[RESOLVED]very strange speed problem

[PeterH]

I have just downloaded Transcendence 1.01 last week. It runs fine on my wife's machine (my computer was broken at the time) -
Intel C2D 6420, Win XP home SP2.
After I rebuild my own computer (Asus 1155 mobo, Intel i5 2500k processor, Asus ati 5570 video card) I copied the directory across to my machine
(win XP Pro, SP3) and tried to play: Transcendence runs as slow as a snail on sedatives. I mean ****** slow ******. I tried my older installs of
Transcendence, namely .95, .96, .97 and they all run at normal speed - but not 1.01. Reinstalling 1.01 did not fix the problem.

I booted the machine in to Windows 7 Ultimate and ran the program from the same directory, and it was going so fast, I was dead within seconds.
Much faster than I've ever experienced it in the past. Didn't try the older versions in Win7 though, so I can't report a comparison.

Something's a bit strange here?

-Peter

[Ttech]

I have just downloaded Transcendence 1.01 last week. It runs fine on my wife's machine (my computer was broken at the time) -
Intel C2D 6420, Win XP home SP2.
After I rebuild my own computer (Asus 1155 mobo, Intel i5 2500k processor, Asus ati 5570 video card) I copied the directory across to my machine
(win XP Pro, SP3) and tried to play: Transcendence runs as slow as a snail on sedatives. I mean ****** slow ******. I tried my older installs of
Transcendence, namely .95, .96, .97 and they all run at normal speed - but not 1.01. Reinstalling 1.01 did not fix the problem.

I booted the machine in to Windows 7 Ultimate and ran the program from the same directory, and it was going so fast, I was dead within seconds.
Much faster than I've ever experienced it in the past. Didn't try the older versions in Win7 though, so I can't report a comparison.

Something's a bit strange here?

-Peter

You were dead within seconds? It sounds like a very old issue with the 16bit subsystem in Windows however Transcendence is not 16bit and that issue was resolved. But have you tried 1.04 to see if the issue is fixed? I'd say if it still occurs it should be posted on the trac. You might want to post there. dxdiag might shed some light if you could post the information

[PeterH]

First up, I just found the download for 1.04 and it displays the same slowdown problem. I can only surmise that it may be a driver
problem in XP of sorts. It just strikes me as very odd that I have _upgraded_ my hardware but this particular program runs slower
than before, and slower than the older versions.

I've tried playing in Windows 7 again and while considerably faster than what I'm used to from the older versions, I managed to hold
my own this time ... I guess the first time I experienced the speed increase I was surprised, and flew very quickly into a large strong
group of hostile ships before I twigged on to what was happening.

Dxdiag reports no problems, but I can try to forward a dxdiag generated file.

-P.

[digdug]

Transcendence uses (as default) GDI under Windows XP, and DirectX under Vista or 7.

Did you try to run the game with command line switches and see if it's different?
http://wiki.neurohack.com/transcendence ... e_switches

run the game with "transcendence.exe /debug /debugvideo" then copy-paste the debug.log here so we can get additional infos to help you.

[PeterH]

First up, thanks a lot: using the ~dx switch has removed the problem.

This is what I get when I run the ~debugvideo switch:
02/12/2011 21:45:50 Start logging session
02/12/2011 21:45:50 Transcendence 1.04
02/12/2011 21:45:50 Small typeface: Tahoma
02/12/2011 21:45:50 Medium typeface: Arial
02/12/2011 21:45:50 Large typeface: Convection
02/12/2011 21:45:50 Console typeface: Lucida Console
02/12/2011 21:46:23 Loaded game file version: 1000400
02/12/2011 21:46:56 Frames: 6 Paint: 1 Blt: 141 Update: 0
02/12/2011 21:47:19 End logging session

yes, that's pretty much it, it showed a framerate of 6-7 while it was running.

-P.

[digdug]

yep, your debugvideo results are consistent with your solution to use /dx: you have a very large Blt value.

This is what George wrote about Blt:

Blt = The time (in milliseconds) that it takes to blt the offscreen buffer to the video card. If this is high, then it means that the videocard can't keep up. This might improve with /dx. This number is constant no matter how many objects are on screen or in the system (but might vary if other apps are accessing the videocard).

Now, I don't know if your problem is in the driver, directx or video card itself, but probably reinstalling the drivers and directx wouldn't be a bad idea.

In the end, if using /dx fixed your problem, than, just enjoy the game