Problems with mouse in Windows7

[AC67]

Hi,

I downloaded the game the other day. Installation went fine, but in spite of setting the "Load entire map" parameter and setting mouse sensibility at around 70%, the mouse on the game map behaves strange, freezing now and then for a couple of seconds and then flipping around like mad. Precise pointing is thus impossible, and playing almost.
I also tried to run the game in XP compatibility mode, but it won't go further than the intro.
Hope there is some trick that helps.

AC

[AndrewKurtz]

I'm trying to address this same mouse movement issue, but I did find that XP SP2 allows me to get past the intro. XP SP3 compatibility froze on me as well.

[AC67]

Thanks for the reply, AndrewKurtz. I think I already tried XP SP2 compatibility, but will try again.

[calvinus]

The "Load entire map" option makes all bitmaps of game map are loaded in the very first start of the game.
Otherwise, if the option is disabled, map bitmaps are loaded when scrolling the map. Of course, once you load a portion of map bitmaps, there's no need to reload them if scrolling the map again to that area.
That means the mouse pointer can be sluggy during the map load time. For this reason, we added the advice for setting on the "Load entire map" option.

Now the question is: do you have sluggy mouse only during AI think time??? If so, it's normal. Wait the AI finishes her job, then the mouse will run fine.

Otherwise, if the mouse works sluggy all time long, it could be a Win7 compatibility/configuration issue, though the game has been tested on several PCs running with Win7, with no major issue.

[calvinus]

A similar issue is discussed here: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=17707

AC67 should give some attention to the Virtual XP stuff.

[AC67]

Thank you very much Calvinus. I did a quick test during lunch time starting the game with admin privileges and turning mouse sensibility down and it seem to be better. I have problems also when the AI is not thinking, and I have the "load the whole map" option set.
Will do some more testing this evening, and eventually try also the virtual XP stuff.

AC

[AC67]

OK, no good news I'm afraid. Tuning down mouse sensibility didn't work; mouse still freezes on the map and on dialog boxes.
I then installed Virtual XP for Windows 7; after that I installed the game on the virtual machine. On execution of the game I got the following error:

"No hardware accelerated Direct3D devices were found. Switching to the reference rasterizer, a software device that implements the entire Direct3D feature set, but runs very slowly."

And after that:

"Generic application error. Enable debug output for detailed information. This sample will now exit."

I did a quick search on the net and it seems that Virtual XP for Windows 7 does not support Direct3D; is this the end of the story?

AC

[calvinus]

Direct3D is a must because the graphic engine of WW1 uses Direct X...

Edit: anyway do not desperate. We can study some other solution in the next days.

[AC67]

Thanks Calvinus. Will try something more in the meantime.

[AndrewKurtz]

And I turned of all UAC, run as administrator, slowed down mouse sensitivity and turned of AV (Kaspersky). No luck here either.

[calvinus]

What about disabling Desktop Composition, as suggested by NefariousKoel?
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showpost.php?p=178687&postcount=16

[AC67]

Tried this also, but changed nothing.

[AndrewKurtz]

No change with Disable Desktop Composition by itself. Also Disabled Visual Themes and Disabled display scalking on high DPI systems. No luck. Same jumpiness.

Also, disabling tool tips did nothing.

Just for reference, system is Intel Pentium 4 3.40 GHz with 4GB RAM. The Windows Experience Index is 4.2. Gaming graphics rating is 4.6. It is dual monitor.

[AndrewKurtz]

Just for grins, I also tried another mouse and made sure my DirectX was on the latest version. No change.

[AndrewKurtz]

I also justs downloaded AlactrityPC and used it to stop all serviers and other non-essential processes that run on the PC so it was down the to bare minimum Windows 7 services. Same mouse jumpiness.

I will continue to see if I can get it to stop, but running out of things to try.

[calvinus]

If everything of the game is slow, I'm wondering there's something in Win7 that slows down the "heap allocation" in WW1. I'm investigating right now...

[AndrewKurtz]

If everything of the game is slow, I'm wondering there's something in Win7 that slows down the "heap allocation" in WW1. I'm investigating right now...

OK. But not everything is slow. The lag occurs for me more than anything when there is a newspaper/event dialog displayed. I can move the mouse around without any issue around the newspaper/event dialog, but as soon as the cursor enters the newspaper/event dialog, it stops and then moves in jumps. Once out of the newspaper/event dialog, it is OK again...UNTIL it goes back in the newspaper/event dialog. This is the primary place I experience the jumping.

