Tablet PC Problems

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 10:40 pm

OK, first of all I'd like to say Hi cause this would be my first post... it's unfortunate it has to be a gripe post with several technical issues I ran into to get to this point.

PROBLEM 1 :
Upon attempting to register for these forums I found it more than difficult to read the gosh darn security code at the bottom of the forum which meant I ended up having to fill out my information 4 times before it let me actually register .. and this really didn't lend itself to being a helpful way to get some help regarding playing this game.

perhaps it would be a good idea to use a more "monitor friendly" security code cause if I wasn't so interested in getting a group to play this game as I am (assuming the following problems have some kind of fix to them, I was about ready to give up and just fob the game off cause I couldn't access the bloody forums to register!!)

PROBLEM 2 :
I am using a HP Touchsmart TM2T with the i5 470UM 1.33mhz quad core processor, 8 GIG DDR3 (forget the fsb on the ram) and an ATI Mobility Radeon 4550 which has the 512mb memory

OS = Windows 7 Home Premium (I think thats what they call this os)

Now When I run the game it gives me 2 errors, one about it just failing then a second one about it not finding some blocks to access

[FIX] I ran the game as Administrator and that now works

now...
When the game starts and I select play as demo (I will purchase this game and get the group to IF these kind of issues have a fix available no doubt)

It loads the next screen.. and being this particular tablet pc comes with the Wacom Digitizor Pen.. this is what I use for a mouse.

Unfortunately, the on screen pointer leaps to the bottom of the screen when i move the pen to the middle of the screen then as I move the pen upwards, the cursor on screen begins to move with the digitizer pen but at that large offset mentioned above.

Is there a way to fix this as when I use the touch pad, the cursor follows the touchpad's movements as one would expect but the offset on the Digitizer Pen is way off and I am aiming to play this game with the digitizer pen as my primary mouse input?

PROBLEM 3
While I'm entering my User Name (Handle) in the first screen you come to after selecting "play as a demo" I decided that I would try playing the game in tablet mode so I spun the monitor around and locked it in only to find that a new error had popped up.

This program has stopped working blah blah blah.. please close.. apparantly one can't do that in this game.. but I can in every other game I've tried so I'm left wondering why not in this one. I started the game again in tablet mode and the above mentioned digitizer pen/cursor offset issue was still happening.

So far this is all I've ran into as far as problems go, I'm yet to actually reach the point where I start playing the game but I thought it would be best to notify of these issues before I start attempting to play incase other users that own tablet PC's know work-arounds for this stuff or know of some ways to optomise the game to get the most out of it as a tablet pc user.

[EDITS and UPDATES]

OK I can now confirm that the offset cursor/pen issue persists throughout all in game menues and into the actual gameplay. As I try to look around in game, I'd estimate that the offset would be a constant of 70 mm from the pen at about the 5 o'clock position (somewhere between the 4 and a 5 on an analog clock. This has made the game virtually unplayable the way I want to play it, the way I can play every other game I've tried.

I'm wondering why it doesn't take the mouse pointer's coordinates from the same place that windows is getting them from as it's perfectly calibrated in windows..

Any assistance on these things would be greatly appreciated.

[Edited on 28-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

[Edited on 28-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

[Edited on 1-28-2011 by MMaggio]

[Edited on 28-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 11:38 pm

Hopefully without causing more ire than you already have, I suggest you 'chill out" a bit and ask yourself this question, "How come I am the only person to have these problems out of the thousands of people who have bought the game and managed to log in just fine and play the game.
Is it possible that you might be a tad impatient and angry about something else that brought all this on?
In over 7 years as a member of this forum, I have never heard of anyone having the problems you describe. It might be some new problem that somehow has slipped past all these years, but would you be willing to take a breathe and consider, if only for a moment, that the problem just might be on your side?
Whatever you think, I will let someone else try to make you feel better. I'm noit sure I can help you at this time.
Best of luck

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 11:43 pm

Hi, Evidently i'm trolling my own post hoping someone more experienced with this game has ran into this before.

It kinda sucks that my first post had to be a bunch of problems that I encountered when attempting to play the game. But I spose it may help others if there can be some fixes. I noticed the following topic that related to correcting mouse offset (it's the closest thing I could get when scouring the forums for further information) :

http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtop ... 2#pid23744

I'm not sure if that program is for use with Evochron Mercenary or not cause it won't load the link provided in the post..

Regarding the use of the tablet pc's for the game, I am currently the only member of the group that is using the tablet pc for the game, the rest will be using standard laptops and desktops but they prolly won't wanna play it if it's not going to be enjoyable for all of us to play etc.. which is why I said that about the issues needing to have a workaround for the group to consider playing it etc..

It'd be be pretty tricky to send away this tablet to the developer as I need to use it for work etc . I do believe that it'd have something to do with the way the game is grabbing my pointer coordinates and perhaps some odd code is applying an offset to those coordintes.

anyways, thanks for the suggestions, hopefully this reply will shed a bit more light onto the situation.

