Game freezes - warping ships
 

Hello,

I have a freeze issue I haven't yet resolved :
With 1.04 (with or without MODS), the game sometimes freezes for seconds.
I have run this game before, on another computer with no problems.

When the game freeze, I can't do anything but moving the mouse around (the pointer doesn't change shape as it should), my clics are taken in account only after the freeze.

After the freeze, all ships in the game make a "warp", often bigger than the regular travel they should have done during the freeze time.

The result is often harmless, but it has some weird effects.

For example I was redoing the "African Bees Nest" mission to warm up with the FFG after a long no-playing period.
I was at the 90° turn on the river (ownship in the middle of the river) and turned my HF sonar ON to locate the mines I was warned about (radio message).
While I was marking contacts on the HF display, the game freezed for a few second, and I warped PAST the mines, with no explosions.
A 1/2 n.mile teleportation with the whole boat !!!

It's like the game events are frozen, but the ships' (not just mine) position are updated...

This is a bit annoying :/

My computer has the following hardware :
Athlon X2 4200+, (with AMD dual core optimizer fix)
X1900XT
Audigy SE
(latest drivers on graphic and sound board)

I have tried in full screen and also in windowed mode, it's the same.
Same result if I put DW alone on it's core (with SMP SeeSaw).

Does anyone have the same problem ?

Summary :
- happens in windowed mode of fullscreen mode
- happens with or without mods
- happens in any station
- game freeze except mouse
- several seconds freeze
- clicks are taken in account after freeze
- ships warp with no game events triggering (detection, mine triggering, etc)
- warp distance is bigger than normal (something like ten times bigger)
- acoustic data waterfalls are not squashed

I'm a bit puzzled ... Thanks to anyone who can put some light on this !

Use something to run DW on single core. Google for RunFirst.

Single core - as quick fix you can just assign affinity via Task Manager once running.

Also, search the net for ImageCfg.exe which is a Microsoft utility which allows you to modify an image to assign it to a specific CPU. Backup the EXE first, since there is no undo feature. By the way, it works for SC and DW, since I have the assigned to (and my other games) to CPU #4. Effectively, I have used this and other tools to my own CPU load balancing on, since neither XP nor Vista do an real load balancing.

Thanks, I'll try that.

I thought I had done that already by using SMP SeeSaw to isolate the process on CPU #2.
I must have made some mistakes while trying it.
Since SMP SeeSaw requires the CPU assignement to be made after launch, it is highly possible I have forgotten to change CPU during one test, and therefore, flagged this solution as "useless" :).

I'll force it on CPU #2 using imagecfg for now, and see how it goes.

Both the tool and instructions how to use it can be found at the DW Wiki under Tools & Utilities.

None of the above worked.
I have checked that every time, the game was running on a single processor.

I just had the example, running with LWAMI 3.08, the clock made a 5 minutes jump during a 4-5 seconds freeze :/

I also tried to fully reinstall the game, it didn't change anything.
It may be a problem with latest patches, because when I was running the game on a mono-core PC, with patch 1.02, I had not a single problem.

I'll try to run a 1.02, then a 1.03 version, just in case.

Hints are welcome.

Hmm!! No problem at all on my dual core. I Installed V1.0 than 1.04 and LWAMI 3.08.

What windows operating system do u have. Vista or XP. If Vista, try running DW as XP compatibility mode.

It's XP.
I'll try Win 95 compatibility mode :)

It's not that .. DW runs on XP with no problems .. I wonder what that could be.

Strangely enough, the game is running fine under win 95/98 compatibility mode, although the sound is a bit choppy (messages repeated/trucated), but no freezes (yet... But I think I should have seen some already if it was buggy there too).

Maybe this freeze problem is related to the sound board ?
I use an audigy SE with latest drivers, does anyone uses one too ?

BTW, what should logically be the best compatibility mode between '95 and '98 ?

I dont use an Audigy (still going with my SBLive 5.1 till xmas) but creative drivers are not renowned for their perfect track record.

Maybe give those drivers a try : www.kxproject.com

I had to switch to them when I build my new PC because the creative driver simply sucked with all the new hardware (which btw. is a known problem). After I installed the KX Drivers everything worked perfectly (actually even better then before).

Oh and as mentioned before, DW works well under XP without any compability mode.

Maybe the compatibilty mode affects the driver's behavior (since I get choppy sound), that is what I was thinking about. I'll try others drivers.

EDIT : My Audigy SE (SB0570) is unsupported by the kx drivers... I'll try others drivers, if I can find them.

Yes, Compatibility mode is not required on XP neither in Vista, that was just an option to try out if Vista was your OS. The problem could also relate to the sound card reporting no 3D Buffers therefore cannot create hardware 3D sound which may affect performance. If you go into the Options/Sound of DW ingame, 2nd page will give you an analysis

2nd page of sound setup says I have enough buffers for each type :
6 3D buffers, 4 recommended
10 Special effects buffers, 4 recommended
10 Voice buffers, 10 recommended.

I tried disabling 3D sounds and special effects, but I still have the problem.

I also noticed that after the freeze (with no time acceleration), the time added was always 5 minutes... weird.

At least I have a setup (compatibiltity win 95) that works :)

Howzit all.

I managed to finally get my hands on this supurb sim yesterday, and ran into the same problem. Much to my distress I patched and scratched to find a solution.

In the end I stumbled onto this forum, tried the single core idea, and now the game runs silky smooth. (Apart from the music for some reson)

The freaky thing is that my setup is virtually identical to the guy who started this thread. (Or maybe not, as XP does have trouble from time to time with games not compatible with dual core) Imagine how confused it'll be with the new Quad core's :dead: