a little suggestion.

anti · Post by **anti** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:00 pm

now, of course I don't know exactly how hard this would be to include, given that I don't know the size and complexity of the code, but it's beginning to annoy me that the game uses 100% cpu all the time while running. I've modified several games made with SDL to use less cpu just by using the SDL_Delay function, adding a few ms delay.

I know it's a dirty hack, but it'd really help us laptop users ;]

maybe I'm way off here, but it would be pretty damn cool to have the game use fewer resources. I know it'd involve a lot of recompiling and testing to get it right, but if you're doing any patches, it might be a good time to test for that, too :]

other than that, I'm quite happy. great game :]

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 9:46 pm

Seems pretty reasonable...would just adding a 'delay' to the code affect anything else??
With my luck, it would somehow reduce my party's dex such that even townies & those gooey green-poison-slugs would get first licks every go-round!

(mebe if I turn the fog back on & sneak up on 'em?)

HGamer · Post by **HGamer** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:01 pm

I complained to FyL about that very issue once, because it was ruining my distributed.net keyrate, and he said it had something to do with sound calls and event loops in SDL. If a small rewrite could reduce CPU usage, I second it heartily.

Informal testing as I write this reveals that, at least in XP Pro, just going into the DW startup app (dwmain.exe, the Play/Options/Quit one) will drive CPU to 100% with dwmain alone using over 90% on an Athlon 1.6 GHz. However, almost all of it is apparently at "idle" level priority, because the distributed.net (dnetc v2.9008) process can wrest almost 95% CPU away if turned on again, and that's supposed to be running at only normal or idle priority. This indicates there may be some way to get DW to not use up so much CPU, as it really doesn't hold onto it if asked nicely.

For the non-techies: HGamer agrees, DW should be nicer to laptops.

anti · Post by **anti** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 12:57 am

I usually put in a 20ms delay in the main loop, but yeah, that will throw off timing a little bit.

been doing it to a few emulators/games, and it didn't really affect the game/emulator enough that I noticed it. other than on cpu usage :]

I really hope some devs are looking, and that it'll be possible without destroying the code. I've just about given up on playing it on my laptop. and with a busted main system, I've not got many choices left.

The Wombat · Post by **The Wombat** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:45 pm

I don't particurarly care about the game taking up most of the processor time per se, although it may be related to it. The biggest bugbear I have is with the screen update time. This can happen while just 'running around', but is worse when in combat, particularly if I'm in fights with certain monster types such as skeletons. At its worst, it will take tens of seconds to update each character in each round of a fight. I've had fights that have taken more than 25 minutes real-time to complete. This is even with DW as the only app running and with all backgroud tasks like file indexing, etc, disabled. Curiously, this seems to have gotten worse after the last udate was installed. ( This rant just in case any devs are lurking)

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:54 pm

Reminds me of how painfully slow the screen updates were when my crew was just walking around the town at twilight & early morn (when shadows were longest & presumably took much longer to calculate?).

Finally tweaked the game's video settings (mainly the shadow-related setting, & perhaps the view-distance one?). Anyway, it felt like 'walking' thru extra-thick'n'viscous molasses before tweaking things. Don't recall dungeon/combat screen refresh ever being a prob.

Wombat, how fast is your cpu & how much Ram ya got?
And how 'bout yer video card?

Does anyone know what the optimal (fastest &/or most stable) settings are?
-both w/i the game (video & audio) & Windows (such as which ver. of Direct X)

The old forum had this info which should be useful to anyone experiencing problems..

Domhnall4h · Post by **Domhnall4h** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:24 pm

*note to self: kill a software developer tommorrow if I find the time*

I shut off Fog, shadows, duct tape, and used an underdrive pulley system. It overheats, but it runs much better. I have what is now a very low end machine (1.2ghz, 256 RAM, 64 vid card (IIRC) ect...) but when I bought it, it was decent. I also replaced the animated monster pics with the original static ones, which eliminated all slowdown issues in combat. I also rarely have slowdown issues while playing, save early in the morning or late in the evening. Since my party is usually asleep at that time, it isn't a major thing.

HGamer · Post by **HGamer** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:25 pm

I think the advice used to be to turn off DirectX, and turn down all the other video settings to their lowest levels if you were having problems. The only one I didn't figure out was "View Distance"; that one never seemed to change anything. The only problems that I have now are due to alt-Tabbing out of DW, which causes the background frame to flip in and out when the animation runs - known problem, so "don't do that".

Personally, I always turn off the fog, and I wish there was a way to adjust the weather so it isn't so dark in the middle of the day. Maybe it's correct for the Orkneys, but then why isn't there rain and wind and snow? Oh, that's right, I complained about this on the old forum too. Anyway, just keep that in mind in case you ever want to create a mod set in a hot sunny desert, because it will be cloudy but at least it will never rain.

Domhnall4h · Post by **Domhnall4h** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:27 pm

I forgot, I run it in a window, usually with my Firewall, AV, Winamp, and a couple messengers and a message or two up. No problems even then. I have never bothered to check the manager to see what kind of load it's pulling on the old processor.

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:00 pm

Initially I ran full-screen mode, but then it was a pain to cut'n'paste snapshots of some of the messages, interactions, & pics I wanted to save (hate having to write sheet down!).

And while the fog was kinda cool the first 15 mins, it got annoying later & only served to hide massive crowds of vilevil townies!

Any advantage to inn-sleeping?
(other than keeping a green crew outta night-time's meanie-monster chomping)

The Wombat · Post by **The Wombat** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:08 pm

No advantage that I can see other than if you are in a REAL hurry to get to the general store to sell off your surplus gear.

Growler: I'm running a 1.1G Athlon with a G400 Matrox card and 768MB of Ram with Win2K SP4

HGamer · Post by **HGamer** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:26 am

Nothing's open from about midnight to 0600 except the Adv Guild. Once you've drawn down the monsters, resting outside works about as well as going to the bars.

1.6 GHz Athlon XP 1900+, 768 MB, GeForce FX 5200, on-board SiS sound, DirectX 9.0c, XP Pro SP2

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 1:07 pm

Reckon since the Temple's closed from midnite to 6a, that could figure inn

while we're at it:
Athlon XP 1800+ (1533MHz), 512 Ram (PC2100), 64meg GeForce2 MX400, on-bd. SiS 7012, Win ME or Lose Me (& no comments re: Growler & Stone Age!)

The Wombat · Post by **The Wombat** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:08 am

Other than the temple, nothing else opens until after 8am at the earliest.

Ah, but when I get to LA, gonna pick me up the bits to start putting together my dual A64 with SATA RAID 5!

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:02 am

Now That...should kick it even with all options cranked wide!

(just don't stick an old ISA Trident vid-card in...unless ya really wanna hear those dual cpu's scream--in pain..

)