[Fixed for V0.42] 'Smooshy' movement

[Gambit37]

Playing in v0.41 is nowhere near as smooth as earlier versions. At first, I thought it was the DM2 dungeon and all the weather effects slowing it down, but the same behaviours happens in Dark Portal and the DM dungeon.

Basically, keyboard and mouse movement does not remain constant -- it feels like there are small micro-pauses every few tiles while the party is moving and it makes the game much less fun to play. These pauses appear to be random.

I know that Beo and Sophia have also noticed this, anyone else?

[George Gilbert]

There will be a very small pause (only a few milliseconds) whenever you encounter a new item (or specifically, a new bitmap) that hasn't been seen before. That puase will become relatively pronounced (say a 1/10th of a second or so) if the item is animated as there will be several pauses in a row as it loads each bitmap.

Can you let me know if this could be the cause? For example, if you repeatedly walk about the same area, does the problem go away, or is it only as you gradually advance through the dungeon constantly finding new things...

[Gambit37]

No, it doesn't go away even after having played the entire dungeon (Dark Portal for example).

[George Gilbert]

Just out of interest, are you using the mouse to move the party, or keys?

(and if you use the other method to the one you're using, do you see the same behaviour?)

[beowuuf]

Basically I'm using mouse for attacks, spells and of course tappign walls and pressing wall items. I move using the keys. I find that there is strange hesitations while moving. I also find the reverse, where if I have pressed a key down too long, then the stored up movement this produces can have me banging into a wall a few times

I think the ideal would be that one key press = one action, and that each action press is stored.

[Gambit37]

I'm using mouse and keys to move the party and the beahviour is the same.

[George Gilbert]

Ahhh - think I've got it. There's a bug which means mouse clicks are only processed at a maximum speed of one per 1/6th of a second - if you're doing lots of mouse clicks very quickly, then the later ones will be delayed quite significantly.

I'll send you a test exe to try out to make sure that's solved the problem.

[TheMormegil]

That sounds like the probable cause.
I've noticed it feels laggy when I am trying to test walls quickly (side stepping along clicking mouse on wall quickly to check for fake walls etc)
At first I thought I must be overloaded , but I wasn't, so thought it must be clicking or moving too fast.

[George Gilbert]

Fixed for V0.42