rec.autos.simulators

by **Marc Collin** » Sun, 25 Apr 1999 04:00:00

My SCGT doesn't seem to deactivate my Windows screen saver when I am using
just the wheel and pedals. Mouse and buttons during the menus of course
work, but after the appropriate period of just plain driving, on comes the
saver--fun when you are just about to enter a turn!!!

Anyone else experience this? All my other Glide/3dfx titles do not have this
problem.

Marc.

--
****************************************************************************
Marc Collins

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist---"
General John B. Sedgwick's last words, 1864
****************************************************************************

by **Marc Collin** » Mon, 26 Apr 1999 04:00:00

That's funny--I own almost every racing sim and game made, plus a whack of
other games (Quake, Doom, Unreal, etc.) and this is the first time I have
experienced this problem.

Why would I want to manually turn my screen saver off and on every time I
play a game when competent programmers can do it for me?

Marc.

> On Sat, 24 Apr 1999 17:55:30 GMT,

> >My SCGT doesn't seem to deactivate my Windows screen saver when I am
using
> >just the wheel and pedals. Mouse and buttons during the menus of course
> >work, but after the appropriate period of just plain driving, on comes
the
> >saver--fun when you are just about to enter a turn!!!

> >Anyone else experience this? All my other Glide/3dfx titles do not have
this
> >problem.

> >Marc.

> Turn off screensavers during ALL ***.

> --
> // rrevved posts from mindspring dot com

by **John Walla** » Mon, 26 Apr 1999 04:00:00

>Because game programmers are primarily interested
>in writing games, not dealing with screensaver issues.

Turning off a screen saver is as fundamental to game programming as
remembering to display the game on the screen. It's one of those
things that make you think "If they've forgotten about that...."

Cheers!
John

by **=Gunslinge** » Mon, 26 Apr 1999 04:00:00

What an idiot you can be sometimes John.

--
-Gunslinger-

by **Daxe Rexfor** » Mon, 26 Apr 1999 04:00:00

Since every computer I can think of built in the last few years shuts off the
monitor after a user-specified interval, why would anyone bother with a
screen-saver?

~daxe

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by **John Bod** » Tue, 27 Apr 1999 04:00:00

Screen savers (ESPECIALLY 3D screen savers that use OpenGL graphics)
cause a HUGE hit on CPU loading in networked Windows NT machines when
running apps like MS Word and Excel. The "blank screen" screen saver
is the only thing we recommend that our users employ as a screen saver
if they deal with large databases, compilers, etc. Even when a screen
saver isn't active, it is STILL chewing up CPU clock cycles in the
background, and if that even bogs down Microsoft applications like
Word and Excel, then you can bet that it's not good for ***
performance -- and if Microsoft can't do anything about it to help
Microsoft applications, how can we POSSIBLY expect game companies to
do any better?

If you play games, turn off the screen savers -- ESPECIALLY if it's an
OpenGL 3D screen saver.

-- JB

On Sun, 25 Apr 1999 17:36:26 GMT, "Marc Collins"

>That's funny--I own almost every racing sim and game made, plus a whack of
>other games (Quake, Doom, Unreal, etc.) and this is the first time I have
>experienced this problem.

>Why would I want to manually turn my screen saver off and on every time I
>play a game when competent programmers can do it for me?

>Marc.

>> On Sat, 24 Apr 1999 17:55:30 GMT,

>> >My SCGT doesn't seem to deactivate my Windows screen saver when I am
>using
>> >just the wheel and pedals. Mouse and buttons during the menus of course
>> >work, but after the appropriate period of just plain driving, on comes
>the
>> >saver--fun when you are just about to enter a turn!!!

>> >Anyone else experience this? All my other Glide/3dfx titles do not have
>this
>> >problem.

>> >Marc.

>> Turn off screensavers during ALL ***.

>> --
>> // rrevved posts from mindspring dot com

by **Marc Collin** » Tue, 27 Apr 1999 04:00:00

He is not an idiot, nor is his comment idiotic. As for you....

I still would like to ask all of you apparent screen saver programming
experts--why is SCGT the only game/sim. out of about 30 that I own to have
this problem??? You make it sound like everyone should be expected to turn
off their screen saver. As for running Norton, etc., I wouldn't employ
programs of that sort whether I was running games or not, but that has
nothing to do with my original post. I wasn't referring to anything but
screen savers, which are not in the same category as Microsoft Office Fast
Find and Norton save me from my own stupidity catch-all utilities.

Marc.

What an idiot you can be sometimes John.

