Dual Core

[dpstafford]

The -dual switch reallly speeds up load time. But when I use it half the icons on the Main Menu Screen go missing.

Anybody else?

[Erik Rutins]

Not seeing that here. Full screen or Windowed mode? Post a DxDiag please?

[dpstafford]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Not seeing that here. Full screen or Windowed mode? Post a DxDiag please?

Full screen. With -deepcolor

[Rossj]

When I go to properties and the shortcut tab the following is listed in target:
"C:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe"

Does the switch look like this?
"C:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe-dual"

If it does, Vista won't let me apply it.

[dpstafford]

Like this. Outside the quotes.

"C:\Games\AE\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -deepcolor -dual

[Rossj]

thanks

[PzB74]

I added the -dual to the AE exe file on my dual core system.
Ok it was fast, but I had to turn it of as the combat animations slowed to a crawl.
E.g. a dive bomber is approaching a ship and then suddenly sound and picture freezes for 10-20 seconds before resuming. And so it continued (playing the Coral Sea scenario - added the patch and continued playing).

After turning -dual of I still think everything is more than quick enough and the problems are gone. I may have to do some more testing if you want more data.

My AE target file now looks like this:
"D:\WitP AE\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -deepColor -altFont

Anyone else experiencing this?

My system:
Win XP SP2
Intel Duo 3.0mhz
4GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX260

Directx Diagnostics link

Did another test and it happened again - combat animations slows to a crawl with the -dual switch on. One gun shot can be heard during the amph unloading process near PM and then a blanc screen for a loong time before another picture / sounds.

Adding a screenie, not much to see but you can see that the action screen is empty as the pc tries to load up the next sequence (PS! Added -w switch this time).

- Started a new Coral Sea scenario from scratch and the problem is still there.
- Turned off all sound and voila, problem is gone.

So my problem is still with the sound, but only when using the -dual switch.

It may be of interest for you that I played my 5 year long WitP pbem completely without sounds as I initially had problem with it (never cared about it - so turned sound of after nothing really helped to fix the problem).

Now this is a completely new system, but I still got sound problems - conincident?
This is your chance to let me hear Tokyo Rose [;)]

[michaelm75au]

I set the affinity change to take place with the dual option.

I ran my dual core PC all weekend with animations and it didn't seem slow.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: dpstafford

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Not seeing that here. Full screen or Windowed mode? Post a DxDiag please?

Full screen. With -deepcolor

Video drivers are from 2008, sound drivers from 2006. Can you please update both as soon as possible and let me know if it makes any difference?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: PzB
I added the -dual to the AE exe file on my dual core system.
Ok it was fast, but I had to turn it of as the combat animations slowed to a crawl.
E.g. a dive bomber is approaching a ship and then suddenly sound and picture freezes for 10-20 seconds before resuming. And so it continued (playing the Coral Sea scenario - added the patch and continued playing).

Can you also try updating your video and sound drivers (both from 2008) to see if that makes any difference? We've seen a few of these reports and will work to investigate them to resolve any unusual side effects for the official first update, but we need to rule out drivers first.

[Akos Gergely]

I've the very exact same issue as PzB; I mentioned in the hotfix thread, so I got here to post the dx diag. Not only that but the system puts all the load on Core 0, nom atter if it's dual core Intel CPU or quad core AMD. Operating system is Xp SP 3 in both cases. I run it in windowed mode.

If I turn this off and manually put the affinity to the first core the game runs fine on one core, or if I put the affinity to more it's still OK.

This dxdiag is for my laptop with the dual core Intel CPU, home PC with AMD quad will follow soon:

[Erik Rutins]

Interesting, another laptop with an integrated video chipset (2008 drivers, are there newer ones for your system?). I wonder if having the load on the first core interferes with the integrated video somehow, perhaps it uses more CPU processing than we realized.

[Akos Gergely]

Hi Erik,

could be an issue as the problem is more severe on the laptop, it actually crashes out very nearly. On my desktop machine I use up to date VGA driver and a much stronger CPU and it's still the same. Not to mention I have more than powerful discrete VGA card. Will test shortly with NoSound.


Edit: with NoSound the problem is still there but it's much slighter. The hit and miss animations in surface combat do produce some visual lag (like they were going with 10fps) but it's much less noticable. Still it taxes only Core 0

[Erik Rutins]

Interesting, so it's possibly sound-related.

Did the -dual switch cause any of these issues for you in the release version or just after the hotfix? Can you try disabling your sound card via DxDiag to see if the issues disappear entirely with -dual enabled in the hotfix build?

Do you have any other apps running in the background? Does windowed or full screen mode make any difference?

It's interesting that when you manually set the affinity to 1 core it was fine. Was that with the release version you tried that or also with the hotfix version, and was that with the -dual switch enabled?

Regards,

- Erik

[PzB74]

Updated video and sound drivers - still the same.
Can try a bios / motherboard update on the desktop, that's all that remains for me to try.

Actually, I never used the -dual switch before installing the patch so I can't say this is when this problem started.

Also tested on my laptop, a dual core Dell XPS M1330 - no problem there!
For me it is the same if I try it in windowed of full mode. Have been running both clean and with Firefox / Outlook in the background and not noticed any difference.

[Erik Rutins]

If you could give it a try with the original release version and the -dual switch, it would be great to know the results for our information. The -dual switch does several things and if we know that it was doing this in the release version that narrows things down considerably.

[PzB74]

Original version worked "fine" - well, the battle animations and sound worked well but I experienced seriously garbled graphics, see screenshot:

Graphics problem in original release on desktop
- This problem just increased when I tried to play on.

FYI: I first installed and ran WitP AE on my laptop, so I have never experienced this problem before cause I installed the hotfix as well when I came home last night.

So now this "original" problem has been exchanged with a new one [:'(]

PS! Tried to run the original release without the -dual switch and there were no differences.
Sounds / combat animations were coordinated but massive graphic disruptions, see attached screenie.

[Erik Rutins]

Hm, so those graphical issues were on your desktop system with the original release? Was that with and without the -dual switch or only with the -dual switch? Full screen and windowed both showed the same issues?

This looks like a driver-related issue to me. Are your drivers set entirely to default settings?

There's a possible suggestion from another thread:

tm.asp?m=2180821

[PzB74]

The different switches have no impact on the results.
I just updated my video and sound drivers and I've not touched them either before nor after.

Updated DiagX

I tried to run the "Affinity" tip on this link (was linked in the suggestion thread you posted below)
tm.asp?m=2182033

Guess what: Running "Affinity" gave me not only the orignial graphics problems in the original release, it also cause combat animations and sound to lag and hack.

Since everything is running fine without sound I'm declined to play AE without sound for now, as I did with UV / WitP for all their time [;)] Let me know if I can assist you further in the hunt for this bug...

PS! Tried to run "affinity" with the hotfix - got the combat animation / sound issue, but graphixs issue is still solved [&:]

[Erik Rutins]

Thanks, did you try the "priority high" fix mentioned in that thread as well?