Key Buffering problem with timed puzzles

[Kektimus]

one other thing occured to me which may have no bearing at all.

How many people use the Steam service to run game and how many use the standalone from Almost Human.

Just be interesting to see wether Steam is causing any lag for people.
I myself have both but run on the standalone ( i preordered ofc to get both just in case).

Steam here.

[Delta66]

Completely agree with the OP.

Dexterity and quickness are a growing issue as I move deeper in the dungeon.

It's challenging to figure out how the puzzles should be solved, and I understand that some puzzles ask for speed.

Yet once I figured out what to do, no problems trying several times before success, but when I fall short of the target more than 30 times in a row, it's just plain BORING.
Currently on level 5 in the Deserted Tunnels door, and after trying more than 30 times I'm considering to move to another game.
Level 4 final one was also a chore.

The keyboard buffering and responsivness of the game is poor considering the speed required.
Don't know if it a problem with my laptop keyboard, or my aging dexterity. But the speed challenge are poorly balanced. The game is advertized as a dungeon puzzle solving one, not an extreme arcade game.


Edit: Turning down gfx options help a lot, thanks for pointing this out., maybe the op should edit his post to mention this on top of the thread.

Obviously Gfx are more complex than DM, yet it quite surprising that the high level of gfx details tax the game so much. As this is not a FPS or a full 3D game, which works decently on my computer. Core I5 mobile 430, 2.27Ghz, nvidia GT325M

I don't know if there 's an issue with the nvidia Ptimus system which include both an Intel Gfx adaptor and the nvidia custom accelerator

[Madras]

You are so right, dexterity riddles are my biggest (actually only) issue with the game.

I just hope there aren't too many (like the fire demons' button pressing nightmare lvl 6 or so) in future add-ons.

[jfunk]

Edit: Turning down gfx options help a lot, thanks for pointing this out., maybe the op should edit his post to mention this on top of the thread.

Obviously Gfx are more complex than DM, yet it quite surprising that the high level of gfx details tax the game so much. As this is not a FPS or a full 3D game, which works decently on my computer. Core I5 mobile 430, 2.27Ghz, nvidia GT325M

I don't know if there 's an issue with the nvidia Ptimus system which include both an Intel Gfx adaptor and the nvidia custom accelerator

It's worth checking to make certain your NVIDIA GPU is active when you play Grimrock. I have seen some people report in other game forums that the auto-switching didn't seem to activate properly with all software. Somewhere in your GPU software you can probably force it to be on until you manually turn it off again.

It's also worth noting that your GT325M is also a bit below the minimum requirements from a relative performance perspective (it supports the required feature set, but is slower than the desktop 7600GT).

One thing you guys that might be having performance issues should do that you may not already have tried is lowering screen resolution. It could have a dramatic effect (even more than the other options in the game). If you're trying to push 1080p on some of these GPUs, it could be a major cause of strain.

[jansaresinas]

ok, i tried some different things using the scientific approach

i tried the same situations on my computer with:

1 - 1920x1080, all high, fullscreen
2 - 1920x1080, all high, windowed
3 - 1280x720, all high, fullscreen
4 - 1280x720, all high, windowed

i tried 3 different things on all these resolutions

a - spinning around 20 times in one place
b - straight walk 10 paces
c - time it takes for the hall of fires first button to shut the first trap door

Did everything three times using stopwatch (rough median results)

1a 29 sec
2a 28 sec (!)

3a 22 sec
4a 20 sec (!)

ok, nothing special, full screen mode is somewhat 'slower', high res is slower, move on.

1b 6,5sec
2b 6,0sec (!)

3b 5,0sec
4b 4,5sec (!)

ok, not much difference here, move on

1c 6,0sec
2c 6,0sec

3c 4,5sec
4c 4,5sec

... times here were identical.

!!!

so i would guess 'the heartbeat' lasts longer if using 1080 then 720, but you can do the same amount of moves in that time. the difference is that when using fullscreen vs. windowed mode there seems to be something like a 10% decrease in the actions per heartbeat department.

dont know whose 'fault' it is, maybe a directx issue when switching to fullscreen? card driver issue? maybe i am way off and my stopwatch needs mending, maybe am just biased because i finally made that level with a windowed view...

anyways, hope this could potentially help someone.

[quicksaver]

These are autohotkey scripts I used for the timed puzzle on level 6 where you have to press like 4 buttons after another. I just couldn't do it by hand. Make sure to lower all graphic options and place your curser over the first button and press F1 for the first script:

Code: Select all

F1::
click
SetKeyDelay 450
Send qwddwww
sleep 400
click
Send aawweeaa
sleep 440
click
Send awe
sleep 240
click
Send ssss
return

press the switch on the right hand side manually.

then go back to the first switch, face it, mouse your mouse over the button and press f2

Code: Select all

F2::
click
SetKeyDelay 450
Send qwddwww
sleep 400
click
Send aawweeaa
sleep 440
click
Send awe
sleep 240
click
Send sasaaawwwddwddee
sleep 240
click
Send s
return

[regomar]

one other thing occured to me which may have no bearing at all.

How many people use the Steam service to run game and how many use the standalone from Almost Human.

Just be interesting to see wether Steam is causing any lag for people.
I myself have both but run on the standalone ( i preordered ofc to get both just in case).

I use Steam and have encountered no 'lag' whatsoever.

