windows 10 issue
 

I just upgraded to the Windows 10 OS.

The game does not run smoothly on this OS. The scrolling is jerky and when you move units they move in 'spurts'. By that I mean, you click on a destination and the unit moves a few hexes, stops, moves some more, then moves the rest of the way. The fire routines are the same as if it's taking awhile to execute the code.

The game doesn't crash or fail; it just seems like the needed resources to run smoothly are being gobbled up by the Windows 10 OS.

Anyone else see this? Any work around to free up resources in the game or in the OS? It's very frustrating.

Just like Microsoft to sacrifice our memory to run their 'overhead' background crap. I've tried minimizing ALL the startup extras but it still gobbles up so much memory. Looking at the task manager, it looks like Win 10 uses 30% of my 6GB memory to run it's stuff. What's running in the background seems twice what Win 7 used. So many new routines I don't know. No, I'm not plagued with any virus stuff or malware, I checked.

Wave of the future? IS there a work around or do future machines need way more memory to run Win 10?

Thoughts?

Re: windows 10 issue
 

This is what I posted on the MBT forum last night

So no, I don't see what you see, quite the contrary. From where I sit win10 runs the game better than ever.

Now........what you DON'T tells us is significant. You don't say what screen resolution you are using or if it's windowed or fullscreen or what your system specs are and we have no idea what your MISC settings are.

The only "issue" I found was an old one where1600x1280 does not run on my 1900x1080 monitor

Unfortuantely the geniuses at MS seem to have removed the ability to copy and paste system info.They have a unique talent for introducing "improvements" that just piss people off

Ah---here we go this is mine . I had to dig through the 'net to find the answer.....seems to me it used to be easier than this

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Version 10.0.10240 Build 10240

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2130 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3400 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 6.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 5.88 GB
Available Physical Memory 2.91 GB
Total Virtual Memory 7.51 GB
Available Virtual Memory 4.48 GB
Page File Space 1.63 GB

and here's Task manager in the middle of an AI turn


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1438978660

......and here the report in the middle of a winSPWW2 AND winSPMBT AI turn both running at the same time

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1438978871



What excatly does " scrolling is jerky " mean ? Mine looks like it did with XP, and 8.1 , It sounds like you are running fullscreen ? Try windowed / DirectX desktop

Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Yes - full-screen 256 colour mode is now an obsolete MSDOS format, which graphics card drivers now rarely support in any meaningful way. Perhaps those companies now give that one to the student intern to write, since there is no longer any need for it to be the red hot video mode of yore, just simply "supported". It is no longer faster than full-colour windows modes as it was a decade or more in the past.

With today's graphics cards centred on DirectX full colour modes, and shifting polygons in 3D modes and so on, its nowadays faster to convert each pixel of the 256 colour palette screen into a high colour palette and then render that surface. Modern video cards may use some of the 3D graphics engine to do this - perhaps with pixel shaders.

So ye olde 256 colour mode is therefore in the same place as the Dodo and the dinosaur - defunct. full screen mode is just a quaint relic of when we had to support the old MSDOS mode back in the windows 95 (and maybe XP) days, when it was faster.

If you have the full game, then you should be playing in windowed mode using the desktop resolution. It will then utilise the current monitor settings, and occupy the full desktop less the area for the task bar at the bottom of the screen. The game runs faster in this mode nowadays as stated above - and you can task switch out to other windows applications with no palette distortion problems when switching back to the game, unlike in full screen mode.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Tried running winSPWW2 on Win 10 (just upgraded from Win 7).

In Full screen with either DirectX or GDI, Desktop as the screen size, I get the game to load, but it plays slow and jerky (a lot worse than Windows 7). Behavior with other resolutions is the same, but with ugly aspect ratios

In Windowed mode with either DirectX or GDI, also using Desktop as the screen size, the game displays a strip about 1/3 the height of the screen, and none of the buttons work, so I have no idea how it plays (and the scenario selection is pretty much unreadable due to the weird aspect ratio). Only way to close the app in Windowed mode is using the task manager. Behavior with other resolutions is the same, but the strip is a little wider or thinner.

This is not the kind of performance improvement I was hoping for.

Are there any other settings/tweaks that might get the game working better?

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Did you remember to set the taskbar autohide to off, as detailed in the game guide section Game Installation - the big red box with the flashing heading in yellow text "PLEASE READ THIS NOTE!") in the next section entitled Running WinSPMBT from the GameOptions Programme. It's supposed to be rather hard to miss.

