Hi! It's been a while since I was here. Finally I feel like trying to get back to some Portal 2 mapping. First of is to clean up some problems in my first map: Twelve is the Key. One problem that I've seen pop up not only on my two computers is a freeze that occurs at the same place, every time. Depending on the computer specs the freeze might be barely visible, but it's there.

You can find the exact location of the freeze in this video at 8:05 minutes in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXzqbbMKKfw

So, my question is if there are known entities or objects that might produce minor freezes. Or perhaps if you find the time and energy, you could check out my map directly in Hammer and see if I've done something funcy.

Basically the the freeze starts once a trigger sets of. The trigger activates a moving panel, a light bridge that turns on and sound effects.

The non-pre cached particles of the light bridge cause it to lag. Try having it enabled by default for a split second at the start of the map then turning it off until you need it on again.

CamBen wrote:
The non-pre cached particles of the light bridge cause it to lag. Try having it enabled by default for a split second at the start of the map then turning it off until you need it on again.

Thanks for the answer. I'm not sure exactly how to do it though. The non-pre cached particles, which exactly do you refer to?

I tried to create a logic_auto with OnMapSpawn set to turn on and off the light bridge. Not sure that's what you meant. Sadly it didn't solve the minor freeze. You probably meant something else. Care to explain further?

Make sure that the logic auto leaves it on for 0.01 seconds before turning it off again

CamBen wrote:
Make sure that the logic auto leaves it on for 0.01 seconds before turning it off again

Yup, did that. Tried different times - nothing. I also tried to see where the problem exists and it turns out that when I turn off all the effect, everything except the light bridge that turns on, the problem stays.

So it seems that turning the light bridge on makes the game freeze for a split second. This alone can't be the problem because it works in other maps. What else could cause this effect?

A better way to solve the light bridge freeze is to create an info_particle_system set to "projected_wall_impact". That forces Portal 2 to load the particle, and solves the problem.

TeamSpen210 wrote:
A better way to solve the light bridge freeze is to create an info_particle_system set to "projected_wall_impact". That forces Portal 2 to load the particle, and solves the problem.

Sounds interesting and I'd love to try it. The problem is that I have never used info_particle_system. I tried to create one in Hammer but I'm not sure how to move on from there. I don't find anything about a projected_wall_impact. Would you like to explain more, please?

You don't need to do much with it. Just place one, and type that into the 'particle name' box.

Hammer has a bug where it's unable to read the particle systems out of the VPKs, preventing you from just being able to browse for particles. To fix that, use GCFscape to extract the .pcf files into a new particles/ folder in portal 2/portal2/ (open portal 2/portal2/pak01_dir.vpk).

TeamSpen210 wrote:
You don't need to do much with it. Just place one, and type that into the 'particle name' box.

Hammer has a bug where it's unable to read the particle systems out of the VPKs, preventing you from just being able to browse for particles. To fix that, use GCFscape to extract the .pcf files into a new particles/ folder in portal 2/portal2/ (open portal 2/portal2/pak01_dir.vpk).

I can hardly believe it. Didn't expect it to be that easy. Not sure I fully understand what I just did but it works.

What other particles could be affected by this entity? Are there any downsides using it? If not, then why isn't it used as default? Thanks again!