Player skidding

[Nannerpus]

I don't think this is a bug with the PlanetMule code per se, but I don't know where else to post this issue.

I've noticed my player tends to "skid" while moving. This doesn't happen often but when it does it is very difficult to mitigate and usually causes some kind of blunder. I've never seen this happen until I got my new computer. I've also played a few training games to try & test various attempts to fix the issue, but it only seems to occur in games with other players across the remote spans of the internet.

The computer in question is a Mac Mini which states it uses the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor. The 320M has 256MB of RAM. The system runs OS X 10.6.4 and feeds a 27" display. Wonderful setup until you try using it to play PlanetMule.

I've tried fiddling with keyboard repeat rate settings to no avail. One other annoyance in the new setup is the very long delay induced when I switch from fullscreen view to "chatscreen" view or the reverse... switching views causes the whole display to glitch & takes about 3 seconds to complete. Should I try adjusting the display resolution as an alternative to the key repeat rate?

The only other possible reason I can think of might be the system's Java settings. I'm not a Java sophisticate but there is a modifiable preference setting to designate the default Java version to be used by applications. I can set this to either the 32- or 64-bit versions Java SE 6 and I can also switch the order of preference or disable one of the options entirely.

Any help with this very aggravating issue is much appreciated, & thanks in advance to all who respond with suggestions.

[dynadan]

I don't know if this helps Nanner, but I have experienced these exact same symptoms.  For me it happens when when my laptop switches to battery.  Perhaps a power saving option?

[Peter]

I've noted this bug and we'll see if we can do something about it for the next release.

Do you mean that you're player skids like he's walking on ice, for example he continues to move after you've released your button. Do you need to press and release your button anew to stop the movement? Or do you mean that he repeatedly stops and moves, which would happen if the game doesn't register that you're holding your button pressed.

Switching between fullscreen and windowed mode can take a few seconds, that's normal. Some video card, driver and operating system combinations do it faster than others and some slower. Graphical glitches while changing mode is also normal.

[Nannerpus]

Peter - yes, skids like he's on ice & can't change direction or stop when he's commanded to. He continues to move even after I've stopped pressing the arrow key. Generally I have to release all motion keys and wait for him to stop, if I have the presence of mind to do this while scurrying around.

Dan - I'm on a desktop system so I don't think anything's going on with the power management system.

[Nannerpus]

The problem is really impossible for me to compensate for. No matter what settings I use for keyboard repeat rate, it keeps happening. I can't play the game when it does, dropping mules turn after turn with no chance to recover. Worse still, some keystrokes get "prolonged" (leading to the skid) and then the skid blocks other keystrokes from being properly applied, so even if I'm skidding & over the center of a plot I can't release the mule until (of course) it is too late.

Sorry folks, I'm going away & staying away until this bug gets fixed.

[mikman]

Sounds to me like it's just network lag, but what do I know ;-)

[Peter]

There may be a problem with the input on some Mac computers. We'll test to see if it happens on any of our Mac's and try to fix it for the next release.

[Nannerpus]

I also thought about network lag, but prior to this recent spate of problems I was using an older Mini equipped with the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics module, running OS 10.5.8. The GMA 950 shares its memory with the main system memory, which was 2GB. So in all respects my prior machine was inferior and I never experienced this skidding problem before, regardless of the ping value in the games I played.

I'm not saying that lag is not an issue, but I have a hard time believing it is the only culprit, given my prior system's outstanding performance irrespective of network delay. In my limited testing using the new (skid-prone) computer, I have not observed skidding during my test games - training games with three robots - so I've not adequately observed enough high-lag situations to discern a repeatable pattern of behavior in real-game situations with high network lag.

I'm very grateful to the Turborilla Team for their attention to this issue.

[Peter]

Network lag does not affect your player movement and button pressing. The game instantly responds to input without waiting for any network messages. This problem is most likely an issue with reading input from the keyboard.

