Thoughts about 1.2

[Kirdan]

Unfortunately, that's not merely a performance problem, but a design/engine bug. Until fight animations, for example, have finished, you can't do anything. Which can get highly annoying, since animations of course shouldn't block anything in most cases.

Well... of course your're right. But being a relative simple turn based stragegy game, it shouldn't really be a problem on moderne computers if everything is done sequentially. And it wasn't until I tried 1.2.1. It's just seem that there's been introduced some overhead for the sake of bell's-n-whistles, which comes in the way for the core gameplay.

[CoolGoose]

I'm not on linux right now cause i have some work to do at home but maybe you have transparency enabled on sdl. i will post tomorrow the code for when you want to start wesnoth it helps me

[Jetrel]

Unfortunately, that's not merely a performance problem, but a design/engine bug. Until fight animations, for example, have finished, you can't do anything. Which can get highly annoying, since animations of course shouldn't block anything in most cases.

Well... of course your're right. But being a relative simple turn based stragegy game, it shouldn't really be a problem on moderne computers if everything is done sequentially. And it wasn't until I tried 1.2.1. It's just seem that there's been introduced some overhead for the sake of bell's-n-whistles, which comes in the way for the core gameplay.

The word in bold is the problem.

The solution is "concurrently". You should be able to select things, press menu buttons, etc, while the game is animating itself; you can't, right now, but you should be able to.

It is really a problem on any computers, because we've written what is practically our own windowing system inside of the game; it's not just a "simple, turn-based strategy game"; unfortunately making the game UI system multi-threaded is a very non-trivial task.

[Dave]

The solution is "concurrently". You should be able to select things, press menu buttons, etc, while the game is animating itself; you can't, right now, but you should be able to.

Huh? During most animations (units moving, fighting, etc), you can select things, press menu buttons etc.

What you can't do is move another unit or initiate an attack (anything that doesn't modify the game you can do).

Maybe you should be able to move a unit and then move another unit before the first unit has finished moving, but at the moment you can't do that because it's kinda complicated to keep track of what the user can and can't do while the game is still calculating the last move....

David

[Wintermute]

The first thing I do after downloading a new version of Wesnoth is reset some of the options.

I would use accelerated speed, make sure that show haloing effects is off, skip AI moves, and I also turn off binary saves. I'm not sure which of those has the most (or any effect), but I have no problem with speed after that. You might try some of those settings (if you haven't already) and see if they help.

One caveat: The lobby is still quite slow in multiplayer, but once I join a game I have no problems with speed

[zookeeper]

The solution is "concurrently". You should be able to select things, press menu buttons, etc, while the game is animating itself; you can't, right now, but you should be able to.

Huh? During most animations (units moving, fighting, etc), you can select things, press menu buttons etc.

Err..? I'm afraid you're mistaken, at least I've never been able to do that.

[Dave]

Err..? I'm afraid you're mistaken, at least I've never been able to do that.

Errr, sorry, you can't access the main menus, but you can select units, access the context-menu by right-clicking, and access most commands using hot-keys.

I also don't think it'd be a big deal to make it possible to click on the main menus.

David

[Kirdan]

The word in bold [sequentially] is the problem.

The solution is "concurrently". You should be able to select things, press menu buttons, etc, while the game is animating itself; you can't, right now, but you should be able to.

It is really a problem on any computers, because we've written what is practically our own windowing system inside of the game; it's not just a "simple, turn-based strategy game"; unfortunately making the game UI system multi-threaded is a very non-trivial task.

You're missing my point.
We absolutely agree that the most elegant solution programmingwise for responsiveness would be to make the UI multithreaded. I've done quite a bit of multithreaded UI programming back when BeOS has alive.

But that's not my point. My point is that the basic game mechanism are relatively simple and to get the strategy experience you don't need fancy gui og multihtreading. It all worked pretty well in the previous versions I've played. (0.8 to 1.1)., but now (with 1.2) the game has become unresponsive. That's not because of lack of multithreading. 1.0 didn't have that problem and 1.0 didn't have multithreading. That's because of changes made for 1.2 which (as far as I can see) didn't add complexity to the game, but only bell's-n-whistels.
For instance: It seems to me that making a Gryphon bash its wings while flying is one of the things which make moving it slower. I don't know, I haven't profiled, but it seem to be so.
If so: My point is that it doesn't add to the strategygame experience that a gryphon bash its wings in the same way that fading transparent menus doesn't add to my Desktop experience. (I never understod why anyone would want those).

anyway... Taste might be different. I understand that the developers want to make a game that is really pleasant for the eye and they have done a great job for which I'm truly gratefull.
It's just that it's starting to get too demanding for my 1.4GHz machine to feel responsive and I thing that's a shame.

