Forums

MAX balls

• opyeuclid 6,706 Posts

  Thu, Oct 4 2012 9:15 PM

  pjctas0822:

  I dont expect and dont accept anything for free

   Sorry , I was just wanting to bring some good back to the forums and NOT try to bring the Game down .

  My Bad . OPY

• Tightrope 1,072 Posts

  Fri, Oct 5 2012 7:40 AM

  bubbadork:

  I set my window to about 1288 by 915 pixels out of a total screen resolution of 1920 by 1080.  I never play it full screen.  The smaller the window, the smoother the meter.

  Interestingly enough, you have identified a solution, but not the problem. Reason why fullscreen mode gives worse meter than "no scaled" is mainly due to the gradients (fading) they use for the meter. As I pointed out in my post. As I have pointed put for WGT. As they have duly ignored. This is a known problem with Flash, you can Google "Flash gradients, performance  choppy fullscreen" or similar to see the problem is not new. You get the best meter if you do not resize the game client at all.

  bubbadork:

  On my system, the basic time slice is about 32 milliseconds.

  Eh? You have managed to run Flash on the ENIAC

  bubbadork:

  As I have mentioned previously, there are some things a system-level programmer can do to get more attention from the system at critical times

  Not possible using Flash. Operating systems gives CPU to Flash when it has some to spare, otherwise not.

  bubbadork:

   I also make sure that no system services are running that want to use the cpu (auto defrag, file cleanup, file indexing, stuff like that).

  So you agree that if the meter has to make (say) 2 million calculations instead of 1 million, chances are that twice as many calculations will be disturbed by external events that has priority access to the CPU cycles?

   

• bubbadork 984 Posts

  Fri, Oct 5 2012 10:41 AM

  Ummmm, basic time slice is not the same as clock period.  Processes on Windows are preemptively scheduled in accordance with their priority.  There are things a system programmer can do that increases the precision of system timing.  You can take those statements or leave them.

  As to calculations, here's an example: dividing 375 by 12.63 isn't any faster than dividing 3750 by 1.26.  That wouldn't necessarily be true if we were still writing our own division routines in assembly language.

  The time to lay down meter pixels is not calculation bound.

  For the wordsmiths out there, "nonsense" is not an insult, but a description of the validity or coherency of a communication.

   

• Tightrope 1,072 Posts

  Fri, Oct 5 2012 10:54 AM

  bubbadork:

  There are things a system programmer can do that increases the precision of system timing.

  But there is nothing a Flash programmer can do. That's the point - you should not attempt to write a real time system in Flash since the Operating System will never give Flash that kind of priority. So if WGT want us to have a smooth meter, they have to design it according to the limitations of the environment they have selected.

  Personally I have no meter issues at all on my PC (which is pretty much a monster), but it is unplayable on my Mac and Linux who is a bit more restrictive when it comes to give out resources for "far away from the core" processes like Flash. Some are lucky to get a good meter on other OS's than PC, but it is quite rare.

• hpurey 11,505 Posts

  Fri, Oct 5 2012 11:00 AM

  LeGeNdCrUsHeR:

  Spammage:

  I would think that one free ball would sufficient - kind of like the dove balls.  That would give everyone a chance to see what they think before spending credits.

  I forgot about those, I bet I still have 80 or so...lol

   

  LOL!

  

   

• andyson 6,415 Posts

  Fri, Oct 5 2012 12:30 PM

  bubbadork:

  Actually, my meter is very smooth about 90% of the time.

  @90% smooth means 10% stutter or lag.  That would be more than 3 swings per 9 hole round.  That's not very good.

  bubbadork:

  On my system, the basic time slice is about 32 milliseconds.

    32ms?  Strange number as I would expect a multiple of 10 or even 15ms.  Likely a function of the clock and number of ticks.  So let's stick with 32 in this question.

  @32ms basic time slice a program like Flash would get to run a max of 31 times per second?  How would Flash paint the screen fast enough if it was coded to run at 50 frames per second? or 40fps or 60fps?  Seems the most it could do would be 31 fps.

• renniw52 5,385 Posts

  Fri, Oct 5 2012 1:42 PM

  Well there we have it, just don't forget about that one time at band camp. Could do the same with your putter sometimes. This is not meant for any particular person at all. Just my understanding of all this in depth computer talk.

• bubbadork 984 Posts

  Fri, Oct 5 2012 2:20 PM

  If WGT were to abandon entirely the browser based game, and using Flash, and provide the game as a downloadable game written in C/C++, or even assembler, they could not guarantee a perfectly smooth swing meter on anything less than a real-time system.  Windows, Linux, Mac, you name it, what you're playing on is not a real-time system.

  Applications get to run only ever so often, and they get a limited amount of time.  I'm speaking of desktop/laptop systems that are preemptive.  On older systems you would be saddled with the blue screen of death.

  Let's say that you need to lay down one pixel every two milliseconds in order to get a perfectly smooth meter.  You don't get to use the CPU every two milliseconds.  Not even if you're the only process running.  You're lucky to get to run at 10-16 times that rate.

  One thing you can do is use a timer event.  Instead of using your whole time slice, you can give it up after you've done something and ask the system to come back to you in a smaller period of time, say 10 milliseconds.  You will generally get that, depending upon the competition for the resources.  

  You can ask for an even shorter period of time, but you won't get it without changing the system's operating parameters.

  If you use something like TimeBeginPeriod/TimeEndPeriod you may increase your precision from 10 milliseconds down to one.  This is a potentially dangerous and harmful mechanism, so you need to invoke in it a rather tight period of time around your critical area.  You won't get below one, in any event, on Windows.

• pjctas0822 4,563 Posts

  Fri, Oct 5 2012 5:11 PM

  bubbadork:

  If WGT were to abandon entirely the browser based game, and using Flash, and provide the game as a downloadable game written in C/C++, or even assembler, they could not guarantee a perfectly smooth swing meter on anything less than a real-time system.  Windows, Linux, Mac, you name it, what you're playing on is not a real-time system

   

  Then how did EA run a smooth meter for so many years? Are you familiar with that platform?

  Yes their meter was arched but that shouldn't matter right ?

  If WGT were to perfect the meter on their current platform then they could not have all the different speeds of metered balls they offer now. They would have to stick with one ball for all. Which may not be a bad idea anyway in terms of leveling out the playing field for those who cannot afford to buy 450 credit balls and higher anyway.

  The speed of the meter would have to be the same all around regardless of what equipment a person is using. But one of the things I like the most about this golf sim is the choices we have in equipment , not too mention all the revenue WGT would lose.

  For revenue reasons alone WGT would not even blink an eye to try and go that route. I don't blame them.