Unfortunately, especially at the beginning of a campaign, there are a lot of newspapers/event decisions to be made, so it provides a really poor performance whenever starting a game.

I'll run whatever tests you need to help find it. Just let me know.

[AC67]

Did some more tests, and it seems that the mouse jumpiness is determined by the size of the map. That means that I can move the mouse very smoothly in scenarios like Tannenberg or Serbia (or the tutorials), while the problems I reported (mouse freezing for a couple of seconds, no smooth movement, very slow map scrolling) happen in the greater campaigns.
Could it be a memory management problem then? My comp is a Fujitsu S710 Lifebook with 4096 MB of ram, an Intel Core i5 M 520@2.40 GHz, and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator with 1721 MB. Or maybe the video card?
BTW, I'm running the game now with low color detail and disabled vertical sync, and have also switched of the 3D sprites.

AC

[calvinus]

Which Antivirus have you installed on your PC?
What happens if you turn it off (if allowed)?

[AC67]

I have a Trend Micro product installed. On unloading it, nothing changes, unfortunately.

[AndrewKurtz]

Same for me BTW. I have Kaspersky but turning it off before playing does nothing.

[calvinus]

I added a tweaking in the incoming official patch 1.08F to allow a faster map scrolling for the CPUs that are showing some problems. I hope it will help a bit, at least for the map scrolling problem.

For mouse sensitivity, you told you moved the slider on the left. What happens if you move on the right.

Disabling the vertical synch option is a good choice, because you increase the rendering frame rate to max. Also, the low color depth should help.

But I see the progresses are not so much, so I still think there's some resident program that is slowing down the game.
So what about closing some process on Task Manager, one by one? Thus we can find the process that is causing the slow down.
If no process slows down the game, there must be some OS configuration to be set, grrr!

[AndrewKurtz]

I used a program called Alacrity to shutdown all other processes and all but a few services before starting and no change.

[Franciscus]

I have also this mouse lag problem.

latest patch, gold version.

On my desktop with WinXP, no problems.

On my new laptop (W764, icore7, 4 Gig Ram, ATI HD5730 1Gig Vram), no matter what I do, the mouse lags - ie "jumps" when I move it around, instead of just gliding. No actual freezes and it does not depend on AI activity (of course I am used to the small "freezes" during AI "thinking, this is not it). And I am not talking about map scrolling, but actual movement of the mouse pointer.
Of course UAC is disabled (first thing I did when I bought the laptop) and I am running as admin. AV is Microsoft Security Essentials and WW1.exe is excluded. The problem appears regardless if I load all map at start up or not, and does not improve changing mouse sensitivity in the configurator - the little jumps just become slower or quicker. This happens in the grand campaign, smaller scenarios like Tannenberg play fine, as reported previously, and does not happen in the game start menus (so, something related with the map ??)
I tried a few other things, like loading all sounds at start, deactivating AI memory, playing in winX SP3 compatibility (does not load), deactivating desktop composition (it does not make a difference).

Any new ideas ? This makes the game almost unplayable on my laptop, unfortunately...

[AndrewKurtz]

Franciscus,

That described my situation exactly. I too am hoping to find a fix as it doesn't work on the PC I want to play it on. I can play on another.

Andrew

[AC67]

Exactly the same here. I was able to borrow another notebook with XP installed and the game works just fine. Nevertheless, I'd really like to play it on my 7 machine ...

[AndrewKurtz]

And I am playing without any issue on a Windows 7 machine. It's my other Windows 7 machine that is causing the problem.

[Franciscus]

Could it be something related to the version of directx 9 in win7 ? I recall someone ( Nikel ??) mentioning something about this...

[Franciscus]

Unfortunately my own sugestion about directx 9.0c is not the solution I downloaded and installed the latest directx 9.0c from microsoft in my win7 laptop, but the problem continues.

But maybe AndrewKurtz has the answer:

And I am playing without any issue on a Windows 7 machine. It's my other Windows 7 machine that is causing the problem.

If in one of your Win7 machines the mouse is ok what is the difference between that and your other Win7 rig ?
Brand? 32 vs 64 bits ? CPU ? RAM ? Graphics card ??

[Franciscus]

No news ?

On my front, I installed drivers for my logitech laser mouse (setpoint) with no success; all other compatibility options, including playing at 640x480, do no good.

A maybe important fact is that during battles - ie in the battle interface - there is no lag, so it has to be something related to the map interface in the grand campaign...