Author Topic: Time display problem  (Read 4645 times)

Yo_Bee

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Time display problem
« on: February 24, 2006, 06:18:26 PM »
I have a laptop
700 Mhz
320 MB Ram
and a F%^&ed up HDD.

With reference to the time display, elapse time and Session time.

I noticed a delay between the various clocks with secs being missed.
I would like to be able to display the Actual time, but not the seconds. The other clocks I think are ok to have the second accept when the elapse time exceeds 1 hour.

If there is a way I can modify it myself that would be great.


Corey Cooper

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2006, 01:11:09 PM »
With a 700MHz processor, you are skirting the minimum requirements.  The clock should never run slowly, but you might see seconds "missed" if the processor isn't powerful enough to update the display every second.  This will depend on a number of factors.  I've successfully used the program on a PC with a 500MHz processor, but I wouldn't do it with a complex layout or a tournament with a lot of players.

As for displaying the seconds part of the time, most tokens that display time (clock, currenttime, elapsedtime, etc) have an optional attribute "displaySeconds", which you can use to turn the display of the seconds on or off.  On the Layout tab, double-click a cell to edit it, then press the Insert Token button.  There you can select which token you wish to insert, for whatever item it is you wish to display, and turn the displaySeconds attribute on or off.

Yo_Bee

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2006, 08:23:35 PM »
thanks for the info.

I found it after I posted and before I read this post.

TY

_Hithere_

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2006, 01:24:18 AM »
Just a bonus on this topic,  the clock tokens that do not have the show seconds option when adding them still take the html tag that suppresses the seconds that appears in the clocks that give the choice.

PPPanimal

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2007, 12:45:19 AM »
Firstly, I think this is a great program.  Truly has all the features i require and more.
However, I too find it runs REALLY slow for a program of its type.
I have a 1 gig computer (laptop) that i tested the program on and it runs like crap.  Runs like a dream on my 3gig system.  But i don't want to bring this into the game room every poker night, thats what my laptop is for.
The time does not update and sometimes the Main screen will simply not even show up.
It will show the seating, and the ranking page but seem to freeze up while the main screen should be showing.
then the other screens will show again as they should and the time there runs fine.

I had to remove MANY of the main screen features to get it to display properly and run the time without missing seconds or freezing.
I took programming in college and have programmed a few things myself so understand enough to say that i THINK this is simply programmed wrong.  Their is no way that it should require so much power to run a program like this.  I Assume, :) that your main screen is calculating all the fields showing many MANY times a second where this is not needed.  Many of the fields don't change during a whole round so don't need to be recalculated over and over, and the ones that do change only change after user input like the players left or average chips.  These would only need to be calculated once after each user input.  The time seems to me to be the only thing that requires CPU power while the main screen is running.  Sure, you have about 3 time fields updating constantly but i feel they should only be updated say every half second or something like that and have the CPU rest/wait before having it recheck and display the time again.  From the GREAT job you have done with all that this software does i again assume that you know how to program VERY well but ask myself why this screen requires so much power to run?  I have seen programs of mine react like this when i have forgotten to put a wait command in a loop resulting in the CPU racing like mad running the loop over and over causing the other elements of my program to freeze till the loop condition is meet and it exits to a different part of the program where i have waits.  at this point the CPU power is freed up and the other parts of the program start to run properly again.  Could this sort of thing be happening in your main screen part of your program or am i way off here?  I run some big games on this laptop and they have a lot more going on at one time then your program, and they run fine.  What gives?  I think you will find allot more people buying this if they can run it on their slower laptops like me.  I really want to buy this, please make it run smoother and more efficient.  Another thing that could help if i am right in assume something again.  lol.  the screen should only be updated or redrawn each time something changes.  or better yet, just once a second update the time and all other fields, then let it be, while letting the CPU rest and waiting till the time changes, recalculate the other fields and display all updates before again going into a wait cycle.  furthermore, you don't need to redraw all fields on each screen update, only the ones that changed.  Anyway, i am assuming allot and am likely way off on a number of points.  just wanted to give you some things to consider and fix if infact they are as i assume they might be.  Good luck, and GGGGGGREAT job on this man.  I love the Program.

macacan

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2007, 08:55:58 AM »
Wow, all that's above me, all I can say is that TD runs brilliant on my lap top.
I have never had any probs, you lot all seem to know what you are talking about, so I
will leave it all to you.
I just wanted to say how much I enjoy using TD and the help Corey gives is second to none.
I do believe as time as gone on it is more numpty friendly, well me being a numpty thats great.
When I have to use the codes and formulas I am completely lost.

So great prog and great after sales and what great help from all the other users on this forum.


macacan

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Corey Cooper

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #6 on: January 19, 2007, 10:35:51 AM »
Thanks for the input.  For the record, a lot of time has been spent making it as efficient as possible.  Sections of the screen are always only updated when they change.  And a lot of caching is used to prevent regenerating anything on the screen except when absolutely necessary.

As I said in an earlier post, I've successfully run this on a 500MHz computer.  I wouldn't necessarily want to, but it worked for me.

If you are running this on a 1GHz computer and are seeing updates *not* occurring, or even screens not displaying (I assume you mean during screen rotation), then I would suggest that there is something else wrong.  You might check how many other programs you have running.  A basic Windows XP install should have about 25 to 30 processes running (in the background - check the Windows Task Manager).  I recently bought a laptop and the manufacturer had so much "crap" pre-installed, it had over 70 processes running at any given time.  Tons of completely unnecessary stuff taking up CPU time and resources (memory, mainly).  Secondly, because the software is hosted by Internet Explorer, having anything wrong with IE (and this happens a lot), or having a bunch of IE plug-ins, can wreak havoc with the software.

DragonII

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2007, 11:13:36 AM »
I have no plm to run TD on Pentium III 800 Mhz with 320 mb memory, and have tested up to 300 players without plms. Runs fine for my laptop.

tandemrx

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #8 on: January 19, 2007, 04:57:35 PM »
I use TD on a P3 600mghz 256 ram laptop running Win98 sent to 3 monitors.

It works fine for tourneys up to 20 people.  Only thing that happens occaissionaly is the clock skipping a second or 2 on the screen (so sometimes it misses a sound event).

My screen refresh without problems.

I did have to use the system chip discs rather than pictures of my own chips that I have, because my pictures were big files and it slowed down the screen refreshes - but the system chip colors work and look fine.

PPPanimal

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Re: Time display problem
« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2007, 08:29:10 PM »
Well...not what i wanted to hear.  lol
I wanted this to be all your problem, not mine.  ha ha
Thanks alot for the fast reply.  I will look around my laptop here and see what i can remove from processes etc.
and ya, its a 1 gig, but a celeron and only 240meg ram.
But from the other replies i guess i should be able to get it running better.
glad to hear that you only have things calculated when needed etc rather than how i thought it was done.
So far this is the best poker director i have found for the money so i will likely send you some cash when the demo runs out.