Having the taskbar in autohide mode sends the wrong screen info to the application. (Nothing I can fix - its part of the legacy graphics engine library).

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Yeah, that was it. Forgot to turn off autohide in Win 7 and it always worked fine, so I didn't even think about that. Thanks for the reminder.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Taskbar Autohide worked with the game in win7 for you ?? That's a first. I'm not aware of anyone else being that lucky

Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I was running my game in full screen mode with win 7. My taskbar auto hide option was not selected; however, the locked taskbar option was selected.

I changed to running in windowed mode and the problem seems to be abated though I have not played for any length of time. Thank you for that suggestion - I never had any problem in full screen in Win 7 so I never considered that was a possible issue.

Question, does direct x or GDI selection have any impact either way? I can't see one but I would like to ask.

I stand by my earlier comments that Win 10 is a memory hog - I guess I will need more RAM to do all the wonderful things I want - LOL.

Part of the problem, based on my research, is that Win 10 currently has a memory leak issue which basically means the longer you run a win 10 session, the more resources are used up.

There is some speculation as to the cause of the memory leak but the general consensus is it resides in the Win 10 tutorial 'hint' process. The current recommendation is to make sure you select 'settings' : 'system' : 'notifications and actions' : 'show me tips about windows' to OFF. Microsoft is looking into a fix.

I don't know if that memory leak affected the game or not but it sure did mess up my computer sessions the longer I was browsing or working which lead to slower and slower responses and eventual freezes.

I believe I know enough about computers to be considered 'stupid'; I'm no means any kind of nerd or techie. I went to College with slide rule in hand (ouch! I'm old). So please check it out for yourselves. I think it worked for my sessions.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

The Directx/GDI toggle is another throwback to MSDOS days. If there is a difference in speed these days, then its hardly noticeable on modern equipment.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I've now turned that off. I'll keep an eye on memory usage. Thanks

Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I am another lucky Win7 user with an auto hide taskbar - no problems whatsoever in full screen mode

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Autohide IS NOT an issue when using fullscreen mode.....or at least it wasn't. I'm still not sure if it's an issue with windows 10 or not.

As we say in the game quide.....


tlscales said......

that's the telltail autohide was on....in WINDOWED mode. At the time I thought he had said he didn't have trouble running the game with autohide on with windows 7 referring to windowed mode. I see now he was referring to fullscreen, as are you

Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

QUESTION FOR ANYONE RUNNING THE GAME IN WINDOWED/ DESKTOP MODE WITH WIN 10


Does the game fill your screen completly or is it a bit narrow ?

Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

OK I loaded up an old save game with a lot of units and ran it fullscreen and I saw what you mean by......."does not run smoothly on this OS. The scrolling is jerky and when you move units they move in 'spurts'"

Check your scroll , graphics delay and movement delay in MISC. Reducing those values will go a long way to help alleviate the problems described above when using Win10 in fullscreen mode but if you do lower them ( to zero if need be ) you WILL find things a bit too zippy in windowed mode. When you reduce those delays in fullscreen mode there may still be a bit of hesitation during a long move but it is greatly reduced

As well right clicking on the start Icon in the lower left corner then clicking on "System" and then Advanced System settings/Performance to "adjust for best performance" might help as well ( I have not fully tested that ) but it will reduce some of the little things that use memory in win10 and may have a performance impact when running the game



Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Don,
My game is narrow under 'windowed' with win 10 which messes with the mouse scrolling ability as the game seems to have a problem determining when you are 'at the edge' with the mouse to scroll.
Also, the mouse has a problem scrolling down with the task bar present at the bottom with auto hide on or off.

BTW, the narrow edge appears about 1/4 inch on my monitor on both sides.

I shall fiddle with the settings and game options to see if I can play again under full screen versus windowed.

UPDATE: I fiddled with everything. Full screen mode with any settings, even zero, still runs jerky. The scroll via mouse or keyboard is the same jerky motion. Fiddling with win 10 resources made no difference.

Windowed mode runs well; however, the window is about 1/4 inch shy on all four sides from the screen with desktop resolution selected. This messes up the mouse scrolling but keyboard scrolling works just fine. The taskbar is also annoying but I can live with it for now.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

What resolution is your screen? - the windows have to be a certain power of 2, as we learned when 1366 wide screens came out for cheap laptops (like my Dell one). I think they had also to be a multiple of 4 pixels, too.

