I`ll say this again, because its something that keeps coming up again and again.
Lomac (and generally any games) never "sleep"... they never rest... the keep the CPU running all the time. They dont like other applications running.... in fact they dont even know they are there. Games are CPU and resource hogs. These other applications have to fight against games to get any time on the CPU. Normal applications that run on the desktop do sleep, and so all the applications co-operate, and allow each other to get time on the CPU as and when required. But games, by their very nature, need to be running all the time... so any application that runs at the same time as a game will steal CPU time from the game, and there isnt much anyone can do about that. Dual Core users are generally immune to this problem right now because most games only use one core, and the other applications that need to run will be handed CPU time on the other core, but as the next generation of games get developed and become dual-core aware, the problem will return.
TouchBuddy does sleep. While it is idle, it sleeps for 1/100th of a second, VERY briefly wakes up to check if it has to do anything, then goes back to sleep again. Every 10 waking cycles (i.e. 1/10th second), it checks some other things as well (hence why the anim updates are marked in the number of 1/10ths of a seccond). If the currently selected tab has an item on it that requires a constant update (active modules, animated buttons, hold-expire update, etc), then this gets done... then TouchBuddy goes back to sleep again. I could make TouchBuddy run all the time, never sleeping... the reaction time would be fantastic, and you game probably wouldnt stutter...but it would be running at half the current frame rate because it now has serious competition for CPU time from TouchBuddy
Given all that I have said above, there are two things you have to do to make the Lomac active modules update faster
*NOTE* THIS WILL SERIOUSLY AFFECT THE PERFORMANCE OF ANY RUNNING GAMES
#=======================
#1 - change the touchbuddy-export.lua script to update more often. On line #261 of that file , you will see an entry that looks like this:
the "1.0" part is how often (in seconds) it should update the data file. reduce this as required.
#=======================
#2 - tell TouchBuddy to update any active modules more often. In the touchbuddy.cfg file, look for this entries:
Quote:
# Animation update rate
# On tabs that have multiple image buttons or tabs (i.e animation), this value determines
# how often window updates happen. The value is in number on 0.1 seconds to wait between
# updates. A vaue of 10 will give you 0.1 x 10 seconds delay (or 1 second).
# WARNING: Decreasing this value increases the CPU time that TouchBuddy will use. Ideally
# anim_update and active_plugin_update (below) should be the same value, but they dont have to be.
anim_update = 10
#=====================
# Active "plugins"
#
# Active Plugin update rate
# On tabs that have active plugins (The Lomac TEWs for example), this value determines
# how often window updates happen. The value is in number on 0.1 seconds to wait between
# updates. A vaue of 10 will give you 0.1 x 10 seconds delay (or 1 second).
# WARNING: Decreasing this value increases the CPU time that TouchBuddy will use. Ideally
# anim_update (above) and active_plugin_update should be the same value, but they dont have to be.
active_plugin_update = 10
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Please be
VERY aware that decreasing the time between updates will steal even more CPU time from your running game.
You could possibly tell TouchBuddy to run at a lower priority to minimize the impact (in touchbuddy.cfg):
Quote:
**ONLY AVAILABLE IN v1.3.0 Rev. 12 and above **
# Set the process priority of TouchBuddy. This option can be set to:
# below_normal
# normal
# above_normal
# high
# (I *REALLY* do not recommend using the "below_normal" option in Local mode)
cpu_priority = normal
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but the problem here could be that in the fight for CPU time against an never-sleeping game, if you lower the TouchBuddy priority, it could/may appear to be running very sluggishly, especially if you are pushing your CPU to its limits by bumping up the view distance, AA/AF, scene level, etc. The harder the game is hammering the CPU, the less spare time the CPU will have for other applications that dont run all the time, and even more so for processes that have a lower than normal priority.
So, if you change things and your game runs at a slower frame rate than TouchBuddy, then dont say I didnt warn you