--
-Gunslinger-

by **GypsyMet** » Tue, 27 Apr 1999 04:00:00

I used to have a screen saver.... until it crashed every other game I tried to
run while it was on. Perhaps games have gotten better at this since then, but I
thought it was just gamers common knowledge that screen savers and games don't
mix. The number one recommended fix on just about every game FAQ is "Make sure
and close all programs before running this game" - and many of these
specifically mention screen savers.

Beyond this, computer moniters haven't actually needed screen savers since
sometime in the 80's - you can leave your monitor on from here to Jupiter and
back again and not get any screen "burn-in" (I know this isn't particularly
relavent to the arguement at hand, but it does point out that this isn't
exactly a necessary program or anything)

And I have to agree about wanting games to be as "hands off" as possible with
my PC. I swear if one more program tries to install "Sierra Utilities" on my
PC, I'm gonna throttle somebody!

by **John Bod** » Tue, 27 Apr 1999 04:00:00

Both the SCGT demo, the NFSIII demo, and the full version of Viper
Racing have all given me problems with the screen saver -- apparently
you've been very lucky. Maybe your system is more high-end than the
rest of us (I'm using an AMD K62-333 with 32 MB of memory). If a
screen saver is desired to prevent "burn-in," then the best screen
saver would be a blank screen, so why bother at all? Granted, there
are some cool screen savers out there, but they are all problems
waiting to happen for gamers.

-- JB

On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 03:45:09 GMT, "Marc Collins"

>He is not an idiot, nor is his comment idiotic. As for you....

>I still would like to ask all of you apparent screen saver programming
>experts--why is SCGT the only game/sim. out of about 30 that I own to have
>this problem??? You make it sound like everyone should be expected to turn
>off their screen saver. As for running Norton, etc., I wouldn't employ
>programs of that sort whether I was running games or not, but that has
>nothing to do with my original post. I wasn't referring to anything but
>screen savers, which are not in the same category as Microsoft Office Fast
>Find and Norton save me from my own stupidity catch-all utilities.

>Marc.

>>Turning off a screen saver is as fundamental to game programming as
>>remembering to display the game on the screen. It's one of those
>>things that make you think "If they've forgotten about that...."

>What an idiot you can be sometimes John.

>--
>-Gunslinger-

by **John Walla** » Tue, 27 Apr 1999 04:00:00

Of course I can, but this is not such an occasion.

Should programmers expect you to disable your own screen saver, choose
the appropriate resolution and colour depth etc before starting every
game? No, because they can do it in an instant while the game is
loading.

Cheers!
John

by **Dean** » Tue, 27 Apr 1999 04:00:00

I think all of you that are giving Marc a hard time don't understand....
Sure it's easy to turn off the screensaver but... I'm with Marc. EVERY sim
that I have give me the ability to (or already does) disable the screen
saver. all of Papyrus Sims (except SODA) are DOS apps and I can go into the
properties of the shortcut and disable the screen saver (so do all the NFS
titles). Others, like GPL run under windows and I don't have the DOS
options like in ICR2 and N2, but the PC recognizes that something is running
and doesn't engage the screensaver.

My kids like the screen savers. So I have them turned on for them. I think
that EA missed the boat on this one. It IS annoying to have to disable the
screensaver each time I launch SCGT.

And I know because I own almost every SIM that comes out...

ICR1, ICR2, Nascar, Nascar2, Nascar99, GPL, SCGT, NFSII, GP2, SODA, Micheal
Andretti's Racing Challenge, CPR

and even some real oldies... Anyone remember "STUNTS", "TEST DRIVE" (the
original), Bill Elliots Nascar Challenge. Or how about "Indianapolis 500 -
The Simulation" by Papyrus.

All of which I can disable the screen saver from the Properties of the DOS
shortcut, or the PC recognizes that somethings running and doesn't engage
it. All that is but SCGT.

Dean

>He is not an idiot, nor is his comment idiotic. As for you....

>I still would like to ask all of you apparent screen saver programming
>experts--why is SCGT the only game/sim. out of about 30 that I own to have
>this problem??? You make it sound like everyone should be expected to turn
>off their screen saver. As for running Norton, etc., I wouldn't employ
>programs of that sort whether I was running games or not, but that has
>nothing to do with my original post. I wasn't referring to anything but
>screen savers, which are not in the same category as Microsoft Office Fast
>Find and Norton save me from my own stupidity catch-all utilities.

>Marc.

>>Turning off a screen saver is as fundamental to game programming as
>>remembering to display the game on the screen. It's one of those
>>things that make you think "If they've forgotten about that...."

>What an idiot you can be sometimes John.

>--
>-Gunslinger-

rec.autos.simulators

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SCGT and screen saver