Windows 98

[Woo_Hoi]

Wesnoth 1.1.11 is SLOW for windows 98 , every movement is laggy , choppy , screen freeze for 1/2 seconds sometimes,take longer to select a unit , scrolling is bumpy.....etc

I hope developers can lower the requirement of computer.

[zookeeper]

I hope developers can lower the requirement of computer.

I hope so too. However, something like Windows 98 is so crap that no one should use it in the first place.

[Woo_Hoi]

My computer is quite old and I can't buy a new one or update , but the Wesnoth 1.0.2 is works fine for me , I like the game very much , I hope Wesnoth still can be my best game in the future.
I think many poors in the world want to play the game too.

[fyo]

I play on a 700MHz computer with 256MB RAM. Not exactly the quickest of machines... and I certainly noticed a major slow-down from 1.0 to the more recent versions of the game. To be honest, I don't know what exactly is causing the slowdowns (maybe the flags waving in the wind), but I still find the game very much worth playing.

If your system specs are even lower than that... well, I can see how you'd have a problem.

Btw, why are you running Win98? Even connecting to the internet is a big no-no with that operating system. It's completely insecure and chances are your computer is slowed down by the massive amounts of SPAM you're sending out as part of some botnet.

I would recommend switching to Linux - or at least trying it. On my system, I can run the standard distributions just fine (e.g. Ubuntu), but if your system is much slower, you would probably do well to try a different window manager such as "Enlightenment".

[podunk]

Win 98 was wonderful while it lasted, I liked it a lot better than XP. But fyo is right, it's a very insecure system since MS dropped all support. If you have broadband you're most likely infected with some sort of exploit by now. I hope you don't do any online banking!

I started moving to Linux back when support was first dropped, and it's faster than 98 even. Many have Live CD's you can download and burn to see which one works best on your machine. I setteled on Ubuntu because it looked easiest, has great support and looks cool.

http://www.ubuntu.com

[Gus]

My computer is quite old and I can't buy a new one or update
[...]
I think many poors in the world want to play the game too.

You're right. Get a distro of Linux, it's much cheaper, and much better =)

[elricz]

Wesnoth 1.0.2 is works fine for me

That is much more that you can say of many of the commercial games released in the last three years. I don't understand why in general we accept easily the huge machine requirements in commercial software, but not on open source.
In any case, Linux is really interesting. You won't be able to run the same programs as you run in Windows, but you will be able to do the same things with open source software.

[zookeeper]

That is much more that you can say of many of the commercial games released in the last three years. I don't understand why in general we accept easily the huge machine requirements in commercial software, but not on open source.

How about because the commercial games have fancy top-notch 3D graphics, and open source games look like crap? Seriously, a game that looks like Wesnoth has no real excuse, besides a lack of coders, for looking and handling as bad as it does. If one thinks we shouldn't expect better performance from a game like Wesnoth than from Doom 3, then...well, duh.

[elricz]

How about because the commercial games have fancy top-notch 3D graphics, and open source games look like crap?

Not all of them, take a look at http://www.nexuiz.com/ on FPS, for example. And in strategy, I prefer Wesnoth look and feel over Heros of M&M any version, for example.

Seriously, a game that looks like Wesnoth has no real excuse, besides a lack of coders, for looking and handling as bad as it does.

I am no expert, so I cannot be sure, but Wesnoth uses other open-source libraries, like the SDL. Are you sure that performance issues are because of the Wesnoth code and not on that other code?

If one thinks we shouldn't expect better performance from a game like Wesnoth than from Doom 3, then...well, duh.

Sure, in my computer Wesnoth has better performance than any 3D game. You cannot make that comparision on Woo_hoi computer, for example; I doubt Doom 3 would even install there.

In any case, the point I wanted to make is best suited on the OT section than on the technical one, sorry for posting personal opinions on this area.

[zookeeper]

Not all of them

I know.

I am no expert, so I cannot be sure, but Wesnoth uses other open-source libraries, like the SDL. Are you sure that performance issues are because of the Wesnoth code and not on that other code?

I don't know, and it's not really relevant here (even though obviously useful to know for the coders, so they can fix it). A bug caused by a library you use in a game is still a bug in the game. Sure, you can "blame" the library when discussing the matter with other coders and developers, but you can't tell the player/user that "it wasn't my fault, it was the library". If you were more interested in the technical reasons of why the game might be slow, then sure, you're right, it might be SDL.

