Troubleshooting freezes with Profiler

[polar nebula]

I have some issues with understanding the cause of freezes in my game. Every several frames there's a freeze for 2-6 seconds, but when I look into profiler I see some confusing stuff, like UpdateFunction.Invoke() [Invoke], doing nothing? for like 4 seconds. empty or almost empty Update functions in my scripts taking 3 seconds, shadows redraw taking 4, executing render graph for 5 sec. All this is strange because it happens by itself, even if nothing happens in the game, engine decides to do this stuff for unreasonably long time, because in all other frames such things take like 0.05 ms. So what's really going on and what can I do about it?

[autumn spear]

It's hard to tell without more details. Maybe you can provide profiler screenshot of several of these cases?

[polar nebula]

Of course! Here's some examples.

Here's a really confusing example. These are two neighboring frames, in both of them there's one function that in frame on left take basically nothing, but in other strangely take 7 seconds. This is a one time thing and it never happened again and nothing happened in that frame, player, RBs and other things stood still.

[autumn spear]

Hmm... Try using deep profiling and also look at the hierarchy view instead of the timeline.

[polar nebula]

Okay, I will build a new version and profile with deep profiling and will send results here, thank you for trying to help!

[autumn spear]

The first screenshot here might be due to the render thread. Perhaps a context switch? What cpu do you have/how many cores?

[polar nebula]

6 core (AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor 3.40 GHz). And what exactly is context switch?

[autumn spear]

Basically, when a thread stops in the middle to let another higher priority thread run instead. This shouldn't happen if you have enough cores for all the high priority threads though.

Unless you're running some custom threads with high priorities.

[polar nebula]

nope, not doing such stuff (as I know 😅)

[autumn spear]

Is it a webgl build by any chance?

[polar nebula]

no, windows build

[autumn spear]

Going to sleep now, but will have a look at any extra info you share in the morning.

[polar nebula]

Thank you, good night

[polar nebula]

I... don't think deep profiling should do this...

[autumn spear]

It generally should add some overhead, but not that much. Can you use the hierarchy mode?

This feels a lot like a hardware problem. Or perhaps your PC being busy with something else at the same time. If check the task manager to make sure.

[polar nebula]

Sure. If that will help, I saved the profiler data multiple times, so you can take a look

[polar nebula]

could be the case, but we've tested on multiple pc with different specs, almost same thing on all of them

[autumn spear]

Upload the profiling data somewhere then.

[polar nebula]

here's largest example with deep profiling https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wm2Da06GKA9lRTK6MgnHwXllNTbPg7hH/view?usp=sharing

[autumn spear]

Hm...
The only thing common about all these freezes is that it seems to happen on accessing the C++ side.

Any chance you can share the build of the game so that I can test the issue on my pc?

[polar nebula]

sure thing: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3802540/Stop_The_F_Demo/

The build is on beta testing branch, I will send code you in DMs

Steam

Stop The F Demo

Plunge into the adventure of the bowels of a huge scientific and industrial complex, revealing the secrets. Why are you alone? Who is this mysterious voice? Where are all the employees? You will have to answer these questions and many others. However, be vigilant, your curiosity can lead to dangerous unforeseen consequences.…

▶ Play video