My girlfriend's computer has just got back from repair. We think the problem was due to it overheating so we've installed a program to monitor the temperature. At the moment it looks like it's usually running at around 56 degrees, which is good -- but for some reason it doesn't like Cheapo, it always gets dangerously hot and the alarm goes. Not the level editor, just the game. I have no idea why or what I can do about it.

Help, suggestions, consolation, anyone?  :???:

Oh... wow! Cheapo now burning some computers??? :D

Is the game working correctly? Is the game lagging? Try to set it to Simple buffer and look if it does change something. If not, I don't know... This is very weird! O_o

...Uh...does this computer have a fan?  Is it in a really crowded area?  That is extremely odd!!!  Do you have a bad component on your computer somewhere?  It doesn't make sense that this would be a problem with cheapo.

Wait a sec.  How does the program monitor the temperature?  Does it use a piece of hardware that came with it?

NOTE:  Keep in mind the fact that I'm not exactly the most technical guy around when you read any of my posts in the tech help area.

That is very odd. I've had my 3GHZ computer running for days at full blast and it hasn't overheated. I have a good fan though. You should check to see if you have a powerful enough fan for the CPU.

Well I guess I can offer consolation.

I'm kinda surprised though, I certainly don't expect Cheapo to be too particularly power-hungry.  There are definitely other programs I run on my laptop that are far more power-hungry than Cheapo.

You can try and see if you can update your video drivers, though I can't say it'll necessary solve anything.  I do have to wonder whether your computer has adequate cooling.

Actually, you said "we think the problem was due to it overheating".  Is that just speculation or is that something the repair shop actually mentioned?  Maybe it's worth having a talk with the repair shop again?

It's pretty much impossible to diagnose any computer issues without having access to the computer, and I'm not a hardware guy anyway.  Well, good luck and I hope you get it resolved.

I can confirm that Cheapo does cause some computers to overheat, including my own. (That'd be why I've never really discussed Cheapo)

This is because Cheapo seems to use 100% of the available processing power, even though it doesn't need it. (perhaps a lack of delays in the main loop, maybe no fps limit)

Recently, however, I've replaced my computer case, because of it's lack of airflow (basicly, a bad design), and I haven't had any heat-related problems since.

Ah, thank you Mindless.

I don't think Jayelinda would be that thrilled to have to replace her computer case just so I can play Cheapo in the remaining month I'm staying here, so I guess the best solution would be simply to do without it until I return. I can still edit levels, so I'll keep working on my new sets..... no promises about when they'll be ready for release, though.

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

Probably, the only way to play Cheapo again on that computer is to get Peter Spada to release a patch to fix the problem, but I don't think he's providing support for Cheapo anymore.
Hopefully, Dimwits won't have the same problem.

Dimwits?

Huh! So this is the next Cheapo game? Sweeeeeeeet! B)

Sorry if the game running at 100% CPU causes anyone's computer to overheat. It's impossible for me to go back and fix this problem because even though I have the source code for Cheapo, it won't compile anymore. Okay, it's not impossible to fix, it would just take a lot of work to make it compile again. Now that I know that this is a problem, I can try to fix it in the new game. Right now the new game also runs at 100% CPU because it just keeps updating. I've seen many games act this way, but I can try to solve the problem (if it is even possible to solve).

I haven't written much games that involves real-time animating, but isn't the updating usually tied to a timer?

If so, I would think that there should be some amount of idle time, since generally there's no need to update more than 60 times per second (movies are 24fps, and 30 fps should work fine for most games).  The game would've either slowed down or dropped frames if it can't handle updating that fast, and since I haven't seen neither, it would seem that the updating takes less than the interval between frames.

Maybe it's just the strain of having to update the screen?  Anyway, it also sounded like the machine in question didn't have adequate heat dissipation, so maybe it's better thought of as a hardware issue rather than trying to get around it in software.

Peter, if you think there are places in your code where you're doing polling loops (besides the standard windows message handling), explain to me what they are for and maybe I can tell you how to avoid the polling.

Depends on the game. A game like Quake or Halo will want to run as fast as possible and get the highest framerate possible. My game only needs to run at either 30fps or 60fps, and between frames I just have the program sit in a tight loop waiting for some number of milliseconds to pass. I can try playing around with high resolution Windows timers so that the CPU isn't used between frames.



Well there is definitely a hardware issue since 100% CPU usage for a while shouldn't cause it to overheat TOO much. Also, the heat alarm may just be set at too low of a value. Perhaps the CPU can work just fine at that temperature. It isn't crashing the system, right?

Yes, but 3D graphics takes more time and processing power to render, so it could possibly be a challenge even to do 30 fps for those games.  That might be what's meant by "highest framerate possible".

There are two practical limitations to how high you want the framerate.  Number one, the human eye can't really tell the difference past a certain point, which is why 24 fps is good enough for movies.  Number two, your monitor's refresh rate is generally around 60-85 Hz, okay, maybe some goes up to 100 Hz nowadays, but as you can see, refreshing faster than your monitor makes no sense since your monitor won't even be able to display any changes taking place faster than its own refresh rate.


Wow, tight loops are so 80's man.

You shouldn't need to do loops like that in Windows.  Try either the hi-res timers, or perhaps even WM_TIMER could do.

That's all right. I think I'm OK now that I'm back on my own computer now in any case.  But before I left, we did manage to sort out my girlfriend's computer with the help of the bathroom fan  :P

All right, I wrote the perfect game loop that uses minimal CPU time. It's implemented in the new game and running at 60 frames per second. It uses barely any CPU time (on a 3Ghz machine) so it plays nice with other Windows programs that happen to be running.
It's actually a user customizable loop, so if the user actually wants to use 100% CPU then there is a setting for it. I know, that's retarded.

I don't suppose we'll ever see this in Cheapo, though...

"dimwits" looks like a very nice Lemmings clone.      

Is there any plan to have  "skin" support for the characters ?
 (i.e.  use the original lemmings SKIN, or some holiday lemmings SKIN).

I look forward to the release of this game.

Yes, that will be possible.