[Delta66]

It's worth checking to make certain your NVIDIA GPU is active when you play Grimrock. I have seen some people report in other game forums that the auto-switching didn't seem to activate properly with all software. Somewhere in your GPU software you can probably force it to be on until you manually turn it off again.

It's also worth noting that your GT325M is also a bit below the minimum requirements from a relative performance perspective (it supports the required feature set, but is slower than the desktop 7600GT).

One thing you guys that might be having performance issues should do that you may not already have tried is lowering screen resolution. It could have a dramatic effect (even more than the other options in the game). If you're trying to push 1080p on some of these GPUs, it could be a major cause of strain.

GT325M is not the best gfx cards around, but for 1366*768 many 3D games run fine. I'm not sure how to check if the Nvidia accelerator is used for the game instead of the Intel default gfx, as when I turn back to the desktop, the system automatically switch to the low perfs Intel Gfx.

I was lured by the default gfx options selected by the game. I thought that the game runs some autocalibration process the first time it is launched, so I trusted the settings and thought that it was supposed to play at this speed. Usually I start with games default and move up, if it works smoothly.

Turning off the Space Ambient Occlusion, and reducing the texture quality to medium result in a much faster, and enjoyable, game. I was able to complete on first try challenges that I was failing more than 30 times! with higher gfx details. I didn't expected such a dramatic change in pace. I mean, I thought the change would affect visual appearance, but not the gameplay so much. Actualy before reducing the gfx quality, I even had trouble with the standard battle tactic of Sliding, Turning, Hitting, as most of the time the monsters were able to attack before I can perform this simple maneuver!

What was a bit misleading, is that I didn't expect this kind of game to tax the hardaware like this. The gfx are certainly more sophisticated than the old style Dungeon Master fake 3D bitmap. I don't know how much is precalc or real time rendering in LoG. But even if LoG use real 3D, most of the time the camera is in a fixed position, and the tile based movement allows for simplifacation in gfx computations. Obviously when you are stopped, you can turn around in 3D rather smoothly, albeit at a rather slow speed, and this time the camera is rotating but the starting point is fixed. So we are not really in a high frame rate FPS here.

A slow frame per second would not be such an issue with this kind of game. The problem is Update per second, i.e. how many time the game check the player input and update the game position.

That said, I understand and aprreciate the possibility for users with better hardware to have improved gfx.

[Loktofeit]

I understand that it may be frustrating, but your manual dexterity IS intended to be tested in games like this.

In this game, maybe, but in games like this, character stats and mental problem solving have historically been the core design. For example, I like having an evasion stat and the ability to evade manually, but that is rather unique to Grimrock and not something that was ever a defining or major feature in classic CRPGs.

On the topic of responsiveness, I found that turning off the AAOS made movement slightly more responsive for me, but it still seems a gamble on how many keystrokes the game chooses to buffer when trying to move and turn through these timed puzzles. It almost seems like it buffers one keystroke for tile movement but none for turns.

[jfunk]

In this game, maybe, but in games like this, character stats and mental problem solving have historically been the core design. For example, I like having an evasion stat and the ability to evade manually, but that is rather unique to Grimrock and not something that was ever a defining or major feature in classic CRPGs.

On the topic of responsiveness, I found that turning off the AAOS made movement slightly more responsive for me, but it still seems a gamble on how many keystrokes the game chooses to buffer when trying to move and turn through these timed puzzles. It almost seems like it buffers one keystroke for tile movement but none for turns.

I never actually played DM much (I missed that somehow when it was new and have never sat down to play through it more than to check it out), but in my experience with EoB and Lands of Lore, manually maneuvering/dodging was absolutely required and not optional. You'd die very quickly in either if you stood still and attempted to play like a "turn based" type system built entirely around statistics.

As far as the keystrokes go, from what I can tell there either isn't any keybuffer or it is 1, depending on your interpretation of buffer. You can give your next command immediately, but no more. In other words, the instant your party starts moving, it will accept the next command but will not queue any more. Thus, if you "tap twice", both commands will be taken because it's waiting for your next input the instant the first movement starts. It will not take your third command until the second movement has started.

So you're always free to input your next command while you are watching the animation of your current move. Turning is a command though, so while you're walking forward you can't hit "A-W" to queue a "turn left, then step". You have to wait until the turn is executing before giving the forward command. I'm not sure whether one would consider this no queue or a queue of 1.


Delta66 - regarding the "gfx load" of this game. Remember that this game is full 3D. The "grid" is an artificial limitation done for style. That could easily be turned off and you would have full "FPS-like" movement (obviously that would completely break all AI and many puzzles in the process because they're designed for the grib, but that's beside the point). The point is, the game is fully rendering this 3D world just like any other 3D game, the design choice to go grid-based doesn't reduce the graphics load.

That being said, yes the limited sight distances would probably lead to this being "easy" to run on lower hardware if the environment were to be recreated using some of the current 3D engines out there today and perform better on lower hardware. But remember that most of those engines were created by significant teams of people and heavily optimized over long periods of time. What we're seeing is 10 months of work by one man. It's not really fair to compare it to what a major studio's engine can do.

And yeah Ambient Occlusion is a performance KILLER. Most of those modern 3D games have it off by default unless you run "Ultra" settings. Some even require it to be manually turned on no matter what "default" you pick. Even "gaming rigs" choke on many of those games with AO turned on. The fact that it can be used at all on a lot of the hardware people are using for this game is an indication of how low the requirements otherwise really are for Grimrock.