Blinking WPs when editing

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

I just saw KWo also had this problem, so I finally got my lazy arse up to post this bug:
On some maps (mainly maps with larger waypoint files, like 500+ nodes), I noticed that when standing on a certain node, the node itself and also the surrounding nodes and connections start to blink or even disappear entirely for some seconds. The problem is always restricted to one small region on a map and will stay there, i.e. it's always the same area that's affected. Waypoint fuctionality is 100% ok, and in game, bots move just fine. It's only the display that gets disturbed somehow. It can also happen that some or many of the blue radius bars around a WP will vanish from sight.
This is relatively harmless, but quite weird. I experienced it on cs_industrywest and cs_ncruins2 so far. Both WPs are mine - and ok. I have other maps with far more than 500 nodes, and there I don't get this problem at all. I haven't seen this occur on maps with small WP files so far, but since it appears to show quite rarely, that doesn't necessarily indicate anything. the sys is a Win98SE 1.5 listenserver...
Does anybody have even the remotest clue as to what might cause such a strange error?

[KWo]

Originally Posted by >BKA< T Wrecks

I just saw KWo also had this problem, so I finally got my lazy arse up to post this bug

At begining I wasn't sure if this is WP's (WP editor) problem or my video card's problem. But after testing the same pwf at two different computers - yes - something is incorrect with displaying WP's and paths when there are many WP's in small area.
BTW - thanks for help in reporting bugs.

[Huntkillaz]

yes i to noticed it on small maps...big ones no.....i look more carefully when waypointing now....maybe it's somthing to do with that refresh rate thing that was changed?

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

In order to make waypointers able to do their job faster, I changed the way the waypoint display code worked. Originally it was re-checked every second, so that you had to stand on a waypoint for 1 second before it started appearing (this is also true for the pathwaypoints). I changed this to 0.1 or 0.2 second periods, this is what gave the waypoint editor a better reactivity (changes to paths and waypoints were visible immediately). However, this introduced a new problem, that is that the HL engine has a limitation on how many TEs (temporary entities) it displays each frame. The beams used to display waypoints are temporary entities. In your case here the limit must be met, and the engine stops displaying any TE at all for a short period of time. I'm not sure there's any other solution but to display less informations for the waypoints. Every straight beam is a TE ; that is to say that every waypoint AND every pathwaypoint, every radius beam of the waypoint radius AND every branch of the crosses that are displayed on top of nohostage waypoints use a "slot" in the TE list.

The solution would perhaps be to dynamically adjust the radius under which to display the waypoints, in function of the number of beams being displayed. Less beams => larger radius, more beams => smaller radius. That should be feasible, but it's not IMO a very annoying issue, is it ?

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

No, really not. Well, if you had a situation where you needed to check for undesired connections, and connections don't show up on your screen, it could be kind of annyoing. However, with the features the WP editor offers, such a situation is relatively easy to avoid.
The solution you gave sounds perfect, but has low priority - especially since it's something that doesn't affect players at all, only us waypointers... *sniff*
Interesting, though, that Huntakillaz reported to have seen the problem on smaller maps... unless these maps have extremely dense waypoint systems, a too big TE count shouldn't be very likely to occure there, or can there be many TEs in the .bsp itself?