright, so I updated to Ubuntu 20.04 and Godot is running as smooth as silk. By default I feel like I'm getting more FPS in editor which can explain the smoothness (even though it uses the same amount of ressources than on 18.04), and there have been no freezing whatsoever. So it's all good, but we haven't really figured out what the problem was in the first place, so for anyone having a similar issue in the future on Ubuntu 18.04... good luck or update to Ubuntu 20.04 I guess ?

Also since installing kubuntu-desktop I'm having lots of interface and theming issues that I can't seem to fix with my humble knowledge and after having updated to Ubuntu 20.04 a whole lot of my programs were uninstalled. So I'm probably just going to do a clean reinstall of everything, which is the solution to a problem that no one wants to hear.

I'll hopefully do just one last update on this thread and call it "solved".

cybereality

Good news I guess.

darkbean

Ok. Just a quick update to say that updating to Ubuntu 20.04 or rather leaving my problem behind in my old Ubuntu 18.04 did the trick. I am now able to work in Godot uninterrupted !

"Solved !"