100% CPU Usage While on Menus

[Bongo]

I've been compiling a list of suggestions for the game. The game itself is fairly solid and my list comprises about 5 minor things for the game and about 1000 things about the deficiencies of the map editor. But one thing is SO bothersome to me that I can't wait that long.

Why does the game use 100% CPU while on the menus?

Lots of games use up every scrap of CPU you have while playing, but what sort of menu animation fluff causes the 100% CPU usage here? It's one of those things that makes your game look really slick to first time users, but after a while the sluggishness becomes massively annoying. It's especially annoying while working on a map in the editor and switching back and forth. It's also really annoying when I click the 'information' box in the customs maps menu and it takes Firefox 45 seconds to load up because it is only getting 1% of the CPU.

I realize you have to impress new players with fancy graphics, but it would be nice to have the option of disabling the menu animations somewhere.

Thanks!

[thepenguin]

what os/machine are you on?

as far as I know, no decent OS would let a single application use that much of the CPU, most wouldn't let you go over 50%

EDIT: but that's on a dual core

[Echo51]

Because flash is only single threaded, penguin :)

You can fix this by setting the process priority low on creeper world.

[thepenguin]

Because flash is only single threaded, penguin :)

of course. nobody got that the end of second line was a joke?

[Bongo]

My computer was top of the line (10 years ago). :P

I just haven't seen the need to upgrade. I only like old games like Quake2/3. Nothing new has really impressed me (with originality) since about 2004. You can go ahead and blame my comp but most games barely use 1% CPU when on a STATIC menu (even flash games).

Single Core/Thread CPU @ 2.53 GHz
533 Mhz front side bus
1 GB DDR 333 (PC2700)
AGP 4X Graphics Port (look it up on Wikipedia you little turds!)
Geforce FX 6200 Graphics Card
22" CRT Monitor, 1024 x 768 @ 100 Hz (can do 2048 x 1536)
80 GB Hard Drive (ATA 133, yea no stolen music or movies)
40 GB Hard Drive (ATA 133)
DVD-ROM
CD-R/W (look that up on Wikipedia too!)
Windows XP (32bit) fully updated
Lian-Li PC-60 Aluminum Case

I've been waiting for like 4 years for the computer industry to get it's head out of it's butt. In particular I want widescreen LCD monitors that can do REAL 120 Hz (not 60), long term stable solid state drives (at reasonable prices), and some way to get great graphics form ONE friking video card (not 2).

So let the fun making begin but I bet that besides having multiple CPUs and graphics bandwidth, most brand new comps don't beat any of these specs by more than 100%.

[Echo51]

All of the 3 criteria's are already fulfilled. A mere GTX670 will eat most anything you throw at it, using just one card. If that's not fast enough, get the 680, heck, the 690 if you still feel slow :)

SSD's are expensive thro, but they're there...

The monitor sounds doable, but i haven't looked much :)

But yes, 100% in the menu sounds a bit bad-ish indeed.

(Love the AGP port, used to rock an GeForce 4 MX440 myself ;) )

[Bongo]

Thanks for video card advice. I figured people eventually would get tired of 2 video cards on expensive mother boards with buggy unreliable crossfire/sli control software.

Every 3 months I go to New Egg and see if I can finally get a new comp. It's mostly the monitor stopping me. I really am addicted to REAL 100 Hz at least for 3d games. I don't care what 'experts' say, In a 3d game I can absolutely see the difference between 60 Hz and 100 Hz. The problem is in the HDMI cable which can only support enough bandwidth for 60 Hz. One has to use dual link DVI (or something) to overcome that, which is still rare. The new 3D monitors can do real 120 Hz, but often the cables, video cards, and drivers don't support non-3D 120 Hz.

It's close though. Maybe next month... ;)

(Also I don't trust SSI drives yet.)

[Grauniad]

My computer was top of the line (10 years ago). :P

I just haven't seen the need to upgrade. I only like old games like Quake2/3. Nothing new has really impressed me (with originality) since about 2004. You can go ahead and blame my comp but most games barely use 1% CPU when on a STATIC menu (even flash games).

Single Core/Thread CPU @ 2.53 GHz
533 Mhz front side bus
:
:
So let the fun making begin but I bet that besides having multiple CPUs and graphics bandwidth, most brand new comps don't beat any of these specs by more than 100%.

What make/model CPU do you have? It's easy to check benchmark specs. It is quite likely that even though the actual GHz ratings have not improved much, the overall performance (more complex instructions and instruction management) has improved to the point where it may well be that performance of a new, current system will exceed yours by 100%.  Moore's Law would also suggest that.

As for the CPU thing, it is a bit too late to hope for improvements in that area. May I suggest you NOT spend time with the game sitting on a menu?  :) 

Also note, that according to this poll, you are in a minority when it comes to your processor capabilities. :)

[Bongo]

Update:

So after 14 months and 1400 played maps I finally took a few weeks off of this game. ;)

One thing that was annoying me was that:

1. it took 40 seconds to load the custom maps screen,
2. It took another 40 seconds to sort it (it DOESN'T remember the last way you sorted it)
3. It took about 90 seconds to open Firefox from inside the game (with only 1% CPU available)
4. And about 60 seconds to 'resort' the custom map list after playing a map

When I came back I made a folder called 'hide' in the map directory and moved all 1400 maps into that, and with only 50 new maps it is almost normal now. Everything is pretty instant, and even the static menu only uses about 50% CPU while idle (that's still 49% more than it should).

I still think that users should have the option to turn off the silly menu animations (and the VPU intensive transparency effects as well), but if anyone else is having these problems then you might want to try this trick.

---

@CW2 DEV TEAM:

I'm not sure why this worked but maybe the game is CONSTANTLY rechecking the map list for changes when it doesn't need to? I also want to say that having 100% on a CPU is still not cool. A lot of people like to do several things at once. For instance you may want to do radiosity computations for 3D maps or video/audio conversion/encoding. Just because most people have 4 CPU's doesn't mean they aren't using the other 3 for something while playing your game.

---

Happy blasting everyone! :)

[Grauniad]

You might want to direct some of your sage advice at the Adobe AIR development team. Please bear in mind that the "team" for Creeper World consists of Virgil and .... uh well, that's it.

[lich98]

My computer was top of the line (10 years ago). :P

I just haven't seen the need to upgrade. I only like old games like Quake2/3. Nothing new has really impressed me (with originality) since about 2004. You can go ahead and blame my comp but most games barely use 1% CPU when on a STATIC menu (even flash games).

Single Core/Thread CPU @ 2.53 GHz
533 Mhz front side bus
:
:
So let the fun making begin but I bet that besides having multiple CPUs and graphics bandwidth, most brand new comps don't beat any of these specs by more than 100%.

What make/model CPU do you have? It's easy to check benchmark specs. It is quite likely that even though the actual GHz ratings have not improved much, the overall performance (more complex instructions and instruction management) has improved to the point where it may well be that performance of a new, current system will exceed yours by 100%.  Moore's Law would also suggest that.

As for the CPU thing, it is a bit too late to hope for improvements in that area. May I suggest you NOT spend time with the game sitting on a menu?  :) 

Also note, that according to this poll, you are in a minority when it comes to your processor capabilities. :)

I think it is your single core processor that is the issue. My 1.9Ghz dual Core handles CW2 with ease.

[Grauniad]

Dude... it's been almost a year...