[Techie]Is often CPU restarting a bad thing?

Post by **Paul** » Wed May 24, 2006 23:28

I tought this would be rather offtopic, but since it's partially connected with Gzdoom and most of big heads hang around this subforum, I'll ask here.

Like I reported some time ago, Gzdoom screws up my tablet (not 100% sure, but my experimentation proves so). Graf, not in posession of this tool can't reproduce this bug to find the error, and I don't owe enough money to neither send him my comp nor bring him here for an inspection, so the only cure is to reset my machine often (restarting removes the effect, allowing me to work).

Since, working now on my project, I often do both-gfx work, and test test test and again test it in Gzdoom, restarts are often. Is this bad? Maybe I should seek help with the tablet itself? I really would have sacrifice something else for it, I don't have the money to buy a new pad and these things are expensive as hell!

DaniJ · Post by **DaniJ** » Thu May 25, 2006 18:41

You shouldn't need to restart just to get your tablet working again.

I too have the same problem with GZDoom (I own a Wacom Intuos3 A3 wide) and all I need to do is to restart the tablet driver manually.

Post by **Paul** » Thu May 25, 2006 19:33

Rly? It may sound a bit lame, but how do you do that? I presume the procedure is roughly the same despite differences with our tablets.

Also, since we're on this subject, do you happen to know why Gzdoom screws the tools in the first place?

DaniJ · Post by **DaniJ** » Thu May 25, 2006 20:28

Rly? It may sound a bit lame, but how do you do that? I presume the procedure is roughly the same despite differences with our tablets.

Make sure your not running Photoshop or similar when you do this:

With Wacom tablets you have two running processes TabUserW.exe and Tablet.exe - ALT+CRL+DEL will bring up task manager, there you can "End Process Tree" on both those apps.

After that simply start the "Wacom Tablet Properties" app via the XP Control Panel - That will bring the tablet manager back online and restart the tablet driver.

Also, since we're on this subject, do you happen to know why Gzdoom screws the tools in the first place?

No I don't. I could probably look into this for Graf if I had the time to get a GZDoom build environment up and running but atm I don't (I heard rumblings that ZDoom was moving over to a Visual C++ 2005 Express environment. I have no desire to use that IDE so if I can't build via commandline with vc-tk2k3 or MinGW without rewriting the build/make system its a bit of a show stopper AFAIC).

I would suspect its got something to do with the mouse cursor position; Is it being forced to a different location via the WinAPI? - If so I bet a pound to penny thats the cause.

Post by **Paul** » Thu May 25, 2006 20:46

Props to you Dani for the advice. Thanks for your time

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Thu May 25, 2006 21:20

DaniJ wrote: (I heard rumblings that ZDoom was moving over to a Visual C++ 2005 Express environment. I have no desire to use that IDE so if I can't build via commandline with vc-tk2k3 or MinGW without rewriting the build/make system its a bit of a show stopper AFAIC).

I got GZDoom converted to VC++2005 as well (I originally didn't want to but since Randy has already introduced some minor code incompatibilities it didn't make much sense to keep it at 2003.)

Why do you not want to use it? It's free and the only additional thing you need to install is the Platform SDK which you'd need anyway to create Windows applications if you don't want to be stuck with the compiler's native support.

DaniJ · Post by **DaniJ** » Thu May 25, 2006 21:32

Why do you not want to use it? It's free and the only additional thing you need to install is the Platform SDK which you'd need anyway to create Windows applications if you don't want to be stuck with the compiler's native support.

Its mainly due to a fear of change

I have my own little IDE I've setup with custom toolbars built-in to my XP desktop, system shortcuts etc using various different tools and apps. The fact I'm so used to them and my own makeshift solution it would take me a while to get used to a new setup thus slowing me down.

Really, its not that I have no desire to, its more that I don't have the time to make the change at present.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Thu May 25, 2006 21:35

I have 4 different compilers/IDEs installed and I work with all of them (Granted, 3 of the are M$ but still...

)

DaniJ · Post by **DaniJ** » Thu May 25, 2006 21:38

Well I've never been in that position.

I've never even used a commercial IDE other than the one supplied for Palm and ARM development (which put me off a bit I must say).

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Thu May 25, 2006 22:02

Never?

I've been working with stuff like this since the good old days of Turbo Pascal at school. That was 1987.

DaniJ · Post by **DaniJ** » Thu May 25, 2006 23:16

Nope, never. I'm not a professional programmer.

I started my programming carear about six years back when the web design company I worked for at the time suddenly realized (after years of badgering by my colleagues and I) that the future of web design was in dynamic sites with dynamic content and not static html.

At the time the only (web) programmer they had was only experienced with cgi and Java, he wanted to learn ASP. It was a pretty small company back then and for whatever reason they agreed to let him run with the ASP suggestion, creating a new team around that.

I didn't agree with that. It looked to me that things were not going in the ASP direction so I stepped forward and volunteered to learn to program in PHP using MySQL - in my own time.

Back then there were no IDE's tailored for development of dynamic web sites (not that I would have been able to afford one if there was) so I began the cycle of creating my own bespoke development setup using all sorts of programs and tools pulled from the web.

When I started to learn C, the only free IDE I could find for PC was DevC++ but I really didn't get on with it - so I continued doing what I had always done and built my own IDE. As my experience in C grew I started making my own tools too.

So here I am. Its 2006 and I'm still using my crazy bespoke setup.

Post by **Paul** » Mon May 29, 2006 16:10

Bump. Well I'd like to mention running Gzdoom in windowed mode seems to have ceased the tablet fux0ring up ^_^