Advanced runs too fast

[Crogon]

Ok, excellent job cleaning up the code, I guess. I used to play an older Armegatron version that came with my OS (OpenSUSE 10.2).. or I downloaded off pbone.. anyway..

I had to uninstall that one to get 2.8 whatever to install. So I start up the game, change screen reslolution to max and turn dithering on (which doesn't appear to do anything, I still have jagged edges). Then I start a game, and get my butt whooped repeatedly. I check to see if the AI drones are set to stupid, they are.

So that's basically where I'm at now. The game is running so fast on my machine, I can't even compete with AI bots set to the IQ of a houseplant. I'm on a new Dell XPS, so perhaps my machine is running too fast? I dunno, but I need some help or I can't even play now.

Thanks in advance.

[Tank Program]

Have you tried playing against just one bot or making the rules slightly more favorable in signle player by manually increasing cycle_rubber?

[Z-Man]

... turn dithering on (which doesn't appear to do anything, I still have jagged edges).

You really want antialiasing. You can't turn the right one on in the ingame options (there are antialiasing options, but they use other mechanisms and cause glitches). Check your graphics driver documentation for that. Dithering is to make the game look better in 16 bit color depth.

perhaps my machine is running too fast?

Probably not. A faster machine usually does not make sensibly written games run faster. We have had some cases where users overclocked their machines where also the timer we use for pacing the game runs faster, but the speedup was in the single digit percentage realm and was only noticeable during network games, where server and client would just desync. Anyway, for you, there is a speed option in the game options menu, the same one you can set the AI level in. You can tune the speed down. IIRC, we increased the default speed a tad somewhere between 0.2.6 and 0.2.8.

[Jonathan]

a tad = 200% increase

[Crogon]

Well, thanks for all the feedback guys. I tweaked all the settings forwards and backwards. Nothing much I do slows it down enough to where I can make precise turns. Even double-whatever-it's called keying makes a turn loop one 'grid space' wide.

I don't think it's my machine anymore. I downloaded the high quality movie pack and sounds, and maxed everything out, and still had a hard time getting it below 350 fps. I did manage to get it down to like 150 fps while turning as fast as possible repeatedly. If I slow it down, I still can't get more precise than a one grid width turn. I also niticed that I get a three turn 'key-buffer' if I slow it down enough, but no love on precision turning.

The rubber thing doesn't appear to do anything. If I skate on a wall, it goes down. When I crash into a wall though, it just pegs out instantly. Actually it almost looks like it pegs out a frame or two AFTER I crash. I haven't tweaked any config things yet, just the in game menu.

It's barely playable. Word whacked me, and Outlook killed me twice before I managed to trap him. Is there some weird configuration thing I need to set to allow me to turn quicker? Or is there some sort of buggy program conflict thing going on here? Or.. ?

Thanks again.

[Lucifer]

Ah, turn cycle_delay down. The default for that changed to 0.1, where it was previously 0.04, iirc.

[Crogon]

You ROCK!!

That did the trick. Now if I set the speed to -10 I can make this bizarre diagonal wall. I can also see the rubber meter move when I crash, as opposed to pegging out. I guess now I should try to play at normal speeds for a while and see if I need to play with the rubber settings, or if the default is fine.

Thanks again guys.

[epsy]

well, have you tried playing online ?

[Stormcrow]

Another thing to check: Dell laptops use Intel SpeedStep, which, when enabled, I've found tends to interfere with a number of applications, including first-person shooter games and Virtual PC. It makes these applications run at super-speed.

Try going into the system setup and turning off SpeedStep. Then boot into Windows and try the game. See if there's any difference.

Of course, I sometimes play Armagetron Advanced on a Dell laptop with SpeedStep, and this has never happened to me with this game. Other games, yes, but not AA.

[Crogon]

Another thing to check: Dell laptops use Intel SpeedStep, which, when enabled, I've found tends to interfere with a number of applications, including first-person shooter games and Virtual PC. It makes these applications run at super-speed.

Try going into the system setup and turning off SpeedStep. Then boot into Windows and try the game. See if there's any difference.

Of course, I sometimes play Armagetron Advanced on a Dell laptop with SpeedStep, and this has never happened to me with this game. Other games, yes, but not AA.

That's a good point, I don't think SpeedStep is causing my problems though. I'm much happier with the precision now that I've adjusted that Cycle setting.

I don't have it installed in Windows, I have it installed in Linux, so booting in to Windows isn't going to do me much good.

I went online in observation mode, After about 3 rounds, all the graphic overlays disapear and the text turns in to unreadable pink blocks. It did this four-five times in a row. Luckily I remembered how to back out of the menus and close the game without being able to read the menu. Apparently I've got some sort of minor graphics glitch going on. Not surprising since I tweaked every single setting. However, I don't remember what all the defaults were, so it may take some time to figure out what the problem is.

Could this possibly be related to the moviepack files, or do I have some setting hosed. I'm fairly sure it's just one of those settings on the graphics menus, but you guys would know better than I would, I'm sure.

Thanks once again for all your help guys.

[Z-Man]

We've had cases where one of the fancy 3d desktop enhancements (XGL it was, I think) caused textures to get corrupted/unloaded. Do you run any of those?

[Crogon]

We've had cases where one of the fancy 3d desktop enhancements (XGL it was, I think) caused textures to get corrupted/unloaded. Do you run any of those?

NOOOooooo!!!

Say it isn't so, I LOVE my four rotating desktops on a cube. I don't use much else of XGL. I have the wobbly windows when moved turned on, but yes, I use XGL. You think that's the problem?

I'm still tweaking settings. it doesn't seem to unload the textures when I'm in single player, but I keep getting a 'stutter' where it drops a few frames every now and then. No pattern that I can discern yet. I'm back down to minimalizing the effects, but I haven't been able to get rid of it. I just had the thought that maybe one of my Firefox add-ons is doing it, so I'm going to close Firefox and see if the stutter goes away.

I dunno about the XGL conflict. Maybe if I tell it 'Always keep window on top'? Maybe?

[Z-Man]

Maybe, and maybe it's working in fullscreen mode. I really don't know much, I only know that one of those fancy 3d things was positively identified as the cause of texture loss. We're dutifully reserving our textures with OpenGL, so it's not an "App 2 steals texture IDs from App 1 because App 1 doesn't reserve the textures" problem.

[Jonathan]

R used to reload textures, but I don't know what happened to it in the meantime.

[Jonathan]

What? I'm posting in the middle of the thread and not at the end?!?