EDIT] just saw a 2nd reply - I'm not at all more agitated than one would expect to be after having to fill out the registration forms 4 times plus the good hour it took to decypher or attempt to decypher the code at the bottom of the reg form.

The reason I'd guess no one has come up against these issues would be that this tablet pc is a very recent release with the latest components available inside of it... and I'd guess no other users have had access to the technology in the last 7 years etc..

Again I'm hoping someone might have come across the issue but knew how to fix it and therefore didn't feel the need to post the topic about it but perhaps you are right and no one has ever come across the issue due to the reason that I mentioned above.

[Edited on 28-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:07 am

Hello Jax_Cavalera, I don't recall anyone else trying to run the Sim on a tablet PC and Vice would be the one to know for sure if it can be done. Welcome to the forum and hopefully the Sim. See you out there sometime.

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:32 am

From post: 101135, Topic: tid=7216, author=thetiebers wrote:Hello Jax_Cavalera, I don't recall anyone else trying to run the Sim on a tablet PC and Vice would be the one to know for sure if it can be done. Welcome to the forum and hopefully the Sim. See you out there sometime.

Hey man thanks for the friendly welcome, is Vice the developer or just one of the first players to get on board at playing the game?

GORF · Post by **GORF** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:33 am

moooo ,

I've had this game running on an atom netbook , that tab pc should do it nicely onceyou get the bugs worked out.

Welcome to Evochron.

GORF

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:36 am

From post: 101137, Topic: tid=7216, author=Jax_Cavalera wrote:
From post: 101135, Topic: tid=7216, author=thetiebers wrote:Hello Jax_Cavalera, I don't recall anyone else trying to run the Sim on a tablet PC and Vice would be the one to know for sure if it can be done. Welcome to the forum and hopefully the Sim. See you out there sometime.
Hey man thanks for the friendly welcome, is Vice the developer or just one of the first players to get on board at playing the game?

Vice is the developer. He will be reading these posts if he has not done so yet. Hang in there.

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:39 am

cheers guys .. brings me a bit of hope if someone has gotten this to run on an atom before..

@GORF did you ever experience any pen to screen issues.. i didn't try the capacitive multitouch with it.. might do that now .. make sure it's just the digitizer and not all forms of touch that are offset

[EDIT] just tested the capacitive multitouch and yeah it's also got the offset issue though for it .. depending on where you initialy start to tap vs the pointer's location as to the angle of the offset .. but the distance is still the same as mentioned above..

[Edited on 29-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:44 am

Hi and Welcome Jax.

Vice is a great dev/problem fixer and he will most likely do all in his power to help you
solve this issue.

Hope to see you out there.

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:59 am

locked screen option? i'm running the game in full screen mode at the moment.. how do I set it up to run in this locked screen video option?

[EDIT] Just looked into the options area and saw somethign to do with video mode and it mentioned a locked option so i set it to that but it was in red at the time i clicked on it.. said i needed to restart for changes to take effect etc..

restarted the game and yeah same issue still will try all the other video options in there and see if something can work..will post the results.

-----------
OK
here is what I have found after some more testing

The changing of all video options so far hasn't made a difference but I do appreciate the suggestion none the less... as for the actual problem.. I just noticed that the distance and the offset direction when i have the stylus pointong to the bottom right of my screen is greater and closer to the 6 o'clock / 5 o'clock mark than when I move it to the top left.

at the top left of the screen.. the distance would be about 30mm max and the angle is closer to 3 o'clock.. so it's a gradient shift along that diagonal movement. this is pretty odd i'd think but may give a clue as to what is causing it as it's as if it is calculating the offset from a hiden radius somewhere just off the screen's viewable area to the top left ..

[Edited on 29-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

[Edited on 29-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 2:15 am

not that i'm aware of but acording to the utilities that come bundled with this there's no more updates available for the putey .. just updated the hdmi audio drivers this morning. so it's on the ball with updates.

I was just playing cstrike which registerd the nput properly, also did some cnc 3 kanes wrath no dramas there either .. if the game gets it's input values from directinput i might see if i can do some diagnositc tests in dxdiag under that tab.. dunno how successfull that'll go but i'll report back if I can find anything there.

[EDIT] turns out i can't run any diagnostic testes in this version of dxdiag .. woot .. but it said no problems detected etc when it does the automated testing upon starting up dxdiag.

[Edited on 29-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

Post by **Vice** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:23 am

Not sure on the monitor spinning issue, I'd be interested in more details on that error along with a msinfo report on the system. Indeed, there is no reason why this particular game and its engine would have a known problem with such an action. Just to verify, double check this action with both the 'Locked (FS)' screen mode and the 'Optimized (WM)' screen mode.

As for the pointer issue, I think I know the cause and it should now be mostly/entirely fixed for the next test build of the game. I'll need your help to determine if the problem is solved, either in part or fully, once the new test build is available for download. Should be available before the end of next week.

