Planet M.U.L.E.

Would love to play Planet MULE, but my netbook can't handle it and stutters/freezes.  Ironic, for an Atari 400 game.  Is there anything that can be done to speed things up?

It's running just fine on my Acer Aspire 1... what netbook are you using?

My only objection is that due to the way the screen is laid out, there's no way to see the chat window, in that 1024x600 display.  If only it could be configured so the chat was on the right.  This would be outstanding for full-screen mode.

Mid-game, it's chugging along at 10-20% CPU, even during the AI's turns, with occasional brief spikes to 50%, which I think are coming during certain sound effects.

Have you tried playing it with the sound off?

There are a option to "detach" the game window from the main window (separate_screen?). but I doubt switching from one window to another is good on this game.

On netbooks it would indeed be great if the screen layout can be changed so the chat section is placed on the right side of the screen. On the typical netbook resolution of 1024x600 the game screen fits well enough but there is no space for the chat sections underneath it. On both sides there is planty of space available, so if the gamescreen is aligned to the left there is enough room for the chat section right of it.

I don't see this option.

hey i have an acer aspire one that i play on and with this utility a1ctl i can change to a higher resolution to see the chat screen .....see some quotes from a website below

FAN AND CPU CONTROL:

There are two good applications to control fan control - AA1 fan control (google it for links) and A1CTL. However, only one controls the CPU speed too (A1CTL)

I recommend everyone use A1CTL as it is a much more powerful utility. It allows you to set when the fan is off, when the fan is on low (AA1 doesn't allow this) and when the fan is on full power. Alongside this, it also allows CPU throttling - so that when you are on battery power it will restrict the CPU to 800Mhz (highly recommended). This results in the advertised 3 hours battery life! It also allows you to turn on and off Aspire One components and fiddle with the screen settings (for those that really need more than 600 pixels. Oh, and interestingly it fixed the HDD clicking sound some (including myself) have seen on some of these laptops (its due to poor hdd memory management and can be disabled with this app).

Firstly, A1CTL has a homepage at http://nodadev.wordpress.com/ - you can download the application at http://noda.free.fr/dev/a1ctl_v0.4.rar ... you'll need winrar (www.rarlabs.com) to open it - and extract the files to c:a1ctl

Once downloaded, you'll need to install this runtime: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=25437D98-51D0-41C1-BB14-64662F5F62FE&displaylang=en

Now, try running c:a1ctla1ctl.exe - if it gives you a .ocx error, follow the instructions here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/faqshow.php?id=8 - after registering the .ocx file you'll be able to run a1ctl.exe

Now, it will ask you to patch the ACPIEC - i cannot remember what this does but I think its a good thing (read more on the net - you can always undo it later). Once the application is running, click on it in the system tray, and choose Configure.

if you need the .ocx google search it and you can downloadit from microsoft

/games/mule/data/settings.txt

VERSION 1.2.0
username Tei
manualJoinAddress
masterServer http://www.planetmule.com/
primaryKeys 38 40 37 39 32 116 0 0 0 0 0 0
secondaryKeys 87 83 75 68 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
playLoginMusic true
mapSkin default
windowSkin Default
fastAiDevelopment false
vsync 1
useTwoWindows false
useAWTGLCanvas false
ignoreRepaint true
snapFullscreenScale true
bufferStrategy 1


setting the option useTwoWindows to true the graphic screen is a separate floating screen. the game is less usuable that way (force you to tab from one to the other tooo often).

Ohh a hidden option. I will have to try this.  :-\