[Taurus]

anyway... Taste might be different. I understand that the developers want to make a game that is really pleasant for the eye and they have done a great job for which I'm truly gratefull.
It's just that it's starting to get too demanding for my 1.4GHz machine to feel responsive and I think that's a shame.

You have hit the issue on the head right there - it's a matter of taste. The developers, and most of the players (like myself) would rather have nice graphics, animations and sounds. It's part of the Wesnoth experince.

Now I am not a programer, but here is my conclusion from being around, since the issue of game speed has been brought up many times before: it is possible to have both 'bells and whistles' and a reasonable game speed. The problem is not with the 'bells and whistles' but it is with the game engine itself.

In any case, the devs seem to be working on the game speed, and to the best of my knowlege they are making good progress too.

[Sapient]

That's because of changes made for 1.2 which (as far as I can see) didn't add complexity to the game, but only bell's-n-whistels.
For instance: It seems to me that making a Gryphon bash its wings while flying is one of the things which make moving it slower. I don't know, I haven't profiled, but it seem to be so.

You do know that these sorts of animations were intentionally slowed down so that you could see them better? If you don't like it, turn on accelerated mode.

[Eleazar]

But that's not my point. My point is that the basic game mechanism are relatively simple and to get the strategy experience you don't need fancy gui og multihtreading. It all worked pretty well in the previous versions I've played. (0.8 to 1.1)., but now (with 1.2) the game has become unresponsive. That's not because of lack of multithreading. 1.0 didn't have that problem and 1.0 didn't have multithreading. That's because of changes made for 1.2 which (as far as I can see) didn't add complexity to the game, but only bell's-n-whistels.

I think it pretty inaccurate to characterize the developers primary focus as primarily on surface bells-n-whistles rather than core strategic gameplay.
Most of the current developers joined when Wesnoth was much uglier, and thoroughly enjoyed it then. There is a whole lot more in 1.2 than pretty graphics, though the new graphics are the most obvious. WML has been made much more powerful, units are even more carefully balanced, new campaigns are added and old ones improved. Most of my effort as an artist goes into making it pretty, but the bulk of developer effort does not.
You mentioned that 1.2 is not more complex. This is mostly true because we have pretty much the all gameplay features that we want in 1.0.

[EOE]

It's kinda similiar to Age of wonders, but the new graphics are SO good.I'm glad that all of you, who are helping at creating ¨Better and Improved¨ Wesnoth have time to do this. I'm feeling like a thief becouse this game is free and so good!

Sorry about my bad english, i'm in hurry. (Must play the new Wesnoth )

[Kirdan]

You do know that these sorts of animations were intentionally slowed down so that you could see them better? If you don't like it, turn on accelerated mode.

I already have accelerated mode turned on.

[Kirdan]

I think it pretty inaccurate to characterize the developers primary focus as primarily on surface bells-n-whistles rather than core strategic gameplay.

I didn't say that.

You mentioned that 1.2 is not more complex. This is mostly true because we have pretty much the all gameplay features that we want in 1.0.

Yes.. and that makes to gameplay experience pretty much the same. I didn't say that there had not been other improvements than graphics. I haven't looked at the code.
All I say is what I see: It feels like pretty much the same game, except for 1.2.1 being annoyingly slower in updates. (and that it has become more difficult to se XP/HP levels, when looking at a unit).
It's not a critique. It's just constructive input. My machine is 1.4GHz with 768Mb RAM, it should be fast enought to play a game like Wesnoth (IMHO), and it is, but I can feel playing 1.2.1 that I'm starting to wait for the machine, and once in a while I click the wrong hex because updating was not finished. I may look better in 1.2, but it just "feel" better to play 1.0/1.1.

[Soliton]

(and that it has become more difficult to se XP/HP levels, when looking at a unit).
It's not a critique. It's just constructive input.

It's not constructive if you just repeat the same thing over and over without giving details when you're asked for them.

I may look better in 1.2, but it just "feel" better to play 1.0/1.1.

Why not do that then? 1.0 is a finished game and apparently you don't see much of a difference anyway.