SMP/Timer problems?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Could it be that GC2 uses the TSC as timer (via RDTSC or whatever)? Until today, I got strange behaviour from time to time with planets spinning too fast in overview windows, but today I activated Cool'n'Quiet and it's all too fast. Edge scrolling takes me beyond the limits of the map (I've been at coordinates like 59000:something!), planets are a blur and the ship preview in the "new game" dialogs is also just a wee bit too fast (meaning that it's about 20 ships in all directions flickering over each other...)

This seems to be pretty much the problem that has been solved in Serious Sam 2 with the latest patch, in which apparently the whole system was switched over from RDTSC to QueryPerformanceTimer.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256
http://blogs.msdn.com/tparks/archive/2005/05/14/417516.aspx
http://forums.seriouszone.com/showpost.php?p=688033&postcount=139

Please get this fixed in the Beta... Pretty please?
(edit) perhaps I should mention this: CPU is an AMD Athlon X2 4200+
12,214 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Bump and update:

with version 0.80a[b].002, this problem still exists. I tried switching between a single core and both cores. (Alt-Tab now seems to work, cheers!)

With affinity set to a single core, rotating views of planets and ships are at least consistent, planets are spinning at somewhat random speeds though. I had earth spinning very slowly in the planet window, tabbed out, switched to two CPUs. then is was just randomly rotated for each frame. After switching back, rotation was again "stable" but very fast.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Yep, see here https://www.galciv2.com/Journals.aspx?AID=87504

You can use the tool in the above link to make the exe default to using only 1 core

I also noticed that the rotating is a bit more jerky with using 1 core tho that could be me.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
The bug is still there in both the most recent 0.81.something and 0.91[b].002
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

GalCiv2 uses QueryPerformanceCounter() already, which should work on nearly every chunk of hardware out there.  It appears that everyone reporting this problem so far is running on an AMD dual core machine.  Is there anyone here with an Intel dual core machine that is experiencing these issues? 

For those of you with AMD dual core machines, AMD has a driver update that may address this problem: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Version (exe) 1.2.2.2 http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html

If possible, please try installing this driver and post your results (good or bad) to this thread so that we can track this problem down.  Thanks!

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Arrg. Maybe not. How 'bout this:
www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html


Link is working now, i will give it a try and let you know if this fixes the issue.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It pretty certainly doesn't help. It was one of the things I tried early in the Serious Sam 2 debacle, and it had no effect at all. It's still installed. Other things that several people tried were the hotfix and the /usepmtimer boot option which also had no effect.

Ultimately, Croteam rewrote the whole timing code (at least according to what's been said in the forums).

From a developer's point of view, this might be interesting:
Link

Sorry if I'm rather penetrant in pusing this, but I find it very disappointing that so few games are running without inconvenient fiddling.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
We are running with a X2 3800+ internally and a Pentium D, and so far we've not seen the issues reported. For reference, what video card are you using as well?
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Video card is a Geforce 6800GT, 81.98 drivers
CPU: Athlon X2 4200+
Mainboard: MSI Neo4 Platinum (nForce4 ultra chipset, latest BIOS)

So far, GalCiv2 is one of two games I tried that had really bad timing issues (as in "unplayable"). Some other games tend to be just slightly "nonlinear" or lose network connection when run on both cores, some run perfectly fine.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I'll be damned... right now, everything seems to be running fine. I don't know why. Since the last time that I've seen the problem, I haven't updated drivers or the BIOS, nothing. I've tried starting GC2 (0.91[b].002) with and without /usepmtimer, powercycled the system and it just didn't occur. Until today, just about every time I started the game, the problem was there. Today, I tried several times and all is smooth.

I'll now be in the corner, sacrificing to the quantum gods.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Glad to hear it's working now.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Installing the amdfix solved the issue for me aswell
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
It's back. Had the machine running under load for some time and it started again.