Hedgewars runs very slow
Tue, 2010-03-23 13:26
Hi everyone,
can you help me? I like Hedgewars so much and it’s a really cool game. Personally I have no problems with the game and everything is working well. The problem is that I would like to play it with a friend who has a little bit old computer (Pentium 3). The game starts, but it’s impossible to play it, because everything is to slow.
Is it possible to play Hedgewars with an old computer? What’s the best choice of options (graphic, sound), to play the game only with the very basic functions? Can you switch off the zoom-function to run the game faster?
It would be so great, if someone could help me. I can’t wait to play this game with my friend.
See You,
Bobo III
PS: Sorry if my English isn’t very good, I am from Germany. 
Zoom won't affect performance. There is an option to enable low quality mode. Disabling sound/music might help but that depends on hardware (e.g. onboard sound or dedicated sound card).
Well can he update his graphics drivers? make sure nothing else is running at the same time as well as enabling low quality.
Pit has finaly returned. FINALY.
hey, im trying to play it in ubuntu with an old laptop, pentiumIV w/intel graphics but the game has a little bad problem:
in Training mode i can see the hedghog, but in Simple / multiplayer mode just shows a white box for every creature :P
I have the same bug when playing in fullscreen (Mac OS X 10.6.2)
I'm having the same problem on my netbook. Maybe it was too good to be true to hope it would work on my netbook, but I'd like to try a few things if I can.
It runs at 2 and 3 fps, and if i move the mouse around the map it goes up to 30 or 50 fps.
Any ideas/suggestions, or am i f**ked?
Could you post your "debug0.txt" file right after you've "played" a round?
What are the system requirements anyway?
I get all of 2 fps on my netbook (Atom processor and GMA 500, Win7 with the latest driver)
The good old Worms World party runs fine on it - Hedgewars' graphics do not seem so very demanding as to explain why it's so slow....
I already set low quality and the smallest resolution, both fulls screen and windoewd, but no go, it is simply not playable. Did have to patch the splash.bmps for it to load at all.
2 fps suggests no hardware acceleration.
That would imply doing the opengl draws in software, which would easily drag FPS waaaaay down.
There are some improvements in .14, but they won't win you more than a couple more FPS.
I would suspect that you NOT on the latest driver. Since at least under Linux that card is more than adequate to the task.
Post your driver version.
Try also disabling all those Windows 7 special effects, if that is possible in Windows 7 as it was in Vista and XP, they might be the issue.
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Oh, what the heck. 1PLXzL1CBUD1kdEWqMrwNUfGrGiirV1WpH <= tip a hedgewars dev
I've got the latest graphics driver, released end of 2009, Version 8.14 10 2026
The version is lower than the originally insatalled one but that was dated mid-2009.
This is according to all sources a glitch in the versioning.
So, I am confident that I do indeed have the latest driver. However, I'm not running Linux
Running it with Aero disabled does not make a huge difference b(3fps rather than two)
Is there any way to tweak the game further? I suspect that Win7 is the problem.
(I have to say I was wrong about WWP - it ran smoothly under much lower specs (PIII mobile and 384 MB Ram with onbiard graphics), but under XP, not Win7)
There are some optimisations in .14 - but the odds are fairly low they would help.
2FPS is the kind of thing you see if, (and again, operating from my linux experience here), the opengl is all being done in software.
Actually, that's at the low end. My wimpy machine w/ a wimpy intel card, when in software rendering mode, still managed 15fps w/ reduce quality enabled at 800x600
Would be very interesting to see if Linux does better - do you mind setting up a quick ubuntu dual boot? Would just take 15 minutes or so. If it is just as bad in Linux, that would be very useful info.
You know, the usual debug approach. Separate out components - in this case OS/driver from Hardware.
WRT specs.
Right now, Hedgewars .14 is running on the iPhone using around 128 megs of memory at almost 60fps on the 3GS. That 128 is, I think, for both video memory and system, since it is shared on that device. koda would know more about that.
That gives you an idea of the lower bound.
If we further reduce the land array - simulating WWP land size (¼ the size of Hedgewars), it can run on 2nd gen iphone, using <64MiB.
The 3GS processor is probably roughly comparable to a PIII.
The 3G processor is probably closer to a PII.
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Oh, what the heck. 1PLXzL1CBUD1kdEWqMrwNUfGrGiirV1WpH <= tip a hedgewars dev
If your PC is able to handle Vista/7's Aero themeing, there shouldn't be any issues running Hedgewars. You're probably still missing OpenGL support or there's some driver setting blocking something. Have you tried other games based on OpenGL?
Open the text file C:\Users\\.hedgewars\debug0.txt
You should find some lines similar to the following:
0: Setting up OpenGL...
0: SDL video driver: windib
0: OpenGL-- Renderer: GeForce GTX 295/PCI/SSE2
0: |----- Vendor: nvidia corporation
0: |----- Version: 3.2.0
0: \----- GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE: 8192
Copypaste them for us.
I'm not terribly Linux savy,don't want to risk my current installation, and my Sony has no DVD/CD drives - so unless I can get a bootable image on a stick, I'll have to pass.
Does anyone know of a site that has them for download? Or instructions on how to create one?
Here's my debug.txt
0: Setting up OpenGL...
0: SDL video driver: windib
0: OpenGL-- Renderer: GDI Generic
0: |----- Vendor: microsoft corporation
0: |----- Version: 1.1.0
0: \----- GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE: 1024
Find any machine that can boot an ubuntu CD or already has ubuntu installed.
Got to System->Administration->Startup Disc Creator
And follow the wizard for installing on a flash drive.
Will setup the usual ubuntu live CD (w/ options for installing or running from memory) but also w/ persisting of changes to the flash drive.
At that point you could probably just install the hedgewars package to the flash drive like a normal ubuntu game install.
Although you aren't really risking your install IMO. The install wizard is pretty darn easy and partitioning is quite safe.
As for the GL info, doesn't mean much to me. Hopefully Smaxx can interpret.
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Oh, what the heck. 1PLXzL1CBUD1kdEWqMrwNUfGrGiirV1WpH <= tip a hedgewars dev
I'll go with the flash drive version. I need all the disk space for my current install
And as I said, I don't work with Linux at all normally.
I'll ask a mate to set me up with a flash drive.
You're indeed missing OpenGL hardware acceleration somehow. "GDI Generic" = software rendering using Windows' drawing functions.
How do I change my team name?
Atheists are not evil people. If you think they are please ask an atheist if they are. They dont eat babies and they have morals. However much you might not like it, you were born an atheist. Please do not report me because of my religious preference. I just want to play the game. I am not a closet atheist and if you find me being an atheist offensive then please consult me on the matter. Thank you for your time. -Dan
Go to the game settings (button is in the main menu on the bottom right) and create your team(s) there. To use them, play online/multiplayer or the custom single player game. "Simple Game" will always use premade teams.
Edit: If possible, open new threads for your questions unless they're related to other issues. Ensures faster help.