Input slowdown with Mass Effect in git

Das Letzte Einhorn · Post by **Das Letzte Einhorn** » Mon May 30, 2011 8:17 pm

This usually occurs to me after about 15-20 minutes of playing Mass Effect in git and the latest xorg-server for gentoo (1.10.2). Overrides are d3dx9_36 and dinput8 (http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16822).

After some time, the input response from the keyboard slows to about 1000 ms, hence making the game unplayable. The mouse input however remains sharp. When I quit the game, the keyboard input remains slow when I type in Konsole or browse the web. When I go to full screen console (CTRL+ALT+F1) and type, the keyboard input is fine. From what I understand, this could be a wine-x11 or a xorg-server bug.

The output from the game reveals nothing to really show the problem. I would like to have some input from the devs on how to find out what's wrong. How could I find if it's a wine-x11 or a xorg-server issue? Any other folks experiencing this too?

Thanks!

jjmckenzie · Post by **jjmckenzie** » Mon May 30, 2011 9:26 pm

On 5/30/11 6:17 PM, Das Letzte Einhorn wrote:

This usually occurs to me after about 15-20 minutes of playing Mass Effect in git and the latest xorg-server for gentoo (1.10.2). Overrides are d3dx9_36 and dinput8 (http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16822).

After some time, the input response from the keyboard slows to about 1000 ms, hence making the game unplayable. The mouse input however remains sharp. When I quit the game, the keyboard input remains slow when I type in Konsole or browse the web. When I go to full screen console (CTRL+ALT+F1) and type, the keyboard input is fine. From what I understand, this could be a wine-x11 or a xorg-server bug.

Here is something you can try next time this happens:

Open the full screen session and type in:

ps -ef | grep wine

This should give you a listing of processes running under Wine with the
game functional.

Switch back to the game's console and stop the program.

Switch back to the full screen session and repeat the command. There
should be NO Wine processes running. If there are, type in wineserver
-k (this kills the Wine server and should stop all Wine processes.)

Check if a windowed keyboard session now displays the problem. If it
does then this might be an xorg problem. If it does not, this does not
mean that Wine is the cause.

Try to get the problem to occur again, but do NOT stop the wine
processes. Now go to a windowed session and see if the problem is
present and then stop the Wine processes. If the problem goes away, it
is very likely, but not 100% that the problem is with Wine.

Others may add to troubleshooting procedures.

James McKenzie

Martin Gregorie · Post by **Martin Gregorie** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:49 am

On Mon, 2011-05-30 at 19:25 -0700, James McKenzie wrote:

Others may add to troubleshooting procedures.

During the slow run, start a terminal session and run

top

in it. Make a note of any programs that are consistently at the head of
the list and using more than 5-10% of the CPU. Exit 'top' by hitting the
'q' key.

Repeat this when Mass Effect is running normally. Any processes that are
only using a lot of CPU when Mass Effect is slow are likely to be
causing the slow down.

Martin

Das Letzte Einhorn · Post by **Das Letzte Einhorn** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 7:10 pm

Hmm, in today's git I have been able to play for more than two hours straight with no keyboard input slowdown issues. I will continue to test this during the week and see if it happens again.

Das Letzte Einhorn · Post by **Das Letzte Einhorn** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 8:44 pm

Ok, it happened again a couple of times today. I started a new game, so I'm wondering if it has something to do with this. Meanwhile, here are the results of the commands you both have suggested.

xavier@xavier ~ $ ps -ef | grep wine
xavier 2535 1 4 20:48 ? 00:01:00 /usr/local/bin/wineserver
xavier 2541 2539 0 20:48 ? 00:00:00 C:\windows\system32\winedevice.exe MountMgr
xavier 2862 2855 0 21:09 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --colour=auto wine

typing "top" reveals that MassEffect.exe eats 40% of my cpu, hence two cores out of 4. Makes sense to me.

After killing the program,

xavier@xavier ~ $ ps -ef | grep wine
xavier 3043 2855 0 21:15 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --colour=auto wine

The keyboard slowdown still happens in X after killing the app. Hence it seems like an X bug to me. I will file something on the X bugzilla and report back if they ask anything.

Das Letzte Einhorn · Post by **Das Letzte Einhorn** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 8:52 pm

Report filled : https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37965

Post by **DanKegel** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 10:30 am

So after killing wine and the game, did 'top' show an idle system?

That would be quite interesting if keyboard input was delayed in xterm
even after killing wine and all wine apps, and the system was idle.

Das Letzte Einhorn · Post by **Das Letzte Einhorn** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 9:17 pm

DanKegel wrote:So after killing wine and the game, did 'top' show an idle system?

That would be quite interesting if keyboard input was delayed in xterm
even after killing wine and all wine apps, and the system was idle.

Top showed an idle system after killing MassEffect.exe. The input was still delayed in X/KDE after killing MassEffect.exe.

triso · Post by **triso** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:02 pm

Das Letzte Einhorn wrote:Ok, it happened again a couple of times today. I started a new game, so I'm wondering if it has something to do with this.
The keyboard slowdown still happens in X after killing the app. Hence it seems like an X bug to me. I will file something on the X bugzilla and report back if they ask anything.

Since you're using KDE, is it possible you are accidentally turning on slow keys or bounce keys? Using the KDE control panel then accessibility to confirm this. Turn on the "pop-up confirmation window" and restart your game. You can manually set slow keys by pressing the shift key five times.

Das Letzte Einhorn · Post by **Das Letzte Einhorn** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:02 pm

triso wrote:
Das Letzte Einhorn wrote:Ok, it happened again a couple of times today. I started a new game, so I'm wondering if it has something to do with this.
The keyboard slowdown still happens in X after killing the app. Hence it seems like an X bug to me. I will file something on the X bugzilla and report back if they ask anything.
Since you're using KDE, is it possible you are accidentally turning on slow keys or bounce keys? Using the KDE control panel then accessibility to confirm this. Turn on the "pop-up confirmation window" and restart your game. You can manually set slow keys by pressing the shift key five times.

In accessibility all the "special keys" (bounce, slow, sticky, etc.) were already disabled. I also tested in KDE the "press shift 5 times" command you suggested, and the slow keys do not get active.