This is How I install WITP-AE

[Zovs]

3840 x 2160 is the default screen res I use to play WitE2 and TOAW IV (and SPWW2/MBT) and for most windows work, since for myself 5120 x 2880 is just a bit too tiny for me.

[RangerJoe]

Get a smaller monitor . . .

I run it just fine on a portable computer . . .

[Kull]

I kind of feel bad that I got his thread stickied, and now Trugrit is stuck with that ugliest of ugly new installation problems - trying to make the Game work in a custom window.

I had a terrible time with this myself, and will walk you through my solution. All hardware and systems differ so these specific examples might not be the same as yours, but dollars to doughnuts the solution is generically the same: You must create a custom resolution in order for the px and py settings to work.

Image #1: When I right click on the display, it gives several options but I draw your attention to what looks like two different graphics adaptors. Although Nvidia provides all the pretty bells and whistles, the important one for our purpose is the Intel chip on the motherboard of this laptop. Left click that and we see...

Image #2: Now click "Display" (circled in red) and that brings up...

Image #3: The Graphics Control Panel defaults to "General Settings" (upper left) and in the middle of the screen is a "Resolution" setting with a drop-down arrow. Click the arrow and it shows a range of settings, and highlights the current one (1920x1080) in blue. If I use ANYTHING other than one of those settings for px-py, the game will not accept it. Right above the current setting you'll notice one that is definitely not "normal" - 1904x1040. That is the setting I use for my AE window, since it fits neatly within the 1920x1080 frame of the display. But it had to be created, which brings us to....

Image #4: Creating a Custom Resolution. A few rows down from "General Settings" is "Custom Settings, and if you click that you'll get a scary warning message. I suppose you could create some insane settings that would damage your chipsets, but lets assume you won't and just click "Yes", which leads us to.....

Image #5: The Customs Resolutions screen. This may take some trial and error, but the goal is to plug in a setting that will fit neatly within one of your standard settings, thus showing the ENTIRE game window in a size that occupies almost all of the display. That is how I created the 1904x1040 setting we saw earlier, so I filled in the blanks accordingly (although as you can see to the right, that setting is already on the Custom Resolutions list). Once you've filled in those blanks with your desired parameters, click the "Add" button at bottom right, and voila, you now have a custom resolution that will be recognized by your monitor AND the game.

It's likely that your graphics controller chip is different and probably has a different menu, but the same rules should apply, so give it a try.

[Zovs]

Kull,

Thank you that was brilliantly written.

Sadly it won't work for me since I don't have a graphic or monitor package.

The only display settings I have access to are:

[Kull]

First off, I don't know Jack about Virtual Machines, so you are close to on your own here. That said, you could try using one of those resolutions (from your screenshot) for the px-py values in your AE window. If that works, at least you know we are on the right track. I did some searching, and apparently you can set custom resolutions in VM ware, but it's definitely a process. This kind of made my eyes bleed, but hopefully it helps:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1003

[RangerJoe]

It appears that sometimes, people just need an old clunker instead of the souped up version! [;)]

[Zovs]

Thanks Kull, it is an eye bleeder and scary. I'll have to dig into that in more depth...

I hear you RangerJoe, but I can run some newer games just fine in my VM, and got no clunker hanging around...lol.

Hope we don't pollute this thread any more, hope what is here will help others.

[vege1]

Hi! I am just installing the game, and I started setting the performance targets. I have an Intel 6 core processor. What would you recommend for the cpu performance target? cpu7?

Quoting the developer's note on the performance targets:

"Switches set the cpu affinity for multi cpu systems. It will
do nothing for single cores and will default to using all cores if a core is designated which is
not there (for example using -cpu3 on a dual core system)."

[Nomad]

ORIGINAL: vege1

Hi! I am just installing the game, and I started setting the performance targets. I have an Intel 6 core processor. What would you recommend for the cpu performance target? cpu7?

Quoting the developer's note on the performance targets:

"Switches set the cpu affinity for multi cpu systems. It will
do nothing for single cores and will default to using all cores if a core is designated which is
not there (for example using -cpu3 on a dual core system)."

The number is not that important, I would suggest you use -cpu3 or higher. 1 is used by the OS and I think 2 is used by a lot of utility programs.

[vege1]

Okay! I can elaborate that main goal was to get the game to run on multiple cores, which is why I suggested using cpu7, as I have 6 cores. If I understood correctly, cpu3 was suggested when you have a dual core processor (the rule was number of cpu cores + 1).