[Nannerpus]

Peter - I found this relatively recent announcement in the Apple Developer Pages for Java:

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#releasenotes/Java/JavaSnowLeopardUpdate3LeopardUpdate8RN/NewandNoteworthy/NewandNoteworthy.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010380-CH4-SW1

In case that page cannot be reached (it may require a registration, which is free) here is the text:

Java Deprecation
As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is deprecated.

This means that the Apple-produced runtime will not be maintained at the same level, and may be removed from future versions of Mac OS X. The Java runtime shipping in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, will continue to be supported and maintained through the standard support cycles of those products.

Third Party JVM Support and Locations
Java Preferences now shows all discovered JVMs in a single list in the General tab. This list shows the name, vendor, architecture, and full version of each JVM (8146434). It also coalesces multiple versions of the same major platform version from the same vendor and architecture into the same line. Clicking on the version at the end of the line shows a popup menu which chooses between these multiple versions.

Java SE 6 Locations
The location of the Java SE 6 runtime home has changed to /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home. JDK bundles provided via the Developer package, developer previews, and 3rd party JVMs should be installed in /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines or ~/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines. Developer previews of Java can now be installed and uninstalled without affecting the system JVM(s).

Java IDEs
In testing, some Java IDEs have shown problems navigating into the new JDK bundle structure, and persisting the location of the new JDK bundles. Some IDEs may have to change how they prompt users to locate a JVM on Mac OS X, and should ideally present a list of JVMs generated from /usr/libexec/java_home --xml, which outputs each discovered JVM, and orders them according to the user's order in Java Preferences.

Developer Package
The Java Developer package now supersedes the Java Documentation package (3672275). The developer package contains a copy of the Java SE 6 JDK bundle with all JavaDoc and source jars included inside of it. The Java Developer package also contains documentation for the Java tools in /usr/share/java, such as Ant, Maven, JUnit, and Derby. If you do JNI development, you must install the Java Developer package, since it contains updated headers for the native JavaVM.framework and its sub-frameworks (8421130). The Java Developer package is available from http://connect.apple.com.

Redesigned eAWT
The com.apple.eawt.Application class has undergone a significant redesign of basic Mac event handling (4083709, 4623624, 4714211, 5445495, et al.). Most of the operations handled by ApplicationListeners are now processed by a single delegate handler:

setAboutHandler(AboutHandler)
setPreferencesHandler(PreferencesHandler)
setQuitHandler(QuitHandler)
setOpenFileHandler(OpenFilesHandler)
setOpenURIHandler(OpenURIHandler)
setPrintFileHandler(PrintFilesHandler)

You can also register multiple listeners for each of these listeners with the addAppEventListener(AppEventListener) method:

AppForegroundListener
AppHiddenListener
AppReOpenedListener
ScreenSleepListener
SystemSleepListener
UserSessionListener

The JavaDoc for all of the Apple Java extensions (including the eAWT) is present in the appledocs.jar file of the Developer .jdk bundle in /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines.

Sudden Termination
Java applications on Mac OS X 10.6 can now opt-in to being suddenly terminated by the OS to speed log-out and shut down. Apps can raise and lower their sudden termination count with the enableSuddenTermination() and disableSuddenTermination() methods on the com.apple.eawt.Application class. More information on Sudden Termination is available in NSProcessInfo Class Reference. (5756768)

Default Quit Action
Applications can now request that the eAWT send WindowClosing events to all open windows instead of calling System.exit(0) when the user choose Quit from the application menu. By setting the apple.eawt.quitStrategy system property to CLOSE_ALL_WINDOWS, the eAWT will send a close event to every window in back-to-front order (3198576).

Improved Garbage Collection vs. Virtual Memory Paging Behavior
In Java SE 6 on Mac OS X 10.6, a new optimization has been enabled that prevents garbage-only heap pages from paging out to disk when the system is under memory pressure. It should improve overall system responsiveness when switching between apps, because Java will not be spending time paging heap pages with only garbage to disk (2830171).

[Peter]

While waiting for the next update release of Planet Mule you can try to updgrade or downgrade your Java version and see if that works with the current version of Mule (1.3.4).