Hey guys!

Schism tracker is maxing out my cpu (95%+) all the time. I'm using it under Windows.
I read the previous post in regards to this and I tried all the different video settings as suggested, but there was no change.
Anyone know why it's doing this and if there's a way to fix this?

Thanks!

Random thoughts:

1. Does your system have GL support?
2. Have you tried disabling the mouse? (Ctrl-M)
3. Are you resizing the window? If so try keeping it at 640x400 (and not in fullscreen since it might be quietly resizing it to 640x480) and see if that helps.

same thing at me, i didnt know that i can disable mouse, anyway that made my mouse cursor still working, just does not lag.
all video drivers, even with or without mouse uses 85-97% of the cpu (aXP 2200+) under win.

I'm having this trouble too. I downloaded the new (20th Feb) Windows CVS version and was surprised to hear a 4-channel 1989 Amiga mod stuttering after maxing out my Athlon64 3000+ CPU. Then I found that schism was using as much CPU as it could get even when idle (even on the splash screen when it's just starting up).

So I went through the old versions I still have on my hard disk and I found that the 2007-04-28 02:07 build is problem-free (minimal CPU usage even when playing NNA/filter-heavy IT modules) but the problem is there in the 2007-08-12 00:02 build. Sorry this is such a wide range but these are just versions I happened to download and still have around.

SDL, YUV and GL video modes all do this and I can't seem to set my video mode to DirectX (whenever I select it it goes back to SDL). The window is the default size, not fullscreen, and disabling the mouse makes no difference.

If there's any more information I can give or if anyone has a Windows schism build from May-July 2007 that I could test to narrow the problem down further (is this even of any help to the developers?), let me know. Oh yes, and thank you for a great tracker.

Hey guys,
Thanks for your input.

Cody:

Yes, as far as I know my system can support GL and I did try disabling the mouse, but still no change... even when I kept the window at 640x400.

tiledsink:

Any chance you can provide an older version of Schism that doesn't cause this issue? I'd still like to use Schism in the meantime while this CPU issue get sorted out. I don't want to run this new version at the expense of my CPU.

BTW, does anybody know if this is a well known bug that maybe the developers know about and are possibly working on?
I used to use IT ALOT back in the day and I'm so glad to have come across Schism. I'd love to continue using it, but not if it's going to burn out my CPU... hopefully this can get resolved. ;)

>>4185
You've posted it here, so we know about it. ;)

Neither of us has a windows box to test on though, so this is sort of hard to fix.

Perhaps this is crazy but i once changed the buffer size in the config file and it seemed to have made video refresh on F5 page much smoother. Smoother = more fps = maybe uses more cpu, maybe ?

Perhaps you can go back to a 1024 or 2048 buffer just to test ?

Does it take all cpu in any screen while playing ?

Running the feb 20 version under mac os x here, it runs well. This is not to brag but to confirm it works properly elsewhere.

>>4187 might be on to something; I think we did fiddle with the default buffer sizes at some point. Try editing your schism config, find the buffer_size= line and change the number to 2048. That might have a significant effect on how much CPU the tracker uses,although there's a bit of a tradeoff in that you'll have higher latency.

And this does seem to be a Windows issue; my guess is it has a lot to do with the fact that on Windows the timer resolution is quite poor.

>>4188

Windows requires at least 50msec for audio buffers because that's the minimum size of the hardware mixer. That means you simply cannot lower the buffer size below about 2K on Windows.

I think I changed this, but look for your schism config and see if it has 1024 (which was the default for a while) in it.

xonox: Yes. It takes up all of my cpu no matter what window size and no mattter what video setting I use.

Hmmm, there isn't any config file. I have the schism executable and a .bat file which has one line in it and that's it. (and a few txt files). Where is this config file?

>>4190
On Windows I believe it's in Application Data\Schism Tracker. If you go to Start->Run and type %APPDATA% it "should" bring you there.

I played around with the buffer settings and still no luck...

Anybody have an older version of Schism (ie. 2007-04-28 02:07)? According to tiledsink, the older versions don't have this issue...