A couple of simple ways to make it more friendly
 

1) While the AI is thinking the computer doesn't monitor Alt-Tab. I'm playing several AI's on a big map, the turn calculation is long enough that I'm switching away and doing other things while it thinks. If I'm quick I can hit end turn and then Alt-Tab and in a few seconds the game will hide itself, otherwise it won't until the AI calculations are done. Even if I'm fast enough, it still won't release the mouse until after the AI calculations are complete, though. (Note: This mouse problem can only be observed on multi-screen systems.)

2) When the game is simply down on the taskbar, how about changing the title to show if it's calculating or waiting for the player.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

You could probably make it so that ranged attacks do more damage to the enemy then to yourself

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

(1) That's weird. I can Alt-Tab back and forth while the turn calculation is being performed without any problem. It sounds more like something in OS scheduler being borked. User-mode application isn't even supposed to be able to totally monopolize computer resources.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

I suppose you could tweak the Create a Pretender interface a bit. Needing to start a game to view/delete pretenders is sort of strange...

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Loren, the game runs very fine in windowed mode, that way you should not have any problems to switch to other tasks.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Windowed mode is one of the reasons why I love this game. It lets me see the clock on the machine. It allows me to quickly switch back and forth to other work windows. And the hosting times remind me to do check other things on the machine (and other things off the machine)

Making Windows mode the default might be a good idea. Im not sure if there is any advantage gained to full mode at all.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Windowed mode default would be a good idea.

ps. I can play EVE online and Domininos at the same time;) Gotta love games running in windows.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

It's not the OS scheduler--the machine is behaving fine and there is plenty of CPU power available (this is a hyperthread machine, Dominions can only monopolize it's processor, not the whole box.)

You can freely alt-tab back and forth while it's your turn. You can pretty freely alt-tab back and forth during battle resolution. What you can't do is alt-tab back and forth during AI calculation. I'm thinking that perhaps it is only checking the keyboard when it displays a message.

When you do the Alt-Tab Windows sees it fine and switches the task. However, Dominions still has the screen and the mouse is still boxed in. Thus you get the taskbar and any menu you can launch from it--but not any window you might open.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

I'll try it that way.....

Much better, although in windowed mode the mouse won't scroll the map when it reaches the edge even if it's the true edge of the screen also.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Ok, I probably never tried to do it during AI calculation. I haven't actually seen it take any significant amount of time (like 1 sec or more). Alt-tab is not checked by the program, but by the OS. If program is in infinitive loop and doesn't handle keyboard at all, alt-tab still works fine. One needs to make special effort to suppress alt-tab and it's somewhat tricky and Windows-specific. It's unlikely Dom3 does it. It seems strange that 'AI calculations' take so long. You may try to disable hyperthreading - sometimes it creates weird thread locking problems. Maybe OS scheduler and 'AI calculcations' are getting dead-locked on some semaphore (not sure what it might be though...) Sorry, I don't have any other ideas...

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

The problem is that Dominions isn't recognizing that it's been switched away and releasing the video. I think it's not monitoring the message queue while it's thinking.

This is a large map with many AI's, the "AI thinking" phase is measured in minutes (this turn, I'd say something like 10 minutes), especially since I got into quite a slugging match with my powerful neighbor. (On the main battlefront he's got at least 500 units in battle or marching towards it.) It wasn't nearly so bad while I was mostly squashing Atlantis but now Atlantis is gone. I've got 5 neighbors. 2 are basically at peace (one keeps throwing spells my way but there's been no other conflict) one has only two provinces of contact and we've never done anything to each other. One is the undead--they've got several hundred units in one square that they've done nothing with--since he's by far the most powerful empire I don't intend to start anything with him. That square is now a minimum of 5 provinces behind the battle line and I have no idea where the rest of his empire might be or how he came to have that pile on the one square. Finally there's the guy I'm fighting. He used to be ranked a bit higher by the game, by now I'm ranked a bit higher. Now that he's marching the big forces up it's gotten very slow and my shambler raids on his flank made it even worse. He's also doing a horrible job of countering the shamblers. There's a long path with low-supply terrain, I think the AI is having a hard time with the pathfinding.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Loren, 10 minutes in terms of turn generation in a large map game?

Is this what I am supposed to expect even when I get a new computer shipped to me?

Jeez...

