Reprisal v1.0.8

[daset]

1.0.5 is up. If the windows bug persists, please tell me.

[thefrogger]

I tried Flight with the AAA profile, and it does not appear to crash. Looks like some further improvemets too.

Spam:
Using yDGs here has a particularly nasty consequence. The way I typically move DGs around (if I'm not setting up a continuous chain), is to have an officer issue a Goto order, and then move himself to the same place. When the group gets to the destination, there's still an officer there keeping the group together, and waiting for the next waypoint.

What happens when you do this with yDGs, is that the officer now becomes unselectable and the group is stuck and unable to move. You can recover from it by bringing in a new officer, but it's still pretty nasty.

I know it makes sense story-wise for the yellows to be there, but I wonder if it's worth the bugged game behavior to do so.

EDIT:
Little bit of a problem with game.txt, the levels Yard, Shrine and Flight are available and active at the beginning.

[daset]

Oh shit... I just realized something.

To everyone: 1.0.5 is extremely broken in, expect problems!

Will have 1.0.6 up soon.

[Major Cooke]

Sweet. Can't wait to try the improved version.

[daset]

Okay, 1.0.6 is up. That's enough for me today.

[thefrogger]

The framerate in Flight has really slowed down. It was always a bit marginal, but I think it has crossed the threshold of unplayability due to too many DGs/AIs. I have an AMD64 3500+ with ATI 800XL graphics, and it just stutters too much to be enjoyable. Program bugs cause the game to miss mouse and key inputs at that frame rate, and the gesture interface is all but inoperative.

It looks like there are some fun sections, especially the beginning and end, but I gave up before the latter. I don't know if you can get away with fewer groups of DGs that move faster, (I wouldn't reduce the size of the groups), or if it would be better to just consolidate the level into a single path, which could eliminate a huge number of DGs/AIs.

Note also that both Triffids are very close to Squad spawn points, and thus they can be eliminated immediately. (May or may not be by design).

[Major Cooke]

I'll try it after school today, maybe... I have to work for a little bit...

[thefrogger]

There's something odd going on with the DW framerate. I resumed and finished the same Flight level, and it wasn't as slow as last time. (It was closer to previous experiences with the level). After a few more tests, it seems like DW runs slower (sometimes) on my machine with a fresh boot than it does with other programs running. I can't imagine why that would be, other than some obscure trait of Windows' abysmal multitasking performance.

In any case, you may want to let this level sit for a bit until other users have had a chance to play it, and perhaps comment on their own frame rates. (And whether having the two intact paths is beneficial).

If I play thru again, I'll post whether I have a different experience.

BTW, Radars is still a total blast. I almost got through it the other day without losing a squad, but choked on the last SD. Managing both the SDs and the ants simultaneously is really sweet. One of my new favorite levels.

[daset]

There's something odd going on with the DW framerate. I resumed and finished the same Flight level, and it wasn't as slow as last time. (It was closer to previous experiences with the level). After a few more tests, it seems like DW runs slower (sometimes) on my machine with a fresh boot than it does with other programs running. I can't imagine why that would be, other than some obscure trait of Windows' abysmal multitasking performance.

In any case, you may want to let this level sit for a bit until other users have had a chance to play it, and perhaps comment on their own frame rates. (And whether having the two intact paths is beneficial).

If I play thru again, I'll post whether I have a different experience.

BTW, Radars is still a total blast. I almost got through it the other day without losing a squad, but choked on the last SD. Managing both the SDs and the ants simultaneously is really sweet. One of my new favorite levels.

Glad you mentioned it. It was running fine for me, but had I decided to mess w/it anyway so yeah, I will let it sit now that you mention it.

[Major Cooke]

Did you reset your computer after you got halfway through flight, or did you let it sit there, do something else and bam it went back up? If so, it could be your RAM needs clearing. Restart your computer/Darwinia if it keeps doing that to refresh the RAM.

[thefrogger]

I pretty much always reboot before playing a game. And the thing is, this time it was the opposite of what one would expect. On a fresh boot, the frame rate was really choppy. 1/2 second pauses and such. Tried it twice. And then after the computer had been on all day running all kinds of stuff, some of which was still open, I launched DW and Flight was much better. Truly bizarre.

[hitm4n]

A possible idea for this problem. With a windows managed pagefile, it could be small after a reboot. Darwinia doesn't (or can't) tell windows it needs more memory and the pagefile stays small. This means the game can be low on memory and run slow. After running many other large programs, the pagefile is enlarged giving enough for Darwinia to use ? Its the only thing i can think of that could cause this. Well, apart from the fact that after a reboot theres a few things going on in the background. Programs doing update checks online, virus scanners doing background checks etc etc.

[hitm4n]

You could check in the task manager at system resource usage immediately after a reboot. You might see some spikes coming from something that settles down after a while.

[thefrogger]

Thanks for the ideas hitm4n. I use a constant-size page file but I'll experiment with TaskMgr and background programs the next time I see this happen.

[Major Cooke]

If rebooting doesn't help, try shutting down for 10 seconds then starting back up. That will clear the RAM.