In my case, using cpu3 would run the game on a single core (right?), which is something that I wanted to avoid (my impression has been that modern processors are not that good in running programs on single cores and can have overheating issues if you do not spread the load to multiple cores).

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: vege1

Okay! I can elaborate that main goal was to get the game to run on multiple cores, which is why I suggested using cpu7, as I have 6 cores. If I understood correctly, cpu3 was suggested when you have a dual core processor (the rule was number of cpu cores + 1).

In my case, using cpu3 would run the game on a single core (right?), which is something that I wanted to avoid (my impression has been that modern processors are not that good in running programs on single cores and can have overheating issues if you do not spread the load to multiple cores).

The "War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition" root directory has a file named "WhatsNew.pdf". In that, the devs provide a lot of information on how the game interacts with multi-core systems (to include what the different switch settings will do), and that should provide the answers you need.

[vege1]

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: vege1

Okay! I can elaborate that main goal was to get the game to run on multiple cores, which is why I suggested using cpu7, as I have 6 cores. If I understood correctly, cpu3 was suggested when you have a dual core processor (the rule was number of cpu cores + 1).

In my case, using cpu3 would run the game on a single core (right?), which is something that I wanted to avoid (my impression has been that modern processors are not that good in running programs on single cores and can have overheating issues if you do not spread the load to multiple cores).

The "War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition" root directory has a file named "WhatsNew.pdf". In that, the devs provide a lot of information on how the game interacts with multi-core systems (to include what the different switch settings will do), and that should provide the answers you need.

Yes, I am aware of the document. I quoted it in my initial post. However, it is still unclear to me what should I do in case of 6 cores. I guess, I just need to test it out, as there is no direct answer in the documentation. My interpretation is that using cpu3 is only running the game in multiple cores only if you have a dual core processor. In my case, I would not expect cpu3 to work, as I want to.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: vege1

Yes, I am aware of the document. I quoted it in my initial post. However, it is still unclear to me what should I do in case of 6 cores. I guess, I just need to test it out, as there is no direct answer in the documentation. My interpretation is that using cpu3 is only running the game in multiple cores only if you have a dual core processor. In my case, I would not expect cpu3 to work, as I want to.

The key statement in that doc is this:

"If a -cpu# switch and one of these -Single switches are used, the turns will always be processed in multi-processor mode."

Accordingly I suspect you'll get the best results from using either of the -single switches and then CPU 3 or 4. I'd be cautious about using any number higher than cpu4 since that is the highest number listed in the document and the code may not recognize something like "cpu7". And when I say "not recognize", it might ignore the command altogether leaving you in permanent single cpu mode.

[vege1]

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: vege1

Yes, I am aware of the document. I quoted it in my initial post. However, it is still unclear to me what should I do in case of 6 cores. I guess, I just need to test it out, as there is no direct answer in the documentation. My interpretation is that using cpu3 is only running the game in multiple cores only if you have a dual core processor. In my case, I would not expect cpu3 to work, as I want to.

The key statement in that doc is this:

"If a -cpu# switch and one of these -Single switches are used, the turns will always be processed in multi-processor mode."

Accordingly I suspect you'll get the best results from using either of the -single switches and then CPU 3 or 4. I'd be cautious about using any number higher than cpu4 since that is the highest number listed in the document and the code may not recognize something like "cpu7". And when I say "not recognize", it might ignore the command altogether leaving you in permanent single cpu mode.

Thank you! So, in order to get it to run with multiple cores I should write: -SingleCpuStart or -SingleCpuOrders and -cpu3.

[Nomad]

To answer some of this, this is my command line

"D:\War in the Pacfic Admirals Edition\PBEM xargun scen 2 with 100 points\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -w -px2550 -py1535 -skipVideo -archive -dd_sw -altFont

Here is a picture of my processor clocks while WitP:AE if starting up, note that all of the clocks have shifted to 4700 MHz showing that they are all in use

When I load a turn they all go to 4700 MHz while loading, when the turn is loaded and I am doing nothing they ranged from 800 to 4700 MHz and fluctuate. When I input commands they mostly all go to 4700 again.

Now the funny thing is that when I add -cpu4 to my command line the core speeds behavior is the same but the game load time is much less.

Now adding -SingleCpuOrders did NOT change the behavior at all.