One thing that will affect that is the size of the borders your desktop "theme" uses, so it is worth experimenting a bit to see if some scheme gives you thinner window margins. (The one I use in windows 8 is a bit "fat", and so leaves a 2 pixel unused zone. It also has a large title bar.)

Scrolling - experiment with the scroll width setting in yhe game options launcher programme misc screen. You need to have one large enough to allow for the task bar, but not so wide that hovering over the right hand edge of the right roe of buttons will trigger scrolling. I use a scroll sensitivity size of 25 pixels, scroll speed 30, on my 1920x1080 monitor.

Also, train yourself to hover the mouse just inside the window edge to trigger mouse scrolling, rather than just "ramming it to the edge" as with full screen mode. I trained myself to do that several years ago, and it was not too hard to get used to:)!

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I'm still on Windows 7 64-bit for the moment, and I have to say I've always had Taskbar autohide enabled, ever since Windows 95. WINSP never suffered slowdowns as a result of this in my experience, so I was frankly puzzled when I saw all the notices warning me not to and then nothing untoward happened. I just assumed it was bad experiences with a handful of users and never thought twice about it.

I should note I always have run the game in windowed mode. It was a real relief after the eye-gouging that is trying to play the "other" SP in fullscreen only. Don't know how those guys do it.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Mobhack,

My screen resolution is 1920X1080 same as my monitor setting.

My desktop theme is 'fill.' So my chosen pictures fill the entire screen - no borders I can see.

I played with the scroll setting earlier. All that does is speed up or slow down the speed of the scroll in between the jerks. In other words, slow scroll gives slow move; stop; slow move; stop....Fast scroll gives fast move; stop; fast move; stop....The jerky pause time was unaffected.

Training? LOL. I'm a 'rammer' from way back and lack the patience to fine tune it.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I have no idea then what's up with your setup.

As a last gasp - try turning your sound off,
- in the game options launcher misc tab, set the mouse interface interface click off
- in the game preferences screen, turn both of the sounds off (Battle FX and Sound FX).

Why? - well some users have reported that having sound on makes unit movement and firing animations jerky. Seems to be a sound card related issue. Worth a try to see if that is what is affecting you.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

The thin borders in windows 10 seem to be a "feature" of the OS

8.1 is on the left.... as yet I have no idea if this is "adjustable" or not but it IS the difference between the game window filling the screen and not quite filling the screen


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1439228090

it would be nice if MS could actually improve something WITHOUT screwing something else up.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Think I may have something......standby

Re: windows 10 issue
 

No Joy for that but from that failed experiment I suspect the OS "thinks" there is a wider border than there is showing.Changing RegEdit does not help in fact it skews the game screen but I could make the game window quite a bit smaller but not larger.

Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

It finally arrived - loaded it on my windows 7 laptop, frankly because I don't like 7 (prefer 8, would really like it if there was a classic XP look and feel of course!). And since its the secondary machine, if the 10 install made it a toaster, it would be useful to put a linux distro on (and it may get that eventually).

!0 does not seem much faster than 7, this cheap Dell only has a dual core and I'd hoped for a bit more speed. Applications still take an age to load from initial click - but then run OK. Thats probably down to the measly 3MB of RAM on it.

The upgrade kept all my applications, So I could go straight back to firefox - tried the £edge£ browser, and that did not impress me much. It seems to be set up to not take cookies from reputable sites. So go to BBC news page, get nag about cookies, go elsewhere, return - and nagged again for the BBC news cookie. So I'll stick to Firefox.

I had a test install of WW2, which was in full-screen mode. That launched happily. I then alt-tabbed out of it and back, and it had resized to a weird vertical letterbox size. And the font was nuked as well. Which is what it did in 7 with the installed drivers, so no change. Alt-tab and killed that.

Then used the gameoptions launcher to set to windowed mode at desktop resolution and hit start. Game options cloeed and Nothing happened. Brought up task manager, no sign of the task. I tried a few things like running the programme directly, still no start. Eventually I restarted the laptop - and then it launched happily from gameoptions as if nothing had happened. Maybe W10 keeps a "naughty boys" list of things you killed off?. Weird.

Absolutely no hiccups scrolling round the map, or when moving units about. In fact, it may be a wee bit faster than under 7, so I may increase the unit move delay.

MBT on the same machine in windowed mode also worked flawlessly.

The game borders fit right to the cheapo 1366 wide screen on the laptop, no desktop pixels left uncovered.

Windows 10 is really a warmed-over version of 8.1. Those like me that prefer an XP type classic start menu will of course download a start menu replacement - start8 or similar. Then you have a proper hierarchical program files list, and no more kindergarten tile stuff. (I replaced Microsoft's one within 10 minutes of downloading :happy:!).

Re: windows 10 issue
 

apparenty there is a "Start10" in the works

http://www.stardock.com/about/newsitem.asp?id=461876


I haven't tried this but it does seem better than the stock version in win 10

Screenshots:
http://www.stardock.com/products/start10/images/ss_win7default.jpg
http://www.stardock.com/products/start10/images/ss_win10.jpg
http://www.stardock.com/products/start10/images/ss_win7modern.jpg

Re: windows 10 issue
 

In windowed/Desktop mode WW2 runs with a very small border above and left and right on my machine (see: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...48255&page=40; for specs). Below you see the start bar.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I was referring to the left and right edges

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1463239689

I belive the window borders were a bit wider before win10 and the game window didn't show the edges of the underlying windows

Re: windows 10 issue
 

There will also be a small border on the 1366(?) screens common to laptops since the mode they use does not divide by 4 pixels (or whichever it is that the graphics library requires to work properly). Its a special kludge I had to put in to handle that resolution. I had to make it subtract 2 IIRC pixels, or it went haywire.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I have noticed that on my machine the game (MBT and WW2) also pauses briefly when scrolling in full screen mode. My scroll speed is 16 and my graphics settings are high. It moves then stops and then moves a bit more etc.

In windowed mode things run smoother (scrolling is perfect) but it still stops and starts sometimes when a unit opens fire or when I right click on something for info. I noticed this happens especially after an air attack or if the game was idle for a few seconds.

I use the direct X settings. The same thing happens under GDI. If I decrease graphic's quality it doesn't change much. I did notice the fans running a little when the action started again after a pause though.

My misc settings for graphics delay and movement delay are: 25 and 18 respectively. I had Edge running in the background - idle - and the parent folder for the game open. I've switched off quite a few of the unnecessary bells and whistles (one note etc) as well as implementing most of the suggestions in this thread.

My specs are:

Intel i7-6700HQ processor

Win 10 64 Bit

Geforce GTX 96 5M Video card

Direct X 12.0

1920x1080 is my Screen Resolution

The machine is new and well equipped in comparison to what I had before (I've got 8 GB of RAM for instance).

The game itself looks and sounds great. I just don't know what to do about the occ. stuttering.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I do not get any stuttering in windowed mode , I rarely use fullscreen mode...actually the ONLY time I use it when someone has an issue. I have not noticed any stopping /stopping on windowed mode on my machine while a unit is moving

Here are my specs

Operating System -Windows 10 Home 64-bit

CPU - Intel Core i3 2130 @ 3.40GHz 40 °C Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology

RAM - 6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)

Motherboard -Acer Aspire XC600 (SOCKET 0) 28 °C

Graphics / Screen Resolution - S22C300 (1920x1080@59Hz) Intel HD Graphics (Acer Incorporated [ALI])

Storage - 931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162 (SATA) 44 °C

Optical Drives - HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH82N

Audio - Realtek High Definition Audio


I have my game scroll speed set to 30
Graphics delay set to 40
unit move delay set to 50

We provide full screen mode but we are done SUPPORTING it. We Have recommeded players use windowed mode since we converted to windows and will continue to do so. We have said for well over a decade that IF the game works in at least one of the modes then it works , we make no claim that it will work in both.....if it does.......bonus but windowed mode is THE mode both games are devloped in and I would HAPPILY pull fullscreen mode right out

If your game does not work in windowed mode we will look into it.....fullscreen mode is dead to us. If you get it to work, great if not then why screw around with it when windowed mode works ?


Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Full screen mode is a proper 256 colour rendering using the palette. That used to be the fastest mode, back in the MSDOS and early windows era.

Windowed mode converts to the colour mode as used by windows. That used to be slower, but no longer is. Neither is GDI mode any slower, since Microsoft sped GDI mode up by using hardware rendering.

GDI mode was really only a hangover for Linux users as I recall, some Linux windows emulators did not handle Directx way back when.

In Windows now, its actually faster to use windowed mode nowadays since the drivers and cards are optimised for it. It is faster to use windowed mode as well since nowadays modern cards now seem to do a pixel by pixel software backwards-compatibility mode conversion that does not utilise their speed, and so 256 colour mode has lost the direct to video hardware speed it once had, and why you get "stuttering" if you use full-screen mode. Additionally, since Microsoft assumes that nobody is using the 256 colour palette, since it is obsolete, windows uses it without any checking for applications relying on it. That is seem most in Windows 7 "Aero" - and why we had to put in a kludge script to kill the Explorer desktop for windows 7 full screen, but 8 and later can do this, as well as simply task switching to the desktop - result is a psychedelic screen on re-entering the programme.