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Well, with all nations in game, in a huge map, after 10-15 turns... Most nations will have at least one fight per turn. Just generating all of those takes time. In smaller maps, with fewer enemies, generation is much faster.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Yep, until/if Illwinter addresses the issue of graphics settings having an effect on turn generation times.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Cainehill,

Does that mean turn generation will be significantly faster with reduced graphics setting? If it takes more than 1-2 minutes even in late game, I am going to be very annoyed.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Lower settings does speed it up and annoyed you will probably be. The turn gen time can be ignored using various methods such as: having 2 game running at once, playing one while the other hosts. Browsing the internet while it hosts. Remembering to breath during play ect.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

LOL, Shovah. I will have two computers once my new one arrives, but the old one has busted CD-room drive. Perhaps I should fix that, get 2 copies of the game, and run the game on two computers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

You don't need to monitor message queue to get hidden or brought to the background. I could see why there might be a problem bringing Dom3 window in the foreground in this situation, but hiding it should be working. And when you refer to 10 minutes, is it just 'AI thinking' phase or total turn generation time? I'd imagine some combination of map and nation may produce longer 'AI thinking' times, but 10 minutes seem to be way too much from my experience (for me vast majority of turn generation time is spent in 'resolving battles').

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Then don't play on the big maps. It's nice and quick on the small ones.

Furthermore, I think there's a pathfinding issue with the very long times I'm seeing--it only got bad when the AI I'm fighting started marching large armies around a complex, probably out of the way (I haven't mapped the extent of his empire yet) route to get to me. (This turn I sent over 200 heavy cav against over 300 of his units. I lost 1/4, he lost 1/2 and retreated.)

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Why should I not have the opportunity to explore the game in its full glory? If my recollections of Dom II is correct, you can't really get to the late spells and summons unless you play on a big map. I am not a fan of fast blitz-type of games, and if I did, I would play Starcraft online with 12 year-old kiddies from Seoul instead.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

What I think is going on is that while it technically goes into the background, if it doesn't monitor the message queue it doesn't see what happened and know to release the screen.

And I do mean 10 minutes of AI think time--this on a 3ghz processor with oodles of ram. Admittedly the memory is currently in single-channel mode. I've been having trouble getting a response out of Corsair about the memory chip that died--I've come to suspect that something is wrong in their e-mail and I'm going to call them again Monday and try a different e-mail address.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

That's wrong - size of the map doesn't affect anything in game mechanics. On a huge map you could finish research at about turn 65, on a small map it would be more like turn 75-80 (but you'd spend much less real time to get there on small map). So if you want to see late spells and summons, it's better to play smaller maps.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

It shouldn't need to do anything explicit. OS should be able to take the screen over (or shouldn't allow an application to monopolize it).

Oh well, maybe that's a reason somehow. Btw, does it happen in one particular game or you have it in every game of comparable size?

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

You can run the game in multiple windows on a single computer.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

In my current crappy computer, Dom III screen becomes garbled if I alt/tab out. Same goes for windowed mode.

But I suppose this has to do with my current computer, not Dom III.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

My CDROM (well, DVDROM, but irrelevant) is busted as well, I just installed the game on the other computer and copied the game folder to the computer with the busted CDROM.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

But don't you need the physical CD in the computer to play Dom III? Most games won't let you play without a disc or so I thought.

If that is not the case, then I suppose I can run it on two computer with just 1 disc, since I have multiple monitors, keyboards, and mice.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

No need for a physical CD (well, at least not in the linux version, but I think this is the case for all platforms.)

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

You don't need physical CD other than for the installation. However Dom3 license limits you to a single concurrent copy on a computer storage medium (aside of backup). That sounds curious because I don't see any straightforward way to play it without having one copy on the hard drive and another copy in RAM http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Really? I should read that since Ive always put it on my windows desktop machine and my linux server, with full knowledge of the devs.

Im not sure how thats worded but the game is purposely setup to allow seperation of client and host. The host copy doesnt check its own serial against the players to specifically allow that.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Do you think developers read license agreement? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

But it does when using DirectX.

This is my first game of this size.

Incidently, I'm thinking my reason on why it's so slow is wrong. The undead are on the march and they have some *HUGE* armies.

I'm going to have to fight them soon. What ratio of priests to undead should bring to battle?

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Dom3 is DirectX-free AFAIK.

Re: A couple of simple ways to make it more friend
 

Just remembered that I read somewhere that some video drivers implement OpenGL through redirecting calls into their DirectX drivers. Maybe that's the case for your video card and the cause of your problem?