Castle Paradox

[Rinku]

Yeah, I thought that was bizarre too. I tell the Game Maker to write "1" to the ini file, and it writes that. So when I load it, I actually have to perform the round() function on it, just to be safe. I could have used direct file functions bout found the .ini functions faster, and it's sort of funny enough and doesn't really cause any problems. I dislike that Game Maker uses 32-bit floating point numbers for everything -- every variable in the game, even every string character (I suspect) is floating point, which is part of why games in the Game Maker take up some much memory (A6 takes 90-100mb of RAM).
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Tower Defense Game

[Rinku]

But sorry that the game won't run for you; it's had some problems on different computer setups, though it at least works on most. The only thing I can recommend (though you've probably done this) is to check the manual and compare the game's system requirements to your system DirectX 8+ etc.).
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Tower Defense Game

[Iblis]

I've had a rather strange problem playing this game. The first fight runs just fine, everything is at a reasonable speed. The second fight is pretty slow, especially if Speedstar tries to use her heart danmaku which basically takes forever and can't hit me even if I stand in one place. The fight with Alphasix takes FOREVER to fade in, and once it starts, the view centers on Alphasix instead of on me, and she doesn't ever move.

It might be something about Alphasix? I chose to play as her (she's still available at the beginning) and it was far, far slower than usual. Her fight is the only one that does this.

My computer has all the recommended stuff except for the 2 GHz processor. It's an Athlon 1600, which is obviously nowhere near enough, but since the game runs just fine for most fights I don't see why it should be different for one character.
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OHR Piano

[Rinku]

That is quite strange. I've never had anyone report that Alphasix doesn't move at all. The only thing that's different about Alphasix is that she has more voice samples than the other characters (many times more) leading the game to require more RAM when you fight her than usual. Also, her stage, Cambodia, has rain, which requires quite a bit of processing power.

Still, the game has worked on processors much slower than yours. And if you say you meet all the other requirements (especially RAM), I'm not sure what it could be. Out of curiousity, what is your RAM? I noticed that the game is virtually unplayable on anything below 128mb of it, and sometimes even 256mb of it wasn't enough (depending on how long the computer had been on and how many other programs the person has running at the same time). I suggest running the program with no other programs running, especially FireFox (which is a RAM-goblin).
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Tower Defense Game

[Moogle1]

It starts with focus on Alphasix for me, too, but it's because she's using a taunt. She starts moving later.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Iblis]

I have 512 RAM, and I use IE. I did have a few instances of it running though, so I guess that could be part of the problem. But I'm running 7 instances of IE right now and I'm using about 200mb and 2-3% of my CPU, so I don't think that's it.

I forgot that taunting did that, but I assume the focus should eventually return to my character and she shouldn't just stand there (stranger is that she's always planting a mine (which also takes a while), I'd think she'd want to move away from it).

There should be an option to disable effects like the rain, for lower end systems.
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OHR Piano

[Rinku]

Strange. What is your video card? And do you have DirectX 8.0 installed, or an earlier version? Did the bug only happen once, or every time you reached A6? Also, can you check how much RAM and CPU usage A6 is using when you fight normal battles, and then check again for how much it is when you fight a battle with Alphasix?
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Tower Defense Game

[Iblis]

My video card is an Nvidia Riva TNT2, 64mb. I've got the most recent version of DirectX.

So far every time I've gotten to A6, except once, she taunted and dropped a mine, then stood there. One time, there was a bit of wait before she taunted, and she was standing in a different place, then she dropped the mine, and stood there until the focus shifted back to me (after many minutes of watching her do nothing). I can't tell whether she moved after that because I moved so slowly that I couldn't bear waiting to get to her.

It uses anywhere between 45-95% of my CPU, it didn't seem any different during the A6 fight, except that I tried making the process high priority, which made it use more of my CPU but didn't make it any faster. It usually uses about 94mb of ram, this didn't seem to change for the A6 fight.

