MInimising

[Mere_Mortal]

When I minimise and return to the game, the result is a permanent black screen (I think the game is running normally, I just can't see it). Setting windowed mode has no effect, either by using the in-game options or by setting the value to 0 in the engine file. This problem means that I can't task-switch in order to note down anything relevant so far as bugs or recommendations are concerned. Every time I play I think "this shouldn't be so" or "I wish I could do this", but by the time I stop playing the game crashes I've forgotten it all.

Is there any fix for this problem?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

It's like that for me too.

 

[Armada]

Have you tried Alt+Tab to switch windows without minimising them?

 

[Mere_Mortal]

It doesn't matter which button combination I use to switch application. Actually, little did I realise until just now - since I changed full_screen to false in Engine.INI the problem has desisted, although the game still runs in full-screen mode.
Now I can make notes whilst the game is running! :nk

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That's indeed the trick; I've been doing that for quite some time and I usually tell people about it when they ask.
Maybe we should add it in the FAQ; or is it already in there?

 

[havoc1983]

Is this really the only way to go? Afaik this problem exists in all the Akella pirate games but I'm now playing for the first time with my current video card (nVidia GTX295). Playing in windowed mode disables vertical sync and because of this I sometimes get extremely high FPS which introduces a slowmotion effect just like film clips shot with a high-speed camera. Usually this happens in low polygon areas such as caves or inside a house. I'm now playing the game with 32x SLI anti aliasing to lower my FPS. This makes the game look very neat but my FPS now gets too low sometimes.

Would love to have a fix so I can play in full screen mode and still be able to alt-tab in and out of the game. Anyone who can tell us what to do gets a cargo hold full of rum. Oh.. and a cookie of course.

 

[morgan terror]

so that's what it is! i've been having slow motion inside houses as well, but only if there was someone else already inside.

 

[havoc1983]

Hmm... It seems I just found a fix for it which I tried before... Only it didn't work then. I used a small Java program called FPS limiter that - as the name suggests - can limit your FPS. I also used the RivaTuner on-screen display (to monitor GPU temps) and apparently it conflicts with FPS limiter. This time I turned RivaTuner's OSD off and FPS limiter worked fine. It's attached to this post so you can try it out. You need to have the Java platform (http://www.oracle.co...oads/index.html) installed for it to work. Start the program by executing the .jar file, not the .exe file.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I did actually run into that "inside slow motion turning" issue as well the other day when testing Jack Rackham's files.
Not at all sure where that comes from, because I always do play in windowed mode and never ever noticed it before.

 

[havoc1983]

Well in the cases mentioned by me it comes from having too high FPS, I'm positive about that as it also occurs in other older games that don't require much GPU power. But FPS Limiter fixes it for me.
If you have a program that can display your FPS, such as: Xfire, Fraps, RivaTuner, I suggest you use it to see what your FPS is when the slowmotion occurs. Unless the game has a built-in funtion to display FPS that I don't know about...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

One clear difference between my usual game version and the one that I was testing with
is that my regular one uses ENB Enhanced Graphics, but my test-version at the time didn't.
Maybe using ENB decreases the framerate and, in so doing, prevents the slow motion effect.

Does anyone know if the slow motion occurs also in the unmodified stock game?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

This is getting repetitive. Yes, I have two stock POTC's installed on my hds. Never played them tho.

GTX275 here. I gave it a quick test last night in my current install. Turned off vsync and went to the shipyard. I use 16x AA/AF. Fps was 125-130 and there was no slowdown. What kind of fps does it take to go into slo-mo mode? Also, I found that turning off vsync also disables the video settings in "options".

Also, in the Nvidia control panel in "program settings" POTC is listed as Cossacks II. Don't ask me why.

 

[havoc1983]

I'm not sure about how much FPS it takes but I think it starts around 400.
PotC appears as Cossacks II because that game (and a whole bunch of other games) also uses the name engine.exe for it's executable. It's possible (but unnecessary) to change it with a tool called nVidia Inspector.