Adobe AIR prompted me to upgrade today, so I did, but now CreeperWorld is almost unplayable: almost all mouse clicks (e.g. select a unit) and keypresses (e.g. pause) are delayed, often by more than a second, which is very significant in many game situations.
Is there a known fix for this?
I'd just delete AIR, and install it again without updating ;)
What level of AIR did you update to?
And, a stupid question, but one that is often overlooked. Did you reboot to see if the problem persists?
If you look in Task manager, can you see anything using excessive CPU?
I havent upgraded my AIR for an long time .
So i might get prompted soon also , maybe i have some auto thing =P
But until then or something , i havent noticed any change of the gameplay .
I just got the prompt for the update, but I refused after reading this topic.
Edit: it concerns an update from version 1.5.3.9130 to version 2.0.2.12610
Thanks for the version number, that allowed me to google for the old version and install it. Lo and behold, the problem disappeared. It must be a bug in the new version of AIR then.
Maybe also nice to know that Adobe AIR comes with the Creeper World download, so reinstalling the game (after removing AIR from the Add/Remove programs option in the Control Panel) will also reinstall the previous version of AIR.
I ran into the same problem today after upgrading Adobe Air, as well. I play all of the time, and this was the first time I've ever seen this before. It's ugly. Definitely don't install this Adobe Air update!
I never update...
My CW is faster since last update.
I just got asked to update , but i selected update later .
Strange that i got asked so much later than the rest of you =P
I also only got update notifications starting today, don't worry, they're not neglecting you. At least this way we have fewer days we have to decline the update. :)
Aha, I'm not the only one with this problem then.
Shall shift back to the old version.
I am also seeing degraded gameplay since the AIR upgrade. It seems like about halfway through a map, the mouse clicks are delayed. I am going to try the game reload suggested by UpperKEES. will do tomorrow already late for work.
I've not noticed any performance degradation.... but I am running on windows 7 64bit. I assume most others are running vista or 7 and 32bit?
I think the graphical acceleration is not enabled on 64bit os's, so I wonder if this could have something to do with it.
I'll also check on a 32bit machine with the latest air and see if I can reproduce the problem.
Lastly, anyone who has the latest flash installed (10.1) can try the training sim at http://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld/web/play.php
If there is a performance drop with this, then it indicates a flash 10.1 problem. It there isn't, then it must be something crazy with AIR.
Windows 7 64-bit here. I've not upgraded based on adverse reports here.
Hi everyone,
I'm playing on a 32-bit Windows XP and I'm also experiencing these performance issues after having upgraded to the latest AIR version. From my experience it seems that the problems become nearly non-existent when not playing in fullscreen mode - but who wants to play in that stamp-sized window ;-) It might be coincidence, but the performance problems might be related to transparency or entering build mode for new buildings, since these "control freezes" happen mostly when the area of effect highlight is being shown. Just an observation, might be unrelated - I had no troubles at all before the update though.
Take care,
Rage~
Looks like CW is not alone:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/659527?tstart=0
Quote from: Toaster on June 16, 2010, 09:40:21 AM
I am also seeing degraded gameplay since the AIR upgrade. It seems like about halfway through a map, the mouse clicks are delayed. I am going to try the game reload suggested by UpperKEES. will do tomorrow already late for work.
Yeah i have noticed it as well, although no lag will happen if you
PAUSE and build, it still is annoying to have that problem.
I can reproduce this behavior on windows 7 32bit, but not on windows 7 64bit. I also only see the problem when running full screen. If I make the window large, but not full screen I don't see the problem.
For kicks, I tried the same experiments on XP mode in windows 7 (the virtual PC version of 32bit XP that comes with windows 7). With AIR 1.5 things work fine in a window. With AIR 2.0.2 they run slower... even when in a window.
So I don't know what it going on... it sure looks like the new acceleration in AIR is working out to be deceleration. I'll be following up on and watching the Adobe AIR forums to see how this evolves. Hopefully, they will develop a fix quickly.
