CPU Usage - GOG.com version

[Mako]

Hi there,

under my quad-core, 64bit Windows 8 machine, the GOG version of SMAC/X is always using one of the cores at 100%. As such, the fans are always working at 100%, so the battery life is greatly reduced.

Launching it within a 32bit Windows 8 machine also made one of the host machine's CPU core and fan to work at 100%.

Strangely, however, launching SMAC under Linux, via Wine/PlayOnLinux, I'm not getting the same issue.

I recall from the Apolyton / Civfanatics formus, ages ago, that some sort of solution existed, but I can't find it now. If I knew, I would certainly add it to the installation wiki page.

[Petek]

As far as I can recall, when this issue came up in the past, the suggested solution was to install a CPU throttler. However, a brief search didn't show whether or not this helped. Does Windows 8 have a Power Settings option (in Control Panel?). If so, there might be a way to reduce CPU use (with a performance trade-off).

[DrazharLn]

This patch/loader fixes the excess CPU usage: https://github.com/vinceho/smac-cpu-fix

Issue 1 on the repo has an explanation of how it works.