Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: SynthMetalGarrison on December 26, 2017, 11:18:00 pm

Title: High CPU Utilization? (GOG version)
Post by: SynthMetalGarrison on December 26, 2017, 11:18:00 pm

Hi,

I am noticing that the GOG versions of terran.exe and terranx.exe have high CPU utilization when running (around 30%). I'm running under Win10.

Is this normal? Is there a way to reduce that? Would installing from the original CDs help or using one of the patched binaries help?

Thanks!

Title: Re: High CPU Utilization? (GOG version)
Post by: bvanevery on December 27, 2017, 01:48:08 am

No idea and hadn't noticed, especially since I can't task swich by default to bring up the Task Manager to display that kind of readout.  I wonder if DirectDraw emulation has anything to do with it?  Have you tried DirectDraw=0 in the .ini, if for no other reason than to get higher resolution on a modern computer screen?

One thing I have noticed, is that on at least 1 of my laptops, I have to keep moving the mouse around if I want the computer's turn to keep working.  Otherwise the animations don't do anything.  It's as though the game loop blocks on user input.  I think it is only a problem on 1 laptop and not both.  They have 2 different, old video chips in them.  Makes me wonder if they emulate "old graphics stuff" differently and one has a pathology in it.  I've not really tried to resolve the issue, as there isn't much of a choice with these 9 year old computers, which surprisingly do run Windows 10 just fine otherwise.  I've had to do some funky dances with video drivers though, as they're beyond upgrading.

Title: Re: High CPU Utilization? (GOG version)
Post by: deeves on November 16, 2018, 04:09:05 am

I noticed the same issue on my Windows 10 setup. There's a similar issue with Civilization 2 Multiplayer Gold Edition. The Civ 2 community addressed high CPU usage. I contributed my version of the fix to Civilization II User Interface Additions (https://github.com/FoxAhead/Civ2-UI-Additions (https://github.com/FoxAhead/Civ2-UI-Additions)). Recently, I finally dipped into SMAC after all the years spent on Civ 2. To help save my laptop battery, I created a similar fix to SMAC.

https://github.com/vinceho/smac-cpu-fix

Feel free to report any issues on GitHub.

Title: Re: High CPU Utilization? (GOG version)
Post by: Maximus Thalos on November 17, 2018, 03:07:20 am

will this work with Alien Crossfire?

Title: Re: High CPU Utilization? (GOG version)
Post by: deeves on November 17, 2018, 03:10:13 am

Quote from: Maximus Thalos on November 17, 2018, 03:07:20 am

will this work with Alien Crossfire?

Yes it does. It should work with unofficial patches as well.