autoscroll

Is it just me, or....?

from GalCiv2 Forums

Ever since the original GalCiv, and through all of the expansions and evolutions, I find that I have a recurring problem.

So, I'll be scrolling across the map in a given direction, seeing what there is to see.  But every once in awhile (about once every hour or so), when I move the mouse cursor away from the edge, the screen keeps on creeping in the last direction I had been headed.  Sometimes if I flip to a full-page info screen and then return to the map, the autoscrolling _might_ stop.  But lately in ToA, once it gets to scrolling, I have to either end my turn right then and there (and then it cycles through to the start of the next turn) or I have to Save, and fully exit the game and restart from my PC desktop.

Is this just me?  Or has anyone else ever experienced this?  I should also mention that I have had this particular problem _only_ with the GalCiv series of games.

12,385 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It sounds like a system lag; either the main processor or the video card processor. I would sooner believe the later. The computer would 'capture' the mouse sensing in advance; like holding down a key long enough that it starts repeating. Even when you stop the system already has a much longer list on direction from the mouse that the game and video card has to catch up. About the only way to remedy this is either tweak your system as much as possible for graphics processing or get a newer/larger video card with extra memory. And if you have a high end system it may not be set up properly for the video to keep up with the rest of the system. Time involved and indepth searching of your system settings is what is first needed to know what direction to go. I hope this can help you to some extent.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sounds like a possibility. Of course, it would seem I have had this same problem with three different PCs over the years. This one I _think_ has either 256 Mb or 512 Mb of video RAM. (Whatever it is, it was a LOT a year-and-a-half ago; just back of the then "bleeding edge".) I wasn't able to pull an info panel in the Control Panel that nailed it down. (Never was any good at hide-and-go-seek.)

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll see what I can do to get a tweak.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not sure why the video card would have an influence in this unless the game was waiting for a redraw cycle to stop and was set to vertical sync.

Since the main system processor handles everything with regard to mouse interaction code, it would have to be the issue. If you have a duel screen display or are running in windowed mode (or both), you may find that if the cursor is outside of the game window it does not receive the input data needed to cancel the scroll. If the cursor then enters the window again from a different area, it again may not trigger a 'scrolling done' event.

Happens to me as well (it is DEFIANTLY not my system specs) when running windowed.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Do you perchance have an Athlon 64x2 CPU?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The home PC is _is_ a dual-core. But note that I've experienced this same problem over three different PCs. Only the most recent PC is a dual-core. [I'll post the specs later when I get home this evening.]
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Home. Turns out that _my_ PC is an Intel Pentium 4 with a 3.0 GHz CPU, and 1.5 Gb of RAM. (It's my wife that has the dual-core; she does lots of graphic artist stuff.) MY video is a Radeon X1600 series, with 128 or 256 Mb of video RAM. As far as I know, none of that hardware has any particular problems with GC2.

What's a dual screen display? Some kind of windows option? Split screen?

I only play my games as full-screen displays. (Not much for multi-tasking, man that I am. ;) [And I can't imagine why you would prefer to use a window, unless it was to quickly flip over to something else.])
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Duel screen is just that -- two monitor panels. You run windowed mode when you want to be able to alt-tab or your monitor does funny things when in full screen mode. Not sure what is causing your problem, but naturally I would suggest ensuring all of your drivers are up to date. I'll have to think about it since its late and I just finished a 5 hour Brawl tournament.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This happens to me also.

AMD Sempron Processer 3400+ ~2.0GHz
1.5 gigs of Ram
ATI x1550 video card (drivers:6.14.0010.6734

Putting the mouse on the edge of the screen where it's panning seems to occasionally fix this.
I don't believe the panning is due to lag, since I see units moving around and I can select units normally. In fact I can make another turn while this is going on.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would like to add that the drivers are several months old, and there are newer drivers.
However the newer drivers cause many, many problems with modeling and various other games.

EDIT (Oh sure, now the edit button appears. Didn't for my last post): I use a single core I believe.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Putting the mouse on the edge of the screen where it's panning seems to occasionally fix this.
End of quote


This works. Thanks!