Monkey 4 - High CPU Usage problem

gabocaba · Post by **gabocaba** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:51 am

Hello. I'm having troubles with monkey 4. I know it's not supported by scummvm, but maybe some of you can help me.

The game runs with no problems, but when I check the cpu performance (on the windows task manager) it gets an abnormally high cpu usage. I tried the game in 2 different computers: a Pentium 4 3.00 GHz with 1 gb of RAM, and a Penitum II 350MHz. They both uses windows xp, and the game runs ok, but it gets a really high cpu usage (MI4 gets 50% on the first pc, and 100% on the second).

I have the latests patches, tried all the video configurations (open gl, direct x, 16bits, 32bits), I even tried running on compatibility mode, but no results.
I desisted from running the game, because at that performance it's killing my processors, and they're pretty retro (old), so they can't resist those performances.

As additional info, I had the same problem playing starcraft but there was a patch for this and it solved it.

Has anyone encountered the same problem?

thanks!

bobdevis · Post by **bobdevis** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:54 am

I believe this is normal behavior for those games.
They basically run as fast as they can (busy waiting loop) so they eat 100% on any machine.
Blizzard probably fixed this in Starcraft at some point because they cared enough.

One of your computers shows 50% load because it has a dual core processor. The game maxes out one of the 2 cores, that is 50% of total.
Edit: Oh, A P4 you say? They have hyper-threading, right? That is basically the same effect as 2 cores.

You can try the Mi4 launcher. That generally makes it easier to run the game on newer systems, but I have no idea if it takes care of the 100% load thing.
http://quick.mixnmojo.com/software#emisetup

gabocaba · Post by **gabocaba** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:46 pm

yep, that's exactly the problem. I tried the launcher but it didn't work either. Guess I'm stuck here. Many thanks anyway!

bobdevis · Post by **bobdevis** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 2:36 am

Fun fact: Windows 9x used to do this too.
If you run an unpatched Win9x in a virtual machine it will max out one core.
Ah, the good old days when no one cared about concurrency or power consumption

gabocaba · Post by **gabocaba** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 8:50 am

those were the days...

It's for sure that the problem is the win98/win xp incompatibility. I've tried running another game from those days (commandos 2) and I got the exact same problem. Damn.

It'll be nice to hear if anyone here is running mi4 on windows xp without having this problem..

Nikioko · Post by **Nikioko** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 10:29 am

Same question as here:

What does Monkey Island 4 have to do with ScummVM? It is not even supported, and it will never be.

This forum is for technical issues on ScummVM and the games it supports. If I have a problem with my car, I would ask a car mechaninic rather than an electrician.