To be though I did two more tests, I took out the -cpu4 switch and tried the 2 single cpu switches. Both times all cpu cores were in use. I did notice that using any one of the three switches seemed to reduce the game load time for some reason.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

To answer some of this, this is my command line <snip>

Nomad - Thanks for running these tests, very interesting!

It's interesting that your system will use all the cores, even without ANY of the switches that are supposedly required in order to get the game to operate in multi-core mode. Makes me wonder if modern hardware (or possibly the O/S) are able to do this even without being specifically told to do so. After all, the code does allow it.

Going back through the "WhatsNew" document, I noticed that the description of the two SingleCPU switches includes this comment:

"We’ve found this to be useful on some multi-core systems, especially AMD processors."

I didn't pick up on that qualification earlier, but the two switches are NOT universally beneficial for multi-core systems (they assist only "some"), and even then it's largely (or entirely) helpful for AMD processers. In fact, a few paragraphs down are some "examples" and the Intel switches don't include either of the "SingleCPU" types.

The final comment from the Devs notes that "we have yet to find a system that didn’t benefit at all from at least one of these switches performance-wise", and that would agree with your findings.

One additional setting you might choose to test: Try using the "-cpu5" switch and see if that still provides the improved game load times. That would answer the question as to whether the code can "see" a switch other than cpu1-4 (the only ones specifically called out in the documentation)

[Nomad]

Actually, I might have been looking at the wrong thing. I went back and tried the -cpu4 switch and this time watched the cpu#3 ( this corresponds to -cpu4) utilization percentage. It was the only one that
went up towards 100 %, the others stayed at less than 10% while loading the game. Substituting in -cpu6 for -cpu4 showed the utilization of all cores fluctuating from just above 0% to about 70% and the
game load time was much longer. It would seem that cpu switches above 4 do not work.

I will retest the single switches later. And I do have an Intel I7-9700K processor overclocked to 4.7 GHz.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: vege1

Okay! I can elaborate that main goal was to get the game to run on multiple cores, which is why I suggested using cpu7, as I have 6 cores. If I understood correctly, cpu3 was suggested when you have a dual core processor (the rule was number of cpu cores + 1).

In my case, using cpu3 would run the game on a single core (right?), which is something that I wanted to avoid (my impression has been that modern processors are not that good in running programs on single cores and can have overheating issues if you do not spread the load to multiple cores).

If you have a six core CPU, there is NO CPU 7! I don't know where the number of cores +1 came from. Years ago when MichaelM was still officially supporting the game, I think it was he who told us about Windows using Core 1 and other background programs using Core 2. Anything you have above that is good as there is unlikely to be competition for it from other programs.

[Nomad]

Always take note that cpu1 equates to cpu#0 and so on.

These are all for loading the game program.
If you do not put in a -cpu switch then it uses all the cores and they all fluctuate between 0 and 70% or so. It appeared that cpu#1 was used the most.
Using -SingleCpuStart used cpu#0 to 100% the others mostly 0%
Using the -SingleCpuOrders switch used cpu#0 at about 100%

For giving orders
-cpu4 as expected used cpu#3 at 100%
-SingleCpuStart used cpu#0 at 100%
-SingleCpuOrders used cpu#0 at 100%

for running the combat replay
-cpu4 used cpu#3 at near 100%
-SingleCpuStart, -singleCpuOrders, and no switch used mostly cpu#1, but they also used some of the other cores to a lesser extent

[Kull]

I found a 2009 post from Bill Dolson, which gives a lot more insight into what the CPU# and SingleCPU switches are intended for:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

The multi core problem is not just one thing, it's at least two distinct problems.  One has to do with some video drivers on some multi core machines and the other is an issue with the multi core processors themselves.  The latter problem only happens on Intel processors, the former problem can affect either Intel or AMD.

The -cpu# switches set the machine to run with only one processor all the time.  This is primarily helpful for the Intel problem.  The -single... switches help with some of the delay problems seen with some video cards.  -SingleCpuStart will switch the machine to single processor for loading the game, but will switch to using all processors after loading.  -SingleCpuOrders will keep the machine in single processor mode when loading the game and when you are entering orders, but will switch to use all processors for turn processing.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what to make of that. I was beginning to suspect (based on the age of the code) that "multi-core processing" REALLY means, "uses multiple processors sequentially" rather than "uses multiple processors simultaneously". But that doesn't fit with at least some of your results, nor with Bill's last comment. It does seem odd that here we are, 12 years later, and the video card and processor technology haven't "improved" enough to make these switches obsolete.