The mode is only there as a carry-over from the old DOS days, back when you had to load special mouse drivers and so on.

Use at your own risk. It is not supported any more, and it probably should have been deleted as an option a long time ago. About the only people it may be of use for are probably long-term free game users who still have a video card that supports full screen 800x600 (Many modern cards just wont go below 1024x768).

Some users liked the mode so they could set a resolution lower than the current desktop, to ease eye strain. But the way round this in windowed mode is to right click on the desktop and select a lower resolution (one that does not stretch the graphics) and then start the game in windowed, desktop resolution. Then right click on the desktop and select the regular size once done playing.

So I for one would be quite happy to kill "full screen" mode completely. Full-screen mode is dead, defunct, it has ceased to be, its pushing up the daisies, if it wasn't nailed to the perch it would have fallen over, it is an ex-parrot. It is only there for those of you still pining for the old DOS fiords...

Re: windows 10 issue
 

It stutters from time to time in windowed/desktop mode as well. I will see if it works better using the old win 7 command subroutine. I will let you guys know.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Doing that made no difference either. In fact I'd say the game ran worse.

Running it with sound off makes no difference either.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Running the windows 7 command file in 8 or greater is totally useless, since it is there only for windows 7's aero interface which you have to kill off if you want to run a 256 colour mode game full-screen since windows aero thinks it owns the 256 colour palette for its aero colourisations.

Windows 8 and higher do not use aero, they use the "modern UI" with its thicker flatter windows borders yucky look. So there is absolutely nothing gained from killing off explorer.exe, and in fact (including 7) if you kill it off, then you cannot start any new windows programmes while you are playing, and any programmes that were open when you launched the game will have their palette skewed. The command file is a kludge of the highest order that is simply there to allow full screen play in windows seven (7) only.

Stick with windowed mode, since it plays nice with windows.

I may well delete the full-screen options completely on the next release since it causes so much grief. It really is a Norwegian Blue..

Re: windows 10 issue
 

just so I understand what you are seeing when you say "It stutters from time to time".....are you referring to unit movement ?

Don

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I am referring to all of the more labour intensive facets of the game: right clicks for info, combat and, of course movement. In windowed/desktop mode it runs smoothly for a few minutes and then it stutters. Now, in that moment, I could have just clicked a unit for some info or, more often, I could have opened fire on an enemy unit or just moved one of my units. I've now got my unit movement setting in misc set to "0" btw. It is almost like the game has gone to sleep for a moment or two and then it springs back into life with a bit of lag between my order and the execution thereof. The laptop makes a noise too.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

It may be that your computer is idling the game somewhat when there is no activity. Are you running the laptop on battery ? I don't own a laptop so I'm not familiar with their idiocycrasies

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I have figured out what the problem is. I have a drive C and D set up on my laptop. My Laptop has a large D drive and a relatively small C drive. I installed the game onto the D drive thinking that this would be a more economical use of space. It was, of course, I mean on one drive I've got 900 + Gigs of empty space, but it caused this latency issue. Now the game works smoothly in windowed/desktop mode as it should. I only hope this is just specific to SP.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Do you have power saving settings applied on your laptop - the C drive is likely to be always busy, so not put to sleep by battery savings, whereas a separate drive may be put into idle mode if it is not too frequently accessed. Kicking a sleeping drive from idle to read data is possibly why you are suffering from stuttering.

Or your D drive just may have longer latency compared with the C drive. Though C is always likely to be "spun up" in any case since the windows page swapping files live on it, so even if equal latencies, the spun-up c will be a tad faster.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Do you know, I have no idea. I shall have a look.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Is D: an external drive running through a USB port?
As your machine is new & high spec check its in a USB3 port.
I have USB 2+3 ports on my machine.

To see if it is a drive issue just copy your SPWWII folder to your C: drive & play it from there to see if that resolves things.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

Hello, my two bob's worth...

Windows 10 has a few memory issues - if you look up "win 10 memory leak" there is quite a lot of info and suggested fixes. Anything stuttery on a modern machine suggests a bug somewhere (obviously!) but as this is a known issue it might be worth following up.
G

Re: windows 10 issue
 

It is on the harddrive.

Re: windows 10 issue
 

I heard about this. Typical!