You might even post your findings and submit your code for them to troubleshoot?
Problem solved for me, I went to filehippo.com and downloaded version 1.5.3 of Adobe AIR and all is as it was. I am running a 32 bit OS (XP) it could be a 32 bit issue as posted by virgilw, but I don't know. I seems like Adobe would know about that. lots of 23 bit machines out there. Anyway. I am good.
I have Win7 64, and experiencing same problem. Playing on a laptop with almost no gfx card so I have a feeling that's a big part of it, as Adobe finally offloads some of it's work to the GPU. (finally)
Unfortunately, that makes things worse for me (and others with weak gfx laptops).
EDIT: Nevermind, it appears to be related to mouse click capture, not gfx cards.
Well, that at least eliminates the 32-bit theory...
Edit: deleted assumption about OS
same here :(
Wonderful... so AIR 2.0.2 it is just whacked on pretty much everything....
I'm still not sure why I don't see the problem on my w7x64 box. It's a brand new machine and is pretty high performance so maybe that is masking the slowdown. I'll have to check more carefully.....
I get asked to update the air every time i start the game ,
it's not often , so thats might be why i didnt get asked as fast as others =P
But has it been improved , so it's " safe " to upgrade it yet ?
No, unless the version number hasn't changed the update is the same and shouldn't be installed.
You can also check the Adobe forums (http://forums.adobe.com/thread/659527?tstart=0) to see whether they came up with some new info.
http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/win/download/1.5/AdobeAIRInstaller.exe
/Tomas
As for as it seems to be, playing in window on a macbook 13" shows no significent slowdown over previous version of AIR
Never used fullscreen, so no idea if its slower or faster there..
I am running a laptop with 2 gig memory and windows vista 32bit. I play the game in fullscreen mode, and damn, if my head is not sore from all the wall banging it has been doing lately when playing this game.
I will be "Downgrading" to the previous version of AIR I think, as it has almost destroyed the enjoyment I was getting from CW due to the lags and delays. Not that I mind spending 4 hours playing a map, but when it should have taken me 20 minutes I get just a touch annoyed. When it takes at least 10 seconds of gameplay for the mouse click to be recorded or the pause to work it does not help playing the game.
I know this is not the right place, but if I could have just one wish for the game it would be a save feature.
Edited to add I tried the flash trainer with no issues, although hated playing in such a small window, lol
Edited to add more, I just love the way AIR wants me to update just after I have backdated, I may fall for it once, but not a second time! (Unless it is Microsoft, then I always fall for them saying their new versions are the best ever!)
Final edit: After downgrading to AIR 1.5.3 I have had no issues with delays, and have just managed to do a map that yesterday took me 38 minutes to do in 20 minutes today. The fun just came back to the game :D
I uninstalled creeper world to get rid of the air update, but now I can't reinstall creeper world. my old link from when I purchased it doesn't work. what now?
So if you are running the following operating systems that are highlighted in red you are most likely to have a problem.
Windows XP 32 bit
Windows XP 64 bit (Untested)
Windows Vista 32 bit
Windows Vista 64 bit (Untested)
Windows 7 32 bit
Windows 7 64 bit (Strange for some people only)
Vista 32 bit also, see Peter's post, so I guess just any Windows version. Some people just don't notice it when they just bought a brand new (very fast) computer.
Yeah I'm running windows vista which hasn't given me TOO many problems. Using the old version of AIR now, and its much better.
Adobe seems to be taking this issue seriously and reports that they are working on it. In the mean time here is a page with the old version of AIR and a way to stop it from prompting you to upgrade...
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/853/cpsid_85304.html
This issue should be fixed in 2.0.3.
*sigh* I know it's a lot of code they have to sift through, but seriously they still haven't fixed this?
They promised to have it fixed in the first half of August. Must have been something very complicated, because it's indeed taking very long.
