Author Topic: Real-time display updates (without focus) (Read 1495 times)

Belaf · « **on:** November 01, 2006, 08:41:39 pm »

Hello,

I hope this fits the requirements for a wish...

I play PS in window mode, and when switching to a different program, PS display "freezes", taking then a few secs to recover when its window gets the focus back.

I think it would be useful to have (maybe as an option) the screen updated in real-time even when PS loses the focus.

The WHY is that it would allow to monitor (and make reactive if needed) the character in PS even while doing something else, e.g. posting here, answering to skype, whatever you can think of... Really often I see "zombies" around Yliakum, maybe some of them could be cured this way...

I couldn't find such a requirement previously posted here... I hope I'm not the only one caring about this.

Thanks for your reading

Belaf

Eagel · « **Reply #1 on:** November 01, 2006, 09:22:57 pm »

*Eagel raise his hand for that* $\\o//$
I definitely vote that.

Me too, I run PS on window mode, so I can have opened my mail client, or this forum... or even my messenger.
Besides I use KDE and have 4 desktop and sometimes I'm switching between many applications.

Karyuu · « **Reply #2 on:** November 02, 2006, 01:36:00 am »

I'm not sure I understand fully - when I change focus to another application, my PS window is still updating - things are moving around, different people are going in different directions, etc. I don't have things freezing.

neko kyouran · « **Reply #3 on:** November 02, 2006, 01:42:42 am »

I go in game under windowed mode, it updates realtime. This having the window up in the background, not minimised.

When minimised, after I bring the window back up, it takes a second fr it to refresh.

That second is dependant on your computers hardware though. It will be longer for those with older hardware/people with many programs running, and shorter for people that have the money to trick out thier system.

bilbous · « **Reply #4 on:** November 02, 2006, 02:36:11 am »

I think it may have something to do with window managers. On my computer with KDE any window not in focus gets run in the background which means that the graphics do not update until the window is focused. The application still gets all the traffic from the server as shown by the lights on my switch. There may be some way to change the window behaviour in the options for the window manager, Kcontrol I believe for Kde.

Siteri Kidachi · « **Reply #5 on:** November 02, 2006, 04:04:49 am »

On the Mac, the game automatically pauses whenever you switch to something else. (It says "[Paused]" in the title bar.)

Nyramael · « **Reply #6 on:** November 02, 2006, 07:35:44 am »

$\\o//$

Yes! i was contemplating the same thing! On the mac release atleast as Siteri said, if in windowed and you toggle to another application (or another instance of PS running), then PS pauses and stops drawing, calculating and sending an receiving messages. This i believe leads to some serious lag and bug issues like dead NPCs still standing around, and other artifacts. I think i might have crashed the server a few times while playing with lag artifacts and so on

. The only plus side of this is that it frees some up some system resources, CPU mainly, when you toggle to the other app. I'd like it to be an option - perhaps have somewhere automatic pausing or somthing as a toggle button.

Belaf · « **Reply #7 on:** November 02, 2006, 09:05:04 pm »

Ok, after reading your replies I made some more tests and I found an interesting thing:

As long as no other window is overlapping PS window, it updates smoothly in realtime as when I play it.
This even if I type something in the other wndow or I run something in it (it was a terminal).
As soon as I move the terminal window (or any other one, even a popup from the window-manager menu) in front of PS window, the latter freezes.
Even if I just overlap one pixel

. It loos like as soon as it detects that some of its surface doesn't need to be updated anymore, it stops altogether...
And then it takes some 2 or 3 seconds to recover. The same happens if I switch to a different workspace.

Note that the same behaviour DOESN'T happen in the character chooser phase: my elf turns around quite happily even if I partially cover the PS window.
This last thing makes me think that the behaviour depends on PS application, and not on the window manager or other environmental variables as somebody suggested...

Just a note on my configuration:
Fedora Core 6
Gnome
Self compiled PS (on a FC5 installation)
The PC specs are not so bad:
Asus v6j, dual core T2400 2Gb RAM, NVidia GeForce Go7400

So I don't think the behaviour is due to low specs...

Bereror · « **Reply #8 on:** November 02, 2006, 09:34:05 pm »

My PS window keeps running and updating the screen as long as one single pixel is visible. I can have other windows covering partly the PS window and it still keeps running (and consuming CPU). Only when the PS window is completely hidden behind other windows or minimized to the task bar, it stops updating itself.

Self-compiled PS with Gentoo and KDE here.

Belaf · « **Reply #9 on:** November 03, 2006, 11:29:06 pm »

Uhm... so it seems my request was not a simple one.

It looks like there are different behaviours for different people.
Is it possible it depends on PS configuration files?

Easton · « **Reply #10 on:** November 04, 2006, 01:48:08 am »

My client will always keep updating, as bereror said, as long as the window is there (whether its in focus or not). but if i minimize the window, my client will crash citing something about not being able to re-something the surface. (sorry i haven't done it in a long time, not sure of the exact error).

Anyways, because of this error, i always run in windowed mode because it allows me to use skype or the internet while playing. which is extremely useful in certain situations.

Great idea Belaf.

Easton