[Edited on 1-29-2011 by Vice]

Post by **Vice** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:41 am

Should be ok, as long as the game is running in the 'Optimized' screen mode. However, if that action deletes data from video memory or hinders any other core functional operation, then it could cause a problem. Unfortunately, I don't have one to test with and if that is indeed the cause, there may not be a fix for it on the game side of things (possibly an option in a driver update though).

The pointer issue should be resolved though, it requires redoing some of the mouse input system, but it's worth it in the long run. A number of players have reported the mouse reacts to rapidly to input anyway and adapting the input system to whatever resolution the player selects for the game is a way to solve both issues.

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 4:23 am

hi guys thank you Vice for jmping right onto this issue, I appreciate the support from you guys in this stuff.

While this might be the first case where the someone is trying to use the tablet pen i'm sure as these types of hybrid devices become even more prevelant umongst consumers that this kinda thing will need to eventually get taken care of

I'll start doing tests in all possible video modes AKA all locked and unlocked modes wth the rotation and see if that still crashes.. .. as for the crash report i'll try to get something but in win 7 home premium all it did was say the program has stopped working and needs to be closed .. didn't give me the good old windows XP send or don't send error report information. ( I'm relatively new to win 7 so i'm not sure how to access or use this msinfo report. will do a search in windows for it and see what I can pull up.

[EDIT]

In Locked [FS VSynch] mode running the game full screen - the screen goes black and I am forced to CTRL + ALT + DEL after swapping back to laptop mode to get back into windows.. once in windows It shows me that
Evochron Mercenary has stopped working and needs to be closed. [OK] that's all i get is an ok button

in Locked [FS] mode.. running the game full screen the same thing happens as described above

In Optomised [WM] the screen stays working and inverts the image as expected for tablet mode.. however I still get the popup that tells me that the program has stopped working and needs to be closed.

In Optomised [WM] with VSynch it does the exact same thing as described above.

I'll now try the Optomised [WM] running it in a window (if this is possible to do) ok i tried a shortcut with -w after the exe file etc... didn't work ALT + ENTER also didn't work.. so i can't test the WM in a window

--------------------------------------------

will now look for that msinfo thing.

[Edited on 29-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

[Edited on 29-1-2011 by Jax_Cavalera]

Post by **Vice** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 4:44 am

The game's site offers steps on preparing a MSINFO report: http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/faq.htm#8

The Optimized (WM) mode is a windowed mode, so that'll tell us if it fails in both full screen and windowed modes. If so, it would suggest something is getting deleted from memory along the way and/or interfering with something Direct3D is depending on.

Agree on the pointer issue. Even if it isn't a 'popular' option, it's an good thing to support and providing an input matrix that scales with the selected resolution helps resolve it and the rapid pointer movement issue.

[Edited on 1-29-2011 by Vice]

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 5:04 am

From post: 101162, Topic: tid=7216, author=Vice wrote: The game's site offers steps on preparing a MSINFO report: http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/faq.htm#8

The Optimized (WM) mode is a windowed mode, so that'll tell us if it fails in both full screen and windowed modes. If so, it would suggest something is getting deleted from memory along the way and/or interfering with something Direct3D is depending on.

[Edited on 1-29-2011 by Vice]

i've sent through the msinfo report to you as per the instructions provided in that link.

Regarding a detailed description of what happened when I would turn the tablet into tablet mode from laptop mode at the main menu :

The screen always flickers a little when it swaps over between rotations.. flickers then turns black then bout 2 seconds later is up and running again in the new rotation.

only in Optomised [WM] it comes back up as expected in the new rotation but it then proceeds to crash...hopefully the information in the msinfo report will be of some assistance.

I'm not sure how to get Evochron Mercenary to run in windowed mode but if there is a way I'd be keen to try that out too to see if the stylus works in windowed mode perhaps..

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 7:28 am

Hi Jax_Cavalera, welcome to the game and forum. Are you running any anti Virus programs? If so which one? Also make sure no background tasks are running when accesing the game. Also your graphics card driver can be the issue with accesing the game. Can you try an older earlier driver and see if that resolves the crashing issue?...

Jax_Cavalera · Post by **Jax_Cavalera** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 10:14 am

From post: 101170, Topic: tid=7216, author=Maarschalk wrote:Hi Jax_Cavalera, welcome to the game and forum. Are you running any anti Virus programs? If so which one? Also make sure no background tasks are running when accesing the game. Also your graphics card driver can be the issue with accesing the game. Can you try an older earlier and see if that resolves the crashing issue?...

Hey man thanks for the welcome,

I'm running NIS .. i haven't made a software exception for Evochron yet as the demo doesn't allow for network traffic and the scanner has classified the game directories as safe so it's not going to be blocking them from accessin ghte system .. i did have to run it as administrator to avoid several access errors that crashed the game upon startup.

I was doing some drivers upgrading yesterday to find a newer driver for the graphics card on this thing but it ended up dissabling multitouch etc.. so i've had to roll back a few drivers.. versions in that respect to get everything workign again on here .

I could try to update again but i'm a bit worried i'll lose the touch facilities on the tablet again if i attempt then i'll have to go back and try to system restore again which doesn't seem worth it in the length of time it can take to try and get working.