Playing the game in a window instead of fullscreen does make it faster, but only in the non-A6 battles. The title bar of the window advises me that on that stage I have about 180 particles and... 1 FPS. It actually seems slower than that though, I'm just assuming 1 is the lowest it'll show.
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OHR Piano

[Rinku]

Wow, I just thought of something. The rain is set so that it disappears when your fps is low -- but not too low. If your fps is less than 5, the rain won't actually disappear to increase your fps normally. I should really fix that, the reason did it was to prevent it disappearing when the game was on sleep mode.

I think I can fix it. I'll do so tomorrow and upload a new version and tell you when it's there.

In the mean time, I suggest trying the game in difficulty level 8. Alphasix's stage does not have rain on that difficulty.
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Tower Defense Game

[Iblis]

Yeah, level 8 is faster. Heh, 2 FPS instead of 1, which, while being a surprisingly noticeable change, is still not too good. So it may not be the particles. Even when a non-A6 enemy is using a danmaku it's way faster than that.

This was with voices off too, since you said A6 had so many sound files I thought turning that off might help. Didn't seem to help though, I'm guessing it still loads them into memory, but just doesn't play them.

I've had trouble with the danmaku attacks too. Originally I had them turned off, but then I noticed that the enemies in level 8 used them anyway, but when I turned them back on to get them myself I still couldn't use them. Is this just a feature of the difficulty level?

Also, when an enemy is standing right next to an exploding car, is it supposed to have no effect on them whatsoever?
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OHR Piano

[Rinku]

No, it doesn't load them into memory when voices are off, which makes it freezing on her very strange.

Here's a trick: go into your .ini file and find the line that says something like Alphasix=0. Change it to Alphasix=1. This will unlock Alphasix (yeah, incredibly easy to figure out and cheat). Do this and try playing as her.

Exploding cars and barrels are supposed to harm anyone near to them. Usually they do, but there's a bug (I don't know what's causing it) that causes the damage sometimes not to appear.

In level 8 difficulty, enemies can always use danmaku and you always cannot, regardless of whether you have them on or not. This is to make everyone's play-through of level 8 difficulty more equal (because the idea was that your final time for getting through level 8 indicates your skill at the game). Turning danmaku on and off will affect only levels 1 to 7, and will apply to both you and the enemy.

What is your normal FPS for normal battles? It's supposed to be around 30.
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Tower Defense Game

[Iblis]

For normal battles the FPS is in the mid 20's when we're not actually fighting, and in the mid to upper teens when we're fighting. Lower than it should be, but still very playable. Playing as A6, it's in the mid teens when not fighting and 5-7 when fighting. Barely playable.

Playing with only one lifebar makes things slightly faster. 3-5 FPS when fighting against A6. Heh, I actually almost beat her this way, but an error (Modulo by 0) crashed the game.

While playing on the factory stage on level 8 against Speedstar, exploding cars never damage her at all.
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OHR Piano

[Rinku]

If it speeds up when it only displays one life bar, then it's definately slowing due to the drawing routines. Does your video card have an up-to-date video card driver? That's really the only thing I can think of to explain slowdown due to graphics -- some type of incompatability of the driver. Are any other games slower for you than they should be?

I used to have a way to disable the GUI (lifebars, tension meter, timer, weapon/ammo display) but it's no longer in the game. I suspect that turning those off might have made the game playable for you. In the next version (December or early 2007 or so, after ZfRT is done) I will probably add an option such that if the fps goes very low the lifebars and other GUI elements disappear. I'm still at a loss as to why Alphasix slows the game more than the other characters do.
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Tower Defense Game

[Iblis]

Yeah, I downloaded and installed the driver from nvidia just a few days ago. It wouldn't even let me run A6 or other gamemaker games before that. Since I just got it straight from the source I would assume it's as up-to-date as possible. I don't run any other games that would require any kind of recent technology, so no I don't have any slowdown for other games.
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OHR Piano

[Rinku]

Ah. I just went in to play it to see if i got less fps with Alphasix than with the other characters, and it's the same for me, she doesn't slow it even on 60 fps. All I can say now is to wait for 1.4 or to try the game on other computers... Sorry I couldn't be of more help ;_;
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Tower Defense Game