[freespace2] unstable speed of game?

[Taylor Richards]

On Sun, 2003-03-09 at 04:15, Jacek Popławski wrote:
> I was playing for a few hours tonight, and noticed problems with speed of
> game.
> 
> Sometimes (when there is a lot of objects in space?) action slow down. I assume
> fps ratio drop down - there is less frames per second -> there is less physic
> steps in second. But I found SDL_GetTicks() is used in timer.cpp, so
> synchronization should (?) work well in that case. 
> 
> Difference is not small, everything is 2-3 times slower than normal. Maybe slow
> down effect is just part of game engine? I haven't play Windows version :-)
> 
> Has anyone noticed problem with unstable action speed? Only exotic stuff in my
> system is Voodoo3, but I use XFree86-4.3.0 with DRI...
> 
> PS. linux-2.4.21-pre5, glibc-2.2.5, polish version of FreeSpace2, src from
> current CVS, compiled without options described as "not stable".

You're not the only one who is experiencing this.  One of the testers
for the Freespace 1 patch reported the same thing with a Voodoo card. 
The actual FPS is about normal compared to my GF4 Ti4200 but the game
does FPS calculation in a way that doesn't seem all that accurate to
me.  If you increase the game speed to 2x (Shift - >) you'll probably
notice an accurate passage of time.  Because of the way the game
calculates FPS you will notice, if you have the FPS counter turned on,
that the counter will drop by half but the clock should count accurate
seconds.  I don't have a clue what the problem is as nothing I've tried
has worked so I guess it's up to someone else to come up with a
solution.


Taylor

-- 
Taylor Richards <mtrs at bellsouth.net>