Travel speed of tank shells

JYGamer · Post by **JYGamer** » Sun Dec 09, 2001 7:27 am

Recently, while playing SPW@W 6.1 on solitaire mode I have noticed that the travel speed of the tsnk shells has become very slow. The infantry and tanks travel at the same rate, but the shells take a long time to get to their target. I was wondering if anyone has has this experience and might know a solution. I have a 300Mghrtz computer with 128 meg of ram and 4meg video card.
I appreciate any assistance.

john g · Post by **john g** » Sun Dec 09, 2001 9:11 am

Originally posted by JYGamer:
Recently, while playing SPW@W 6.1 on solitaire mode I have noticed that the travel speed of the tsnk shells has become very slow. The infantry and tanks travel at the same rate, but the shells take a long time to get to their target. I was wondering if anyone has has this experience and might know a solution. I have a 300Mghrtz computer with 128 meg of ram and 4meg video card.
I appreciate any assistance.

Are you saying you can actually see them flying across the screen? Except when I experimented with the German X7 atgm, I have never seen any weapons going across the screen. Have you checked the pref settings for delays? I have mine all set for no delay, so I have the game run everything as fast as it can.
thanks, John.

JYGamer · Post by **JYGamer** » Sun Dec 09, 2001 9:21 am

I have my movement set to "xxx." The tank shells travel very slowly across the scene and the splash when they impact rises slowly. It is like they are in slow motion. All other movement is normal. This has been getting worse over time. I have tried various hardware acceleration levels with no difference and removing all video accelerator cards with no difference. I might have a corrupted file.

Bonzo · Post by **Bonzo** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 12:53 am

This sounds like either a system resource shortfall or a video memory / driver issue. The system you describe was (IIRC) adequate for v4 & 5 under W95 or W98. I sort of lost track of the requirements for v6 & v7. Excuse me if I state the obvious, but I do not know your level of comfort you have with getting under your computer's 'hood'.

Perhaps you have some resource hogging utility running in the background (ie antivirus, system monitors, crash guards, any Norton product). These should be shut down prior to starting the game. I go to the task manager & shut down every function listed except explorer and systray before starting the game.

Your video sounds like an older unit so make sure you are running the latest approved drivers for your card. The newest drivers may still be a couple of years old, but then, so is your machine.

Also, RAM is quite inexpensive right now (though the older formats always rise in price as demand falls) and adding more RAM often helps the older machine deal with newer software. I have 512mb in my unit & it does almost all of its work in RAM, avoiding the slower disk swapfile. If your harddrive is grinding away while the game is playing, odds are you could use more RAM.

NeoWhiteWolf · Post by **NeoWhiteWolf** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 1:03 am

Why does it matter....so you see it hit with a satisfying explosion or bang enjoy and dont complain...

bchapman · Post by **bchapman** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 2:16 am

I think Bonzo is on the right track. I've seen this on my computer on a couple of occasions and the hard drive light is always on and you can hear it "grinding away" in the background. I think that it is probably the antivirus program or my disk utility program checking files. When playing, you might want to put any programs that run in the background on hold until after you get through with the game.

bchapman · Post by **bchapman** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 2:18 am

One other problem might be that you aren't rebooting on a regular basis. If you are running several days without rebooting, your memory starts to get bogged down. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

mao · Post by **mao** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 2:22 am

"on solitaire mode I have noticed that the travel speed of the tsnk shells has become very slow"

Is this a winter scenario, on the east front? Maybe it's just very cold outside. I know I slow down when it's 40 below zero... <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

JYGamer · Post by **JYGamer** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 2:40 am

Thank all of you for your suggestions. When I reinstalled my 8meg ATI video card and reinstalled its drivers the problem went away. Suprisingly shutting down Norton system doctor did not matter. Apparently SPW@W 6.1 requires at least 8 meg of video.

mao · Post by **mao** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 3:21 am

"Apparently SPW@W 6.1 requires at least 8 meg of video."

8MB, definitely not... (at least, not for me...)

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 3:39 am

My P166 with a 4MB vid card works fine...there is no 8MB requirements

Bonzo · Post by **Bonzo** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 4:21 am

Seems like you found the bottleneck. I believe Paul when he says 4meg is fine, so, I would say the problem is the drivers, or even a hardware problem, with your 4 meg card. Perhaps some heat damage or overheating causing video slowdown.

If you plan to use the 4meg card again, make sure you have the latest drivers & there is good airflow over the card.

achappelle · Post by **achappelle** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 4:34 am

Weird, i have the same ..."problem" I just wrote it off as being an intrinsic feature of the game. i'm pretty sure it's not either my PCs, I've got a 1gig Tbird 768meg ram and a 64 meg GeforceII in one and dual 800MHZ w 512meg and a 64 meg Geforce II. I've always seen that slow tank shot as just a feature.

JYGamer · Post by **JYGamer** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 5:03 am

My 4meg video card is an old Monster card which raises the 2 meg embedded in my computer to 4meg. I have never had good results with it. So I will keep the 8 meg card. It cured the slow tank shell problem. Be sure that you have the acceleration enabled.

panda124c · Post by **panda124c** » Mon Dec 10, 2001 6:05 pm

I have notice this when there is a lot of smoke the refresh rate slows down.