Graal: A Major drain on CPU usage?
 

Okay, the title explains it all.

When I play Graal, the CPU usage shoots to 100%
This does not happen on the login screen, but it happens in game, and in the level editor.
This recently started happening to me, and I know that it is Graal that is running up the usage, and not another program, because I have winXP.
For those who do not know, with WinXP, when you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, it brings up another window, but it has more than the programs running. It has the CPU usage, PF usage, and a list of all programs, be they personal, or necessary system programs, listed in one of the windows. In that window, it tells the individual % of CPU usage. I watched Graal for some time. It stayed mainly around 75% to 93%

I am aware I do not have a perfect computer. I have 400mhz, but that is the most outdated piece of my computer's hardware. I think I am computer-literate enough to know that Graal shouldn't be running in the area of 350+ mhz.

I have restarted Graal, and used different versions. It doesn't seem to matter.

Are there any suggestions to how to fix this? It is cutting severly into the amount of time I can make my levels, seeing as it takes a long time to get a tile centered at the desired spot.

Of course it does. It's supposed to use as much of the CPU as possible. Check other programs, most will suck as many cycles as they can get away with.

I have already answered this question several times :rolleyes:
Graal doesn't use 100% CPU time. It uses the
application idle timer to do precise timing. It is the only
way in windows to do precise timing, all other games use
that too. Windows is also using this thing to 'detect'
how much time a process takes on the CPU, like you
can see it is not precise because it doesn't do it
like some real OS do.
Some games disable the precise timing when they are
not activated, then you don't see 100% when you
are switching to the task manager.

Even so, it has started to become extremely slow. Even with other programs off, it takes less than the required amount of frames a second to make it look smooth. I also cannot see lighting effects anymore, and my card is compatible with it. I have the option on and it should be running. I am unaware if that can be considered evidence to Graal being so slow, but that particular problem started to occur at the same time.

I have every option off that would make Graal run slower, and that has made a minimal effect. I have looked around in the options, and changed them in as many ways as I can think, and no luck - not that this may have a real effect.

I feel compelled to use the older version (2.1) of Graal, because that has the level editor that I am most comfortable with. Also, I have heard generally less than good comments about the newer versions of editors.

I got ownage gfx card 316 ram and stuff 450 mhz and when im online i lag because of computer slowness....it sux....but if not very npcs are in the room i dont lag :( stefan try working on making it so it can always be at 20 frames a sec

Please get a better gfx card driver or disable the light
effects when the gfx card doesn't support Direct3D.
With P450, Riva TNT you can get 40-80 fps,
the game is only running at 20 fps so it should be enough
to be not laggy.
We are working on making the game faster if possible,
but there is not way to speed up a bugged gfx card driver.
Is it even slow at full screen?

I think the newest editor is fantastic, especially with the new GraalShop and the editor script plugin things.

get a better pc

script plugins???

Special Editor NPCs, which allow you to do certain manipulatons to a level without having to do the whole tiling, E.G. making a (nearly) tile-errorless path by just dragging your mouse over the place where the path should be.

Yeah Stefan is right, graal was hardly laggy on my old AMD Athlon, 400mhz ,128MB RAM with nVidia Riva TNT2 running 98SE. So it must be some sort of problem, and it was using light effects.