News from Adobe:
QuoteI'm happy to announce that the AIR 2.0.3 runtime was released this afternoon.
You should get an automatic notification shortly after relaunching your AIR
application, but you can also grab it directly at http://get.adobe.com/air.
This build fixes all performance bugs reported against the 2.0.2 runtime.
Please let us know if you run into any problems with this release. I've
started two new forums specifically for
http://forums.adobe.com/community/air/performance and
http://forums.adobe.com/community/air/problems so we make sure to give those
posts our highest priority.
Please post here if your performance problems are gone, so I can update myself. ;D
Quote from: UpperKEES on August 11, 2010, 01:13:06 PM
News from Adobe:
QuoteI'm happy to announce that the AIR 2.0.3 runtime was released this afternoon.
You should get an automatic notification shortly after relaunching your AIR
application, but you can also grab it directly at http://get.adobe.com/air.
This build fixes all performance bugs reported against the 2.0.2 runtime.
Please let us know if you run into any problems with this release. I've
started two new forums specifically for
http://forums.adobe.com/community/air/performance and
http://forums.adobe.com/community/air/problems so we make sure to give those
posts our highest priority.
Please post here if your performance problems are gone, so I can update myself. ;D
Since you are following it so closely, why don't *you* upgrade and then post here to let us know if the issues are fixed? :P
I could, but I'm never that eager to update to a newer version when the old one works fine. Some others do the opposite (probably because you often may expect performance improvements and/or bug fixes), so I rather wait for their experiences.
Edit 1: also see here (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=4268.0) for a possible change of behaviour Virgil's comments on this update.
Edit 2: I updated and it seems to work fine for me. :)
I think with this upgrade I will wait till someone tells me it makes the game run and play better. Until then I shall stick with my ancient version of AIR.
I've upgraded and don't notice anything out of the ordinary.
Nothing noticed here either, on Win 7 32bit and Mac OSX 10.6.4 :P
Unfortunately I have to report that CW does lag now after leaving it running for several hours. I was in the middle of a (Chronom) game and left it paused for 6 hours when I went to bed. When I started playing again all mouse clicks lagged for 15-20 seconds. I never experienced this with the old version of AIR that I sometimes left running for days. Quitting CW completely and restarting solved the problem.
I havent left the game running for 6 hours but occasionally I do still experience some lag. Nothing like 10 - 15 seconds to recognize mouse clicks. See my post here :
http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=4268.msg20356#msg20356
Like I said in that post I tend to do some multitasking while playing creeper world. Mostly I run the editor and Creeper World at the same time to tweak maps that I am working on.
I still think that the update is fine and if you play Creeper World in short bursts you wont experience any lag.
I also multitask a lot; I always have 10-12 applications open at the same time, but please note that none of the other applications was lagging or using a lot of processing power. I was only using 2% of my processor capacity and 53% of my memory, so it really must have been CW or AIR causing the lag.
The one thing I didnt look at was CPU usage when the slowdown started. Next time I experience the lag I will look and see what I am using. Your right it was AIR or CW more than likely causing it after sitting there so long.
I'm pretty sure now it's due to AIR. I had the map editor open for about 2 weeks without using it and just wanted to create a new map. So I clicked 'New map' and got my empty screen. The application is lagging terribly however: the lines that guide the cursor only get updated when I hover the mouse over the centre of Odin City or the rift and OC's packet exit hardly spins. Absolutely impossible to work with. Restarting the application solves everything.
I guess Adobe has built in a protection for people that play too long. ;)
NB: please note that I've had the map editor open for more than a month in the past and never experienced this before I updated.
Im gonna assume you hibernate your pc, and that has tendencies to break applications running, and i'd think AIR/Flash is pretty picky about it :P
Yep, sometimes I put my pc in sleep mode, but I also did that in the past and it never made a difference, so it's the latest AIR update causing it.