Salem

Issues:
1(Bug). After the game is closed, the memory is not freed. I will provide a screenshot lower.

2. Does the game really have to use Java?(I understand, an entire game was written in Java, you can't change that but may be there is some way?).
2.a. I had to install Java and I have very serious concerns about security... We all know that Java has A LOT of serious security problems/leaks.
2.b. The performance is awful.
2.b.a. My powerful quad core i7 and nVidia GT 540M can't handle it very well. The laptop is heating harder than it is heating when I play GTA 4, I have the feeling that the game will melt the plastic grid I have to the side(It happened to my brother)...
2.b.b. If I activate the shadow or antialiasing in game, the game starts lagging hardly. And this laptop can handle on Max settings almost all the new games...

3. Java eats all my RAM, it's unbelievable how much RAM it uses. In order to play the game you need a beast of a computer.
Here is a screenshot:
As you can see, the game is eating ~1.2+ GB. After you close it, javaw still runs and it is eating ~700 MB.

Bugs:
1. A snake bit me, I ran away(climbed a wall and was able to run freely). I recharged my health, everything was to full. The poison of the snake was still on me. When the snake was to far away the battle mode deactivated and at the same moment my guy fell on the floor stunned... Then as the help hint says, I was sent to my "home" location and dropped all the items. But this shouldn't happen, it says there that if one of my Humour goes to 0 than you get stunned while I had all to full...

Edit: I've read from wiki "You have been poisoned by a Timber Rattler. The effect of the venom will drain your Phlegm, and inevitably knock you out, unless you can administer Rattler Serum in time." so this is not a bug.

1. It's a known issue. You can manually end the Java process. In fact, it's suggested you do this as it has been known to leave your character in game, especially if there was a client crash.

2. Dig up some other OpenGL software and/or 3D Java games to use as performance comparisons. I think you'll find Salem performs as well as most others out there. If there's performance issues on your video card, you may be better off contacting the manufacturer. Some cards are performing very well with Salem and others are having similar issues.

3. I almost exclusively use the default client. I have no RAM issues and the footprint always stays under 1GB. Java, for the most part, handles memory management, and it's usually very effective. To note, I've ran this on both an AMD Athlon 64 with 1GB RAM and a 256MB nVidia GeForce 5200 and an AMD Athlon XP with 1.5GB RAM and a ATI Radeon HD 3600. If you're having issues with a modded client, take it up with the programmer.

Since you mentioned you were on a laptop, what speed is your processor running at? This can be a major performance issue for Java programs. If you have it set to a lower performance profile, try setting to run at full speed all the time. I've not done much work on newer computers, but I have read a few issues with multi-core processors using variable performance settings not working properly (ie going to full speed) under certain conditions.

I run the game at 1080 with shadows and never experience any lag at all. Weird. Maybe check drivers/hardware?

Why don't you figure out how the client communicates with the server and then develop your own client in node?

MagicManICT wrote:Since you mentioned you were on a laptop, what speed is your processor running at? This can be a major performance issue for Java programs. If you have it set to a lower performance profile, try setting to run at full speed all the time. I've not done much work on newer computers, but I have read a few issues with multi-core processors using variable performance settings not working properly (ie going to full speed) under certain conditions.

I have it set to High Performance profile. And it works all good with games that have high requirements...

orik wrote:Why don't you figure out how the client communicates with the server and then develop your own client in node?

Actually that's a somewhat good idea...
I don't know how well the reverse engineering Java software works but from my own experience it was doing it's job at giving you a workable code...
I will try that. If it seems to much work to rewrite in C++ using a Scene Graph than I'll ditch it cause I don't really have much time right now. A thesis to be done...

Not easily reversible...
It's up to developer's consciousness to keep a game client with a potential - under Java or not...

Not really the place to discuss this. The client source is available if you want to find it. I don't keep a URL around for it, though.