[Solved] Game running too fast.

[theDirefulMachine]

Hello There,

While playing for my first few hours I noticed that the ingame time is apparently running too fast on my machine, and significantly so.
I checked with another clock and it appears that the game clock runs 45-50% too fast, on speed setting 0, of course.

I only recently bought the game on Impulse and am running it on a core2quad Q9550 at 2.83 GHz in XP.
The version is 1.201. (BTW, are the newer patches savegame compatible?).

I searched the forums for a while and did not find any mention of such behaviour. My apologies if there is any.
I can't tell if the actual simulation is affected by it (going to check that now) but all ingame timers seem to be (e.g. waves).

Any advice would be much appreciated.
Aside from this issue the game seems outright great so far and I am really looking forward to get past this issue (it's just bothersome).

Thanks in advance.

[Revenantus]

Hi theDirefulMachine,

Welcome to the forum.

All patches are compatible with existing save games. Be aware however that older versions of the game might not necessarily be compatible with save games from newer versions, so that's worth bearing in mind if you decide to downgrade.

I'm very sorry to hear about your difficulties with AI War, this is a problem that I've not heard of before. The developer, x4000, will be along shortly and he will be able to advise you further and issue a patch if necessary. I've placed this issue on the Critical List, so it will receive priority.

In the meantime, you are welcome to try Prerelease 1.202D, though I am uncertain if this will resolve the issue.

Any further technical information you could provide on your machine (hardware, special/unusual software and settings), may also be of use in resolving this issue.

I'm very sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Regards,
Revenantus

[Echo35]

Never heard of this happening with any modern game, just the really old ones that based their timing on the bus speed. How's everything else running? Your system clock on time, other background programs keeping proper speed?

[theDirefulMachine]

Thanks a lot for the welcome.

Now I tried a few things, but without success. Yet.
What I already did:
- Reinstalled the game and all of the additional plugins/programs it needs.
   - I tried versions 1013, 1201 and the new 1202D (the new interface looks very nice, the improved planetary overview is a relief to the eyes.
   - I installed the full .NET version from the MS homepage.
- I ran the game on 2 and a single core respectively, it didn't change anything.
- I hit the '-' key repeatedly to be sure

The simulation indeed appears to be accelerated (mI cruisers fire every 12.5 sec. instead of the supposed 18.2; which fits with the 45% I mentioned before).


Also, more on my system:

Asus P5B
Intel core2quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz
Geforce GTX 260  forceware 186.18 (I'll try another one next, EDIT: Just changed it. I tried more recent and older ones. As I expected it had no effect.)
4GB RAM (3.something effectively in XP)
32bit XP home edition 5.1 SP3  
Audigy 4

I generally don't use any funny software, except for some programming tools. No emulators and such.
There was nothing else running besides A.I. War.
I regularly deep scan my system, defrag... you know the usual troubleshooting basics. I can claim my system to generally be in pretty good shape.
Anyways, I can't exaxctly say this was a performance issue afterall...
@Echo: No I never experienced anything like that either. Anything else on the system is working properly. And it's not like the game is running at 300% like some classics often do. If it weren't for the ingame timers I might even have missed it. The game feels very fast-paced but not unplayable.

If I can think of anything else, I'll add it here. Chances are the problem is on my system only, since you say you never heard of it before. We'll see.
If there are any debug readings you might need, just say so, please.
I might not be able to answer before around 10h from now though (it's late night around here).

[Echo35]

You know what? I just loaded a game on my desktop with the new Prerelease, my ships in FRD mode went to engage some enemies, and it looked like they were in F&D mode, even though the game is set to normal. I haven't checked any game clocks, but it seems mine is running faster too.

EDIT: I loaded the game back up and noted that the ships were coming out of my space dock at an alarmingly fast rate. So I started construction of something and pulled out a stop watch and timed it. Seems on average, the game was timing about 35% faster than it should have been, which is right about how fast yours is.

[x4000]

Hi theDirefulMachine,

Thanks very much for reporting this.  I had also never heard of this issue, but I think you were just the first person to actually notice it.  Most of the veteran players here have been playing for a while, and so would not be looking for issues like this very carefully, and this is something which I think has crept into the game over time as many performance improvements were added.  From the release notes of 1.202E, which I will release shortly (I'll post another note here):

-There was previously an issue with the timing of the game on very fast CPUs in very low-load situations.  It was running the game at too fast of a speed if the game simulation was able to get more than 30ms ahead of itself (something only made possible by very fast CPUs and recent performance improvements).  This 30ms cap was previously in place as something of a safety valve, but it is no longer needed and has thus been taken out, thus fixing the timing issue in the process.

[x4000]

Okay, here's the new version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1239.0.html  It seems to run spot-on now.  Great catch!

[theDirefulMachine]

My hat is off.

I just ran 1202E and it seems to be fine now.

I am honestly impressed with your support here. I didn't expect something like this to get fixed 'overnight' (for me it was).

Thank You Very Much

[Volatar]

Heh, Welcome to AI War. This game has the best customer service I have ever encountered, period. Not even a couple indie games I beta tested, with the creator working full time on the game had such service. x4000 doesn't even do this full time!

[x4000]

My pleasure!  Glad this is working for you now.