Sure, in my computer Wesnoth has better performance than any 3D game. You cannot make that comparision on Woo_hoi computer, for example; I doubt Doom 3 would even install there.

Well, ok, Doom 3 was a rather poor example. A better comparison would probably be something like the good old Command & Conquer games (the graphics look somewhat similar in nature to me, even though they're very different styles, and do note that C&C has stuff moving all around the screen whereas Wesnoth graphics are 90% static most of the time). I doubt Wesnoth runs as well as C&C's, based on what kind of computer I remember playing C&C's on (I could be wrong).

[elricz]

I agree with your points, the user experience with a game is with the whole game, talking about libraries is nonsense from that point of view. And with the old computer games, I also can only talk on what I remember.

From a more practical perspective, reviewing the changelog I have seen that many of the changes are related to unit balancing and tweaking the campaings. I have some experience with scripting, and I may try to write something to "revert" some of the current WML code to the 1.02 version, at least the units and the scenarios on the main campaings. You have the experience with WML, do you think that this is feasible? The idea is to take advantage of some of the work done in those areas in a version that is still playable in old computers, would that be useful?

[zookeeper]

From a more practical perspective, reviewing the changelog I have seen that many of the changes are related to unit balancing and tweaking the campaings. I have some experience with scripting, and I may try to write something to "revert" some of the current WML code to the 1.02 version, at least the units and the scenarios on the main campaings. You have the experience with WML, do you think that this is feasible? The idea is to take advantage of some of the work done in those areas in a version that is still playable in old computers, would that be useful?

I think that would be mostly doable - you could port new graphics, terrains, units and balancing changes from the current versions to work with the 1.0.2 (or similar) binaries. It would be quite a lot of work (you'd have to revert the many changes in unit definition syntax, animation-related mostly, to the old syntax which would take a heckload of work or a smart script), too much in my opinion. Then you'd probably also need some small utility to convert the magenta in all the TC'd unit images to something else, since 1.0.2 doesn't support TC.

EDIT: Now that I think of it a bit further...yeah, definitely too much work if you'd port things other than balancing changes (that would be pretty simple). If you'd want to port campaign changes, graphics (other than terrain - terrain should be easy) etc, too much work.

[elricz]

Thanks for the information, I was working on a perl script (attached) that gets the information from the units files and puts it on several tab separated files. I have used it on Windows, executing the script from the data folder of Wesnoth. The idea was to generate raw information for a database / spreadsheet of units, but it can be a good starting point for this now.
I will give it a try, but following your advice starting with the easy ones, like the balancing. I'll post again in the forum if I make any progress, thanks for your help.

[fyo]

Before commencing a massive back-porting effort, it might be worth it to figure out when, exactly, the problems were introduced. Using a standard "divide and conquer" (of course), it should be relatively quick, especially on Windows since historical binaries are available, alliviating the need for compiling:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... e_id=93826

To apply divide and conquer (for anyone not familiar with it), start with the version right in the middle of the newest version you know that worked (1.0.2, maybe) and the oldest that you know DIDN'T work (1.1.11, maybe - alghought personal experience suggests at least as far back as 1.1.. If that version still has issues with speed, repeat the process (taking the version in the middle of that version and the oldest you know didn't work (as before). Rinse, repeat, until you find the exact version that introduces the problem (although more than one version may be the culprit, but you should still find at least some of problems). Use the same tactic of divide and conquer if the version you try DOESN'T contain the problem.

Example:

You know 1.1.11 is slow.
You know 1.0.2 is fast.
---> Test something like 1.1.3

If 1.1.3 is also slow, test something like 1.1.0
If 1.1.3 is fast, test someting like 1.1.7

and so on.

[Sapient]

I think you'll find that backporting the WML to 1.0.2 will slow it down as well. You might have more luck upgrading the 1.0.2 WML to 1.1.11 instead-- or just stripping unit animations, team-colorings, and all non-essential WML out of 1.1.11 entirely. Building and copying these large parsed data structures is a large part of the problem.

Speaking of WML, one thing you forgot to mention in the C&C discussion is that Wesnoth is a lot more user-customizable than C&C. Speed reduction is one of the drawbacks of using an interpreted language such as WML, instead of having all the maps, units, etc, hardcoded into the game.