win7: setting perminant core affinity (and other old game > windows 7 fixes)

windows 7 specifically

from Elemental Forums

So, some games don't know how to deal with multi-threading and do some crazy stuff.   Stuff includes:  animating twice as fast as it should, taking any input command twice (1 click = 2 clicks), or just locking up and crashing.  Back in the day, you had to start the program, get open task manager (which was a pain if said game did other crazy stuff when you minimized it), and set core affinity to use only one CPU.

 

So... now windows 7 is out, and do we have a fix for this?  Surely after windows 2000, XP, and Vista somebody at microsoft got it through their heads to let you add a command to the  shortcut or something to start with only 1 core?  or a feature I can't seem to find in compatibility perhaps?

 

(on another but related note, why does windows 7 not support 16-bit color?   I have a game that can't be played properly in 32-bit color for some reason, and looks like crap in 8-bit color.)

52,805 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Windows 7 does support 16-bit colour, you just have to change it in the monitor settings. (follow the advanced settings link under screen resolution)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


So... now windows 7 is out, and do we have a fix for this?  Surely after windows 2000, XP, and Vista somebody at microsoft got it through their heads to let you add a command to the  shortcut or something to start with only 1 core?  or a feature I can't seem to find in compatibility perhaps?

Your best solution would be to dual bot XP. I wish MS people could just stop supporting all the crap out there instead of having to use their time building fixes for those things (because if a game gets messed because of multithreading, sorry, it's the game fault, like old games that go crazy fast because they didn't control right the CPU speed).

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Your best solution would be to dual bot XP. I wish MS people could just stop supporting all the crap out there instead of having to use their time building fixes for those things (because if a game gets messed because of multithreading, sorry, it's the game fault, like old games that go crazy fast because they didn't control right the CPU speed).

Its the same in XP.   I'm asking if they changed something in Win7 to make  it different from XP.   running in XP would be worse at best, and the same at worst.   I'm also leery  to duel-boot because I've 8GB of ram in my tower...  and I don't feel comfortable running a 32-bit OS with more than 4GB of ram.  (running 64-bit XP could only make it worse)

I know its the game's fault, but it is something the OS should be able to fix.  I mean it CAN fix it, its just in win 2000, XP, and vista you have to manually fix it every time.  And it isn't that the game can't control CPU speed (I'm talking about a windows game, not dos) it is that it does not understand "2 CPUs" so no matter what speed it sets the CPU to be, its getting more than it needs.    I'm trying to figure out if Win 7 has a way to fix it on a regular basis. 

I guess duel-booting in XP would let me use some of the older non-UAC-ready programs to limit CPU and memory usage, but thats really avoiding the issue.  (and is very tough considering the system  I'm running.   CPU killer, for example, does not turn down my setting enough to compensate for the fact the game is running at twice the speed it should)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

If you're comfortable with it and the game is old enough, you could do a virtual machine (VirtualPC or VMware, etc.) - then you can tell it to have just one CPU, a low screen resolution and 16-bit video.

Yeah, there's a performance penalty for a VM, but if the game is old enough that you're having these problems then a VM might be perfect.

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

Stuff includes: animating twice as fast as it should

That one at least was just a matter of updating your CPU drivers under XP. I haven't heard of any such issue in newer versions of windows.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 3

Its the same in XP.   I'm asking if they changed something in Win7 to make  it different from XP.   running in XP would be worse at best, and the same at worst.   I'm also leery  to duel-boot because I've 8GB of ram in my tower...  and I don't feel comfortable running a 32-bit OS with more than 4GB of ram.  (running 64-bit XP could only make it worse)

There's no problem running a 32 bit system with 8GB of RAM.

Quoting landisaurus, reply 3

I know its the game's fault, but it is something the OS should be able to fix.  I mean it CAN fix it, its just in win 2000, XP, and vista you have to manually fix it every time.  And it isn't that the game can't control CPU speed (I'm talking about a windows game, not dos) it is that it does not understand "2 CPUs" so no matter what speed it sets the CPU to be, its getting more than it needs.    I'm trying to figure out if Win 7 has a way to fix it on a regular basis.

I said the old games mistake of no controlling the CPU speed because it's the same type of problem: wrong assumptions. I'm in the camp that hopes MS doesn't devote a single cent to support those things: first it frees money for more important things and second it encourages people writting good programs so something similar doesn't happen to them in the future.

Reply #7 from Demigod Forums Top

This isn't something I've had to deal with yet, but I dont' really see why it needs a "shortcut" to do.  If you know the game needs to have the single core setting, set it up before you play.  You can probably even make a java script to do this and tie it into the shortcut link.