Freezing problem while playtesting

[Funky]

So I just finished one of the areas of my game, I went back to playtest the boss fight for the area, and while fighting the boss, the game froze. I could still hear the music and appropriate sound effects, but the screen wasn't moving at all. So I just shrugged it off after that first time that it happened, but when I started making the next area, I went to playtest it again, and I managed to kill the boss, but shortly after leaving the area, the game froze the same way I explained before. I guess I'm just asking if this is that big of a problem? Should I try to fix it? Will it still happen in the deployed final product? Just any info I can get.

[Caethyril]

Freezing can happen for a number of reasons; it's generally undesirable but it's not likely to be a serious problem.

Are you using any plugins, and if so does temporarily turning them all off (Plugin Manager > select all > right-click > turn off) help at all?

When it freezes, do you have to force-close the window via Task Manager or something, or does the window close normally with no issues?

Also, when you say "the screen wasn't moving at all", do you mean player input wasn't doing anything, or there was literally no animation (water tiles, stepping events, animations frozen mid-cycle, etc)?

If it happens again, it may be worth checking the framerate (F2) and console (F8). Errors should display in red text in the console window, and the framerate widget in the top-left will help identify whether it's a purely visual/input-based freeze or something more like an endless loop.

[Funky]

Originally posted by Caethyril:

Freezing can happen for a number of reasons; it's generally undesirable but it's not likely to be a serious problem.

Are you using any plugins, and if so does temporarily turning them all off (Plugin Manager > select all > right-click > turn off) help at all?

When it freezes, do you have to force-close the window via Task Manager or something, or does the window close normally with no issues?

Also, when you say "the screen wasn't moving at all", do you mean player input wasn't doing anything, or there was literally no animation (water tiles, stepping events, animations frozen mid-cycle, etc)?

If it happens again, it may be worth checking the framerate (F2) and console (F8). Errors should display in red text in the console window, and the framerate widget in the top-left will help identify whether it's a purely visual/input-based freeze or something more like an endless loop.

I am using some yanfly plugins. I'll turn them off and see if it helps.

Task manager says that it's responding, and the music and sound effects are still playing, there was just no animation, and yes I can close it normaly.

I'll try checking the framerate and console next time it freezes.

[Funky]

It seems that the freezing has stopped happening.

[Caethyril]

Yay! ^_^ Maybe it was just one of those random computer mysteries. =P

[Xennial]

I've had the freezing problem for a long time, during testing or gameplay it'll freeze at a random point but you can still hear things happening, the FPS drops to zero and the MS jumps to +999. People kept telling me it must be a plugin causing the problem but I CAN CONFIRM right now it's not a plugin because I recently in the past week did a test where I started a fresh project and had ZERO plugins and I kept the game running and low and behold after a few minutes it froze up as always and can still hear the sounds and still access the menu and hear button movements. So this claim in other places it's a plugin is total hogwash and it's a problem with something else either the engine or something else on people's computers.

Due to the problem I recently started looking at using the game engine Gdevelop, it's a nice engine but it's not as good as RPG Maker when it comes to inventory systems etc. I really would like to get the freeze fixed, I've ended up employing an autosave which autosaves every 30 seconds just to make sure anybody playing my games don't lose out to a freeze.

[Caethyril]

Some anti-virus/anti-malware applications scan script files on-demand, which understandably lags RMMV games like crazy. To remedy that, you can try marking your project folder as "trusted"/"allowed" in your AV settings. ^_^

Otherwise, you can have the Task Manager (or your OS's equivalent) open while you playtest your game. Keep an eye on it and any time you spot a freeze, see if you notice any processes suddenly using a lot of CPU and/or Disk.