Hi all. I just bought CM11 and installed in on my desktop computer (P4 2.8GHz, 500 Meg hard drive, 1Gig Ram, ATI 9600 video card) nad it is unbearable to play. The tutorials and puzzles play well but no matter who Ichoose as an opponent in training mode, they move extremely slowly. The task manager reads 100% CPU for theking350. I tried turing off post game analysis but that did not help. I have no problems playing other DirectX games. I tried installing the game on my laptop which has a much slower video card and a much slower processor and it works fine. Can someone help me figure out why it worn't run on my dekstop computer?

Thanks,
DRC

Try the following setting for the engine:
Go to Preferences->Engine and set the "Chess Engine Used" to Medium or Low resources engine.
The CM10 engine will be used when you set this to low resources engine(no multithreading).
The medium resources engine refers to the new engine(TheKing 3.50) without multithreading.

Sorry about that. I shyould have been a little more clear about what I meant by 100% CPU utilization. No matte what the time limit is set to (for example, 5 seconds per move) if I play white and make my first move, the computer responds almost instanatly becasue it is in book BUT after it moves its piece, both closks stop and the move list is not updated for around 2 minutes. During this time I can't doanything else on my computer (i.e. bring upi the task manager or the start menu, etc). The computer seems frozen until the move list is updated. Once the move list is updated I can make another move but after the computer makes its move then both clocks stop again and I must wait for the move list to be updates (another 2 minute wait). I have tried setting the engine priority to its lowest, disableing sound and sliding pieces but none of those setting seem to make a difference. Thanks for anyhelp you can offer.

DRC

Hi all. I have found a solution that works (there may be other solutions as well). In my BIOS options I changed my video cache mode from UC to USWC then rebooted. Now Chessmaster works as it should without having to diminish the strength of the engine. Chessmaster must aaccess the video in a strange manner that requires this setting on my motherboard. My FPS action games requiring DirectX don't seem to care about this setting. Thanks to all that attempted to help.

DRC

I have the same 100% CPU problem (well 50% because I have a Core 2 Duo processor).

It's NOT the engine, as soon as the game loads up before you even start playing, "game.exe" shoots up to 50% CPU load.

I don't feel like messing around with my BIOS settings (I don't even know how to change them) to fix what seems to be an obvious bug in the program.

Any other suggestions?

This is even a bigger problem on my single CPU notebook computer. As soon as you run Chessmaster, the CPU shoots up to 100% and the all computer is hosed.

"Normal behavior" is a bug.

Fritz only causes the CPU to go up when it's actually thinking. Which is how you'd expect a chess program to behave.

If this is considered "normal" such that the programmers aren't going to fix it with a patch, then I say this program sucks.

You're correct that I don't notice it on my desktop (Core 2 Duo) computer, but I most certainly notice it on my single-core notebook computer, because the fan cranks up to full power as soon as the program loads. And no, I don't think it's good for a tiny notebook to run at full CPU for extended periods of time. Laptops have been known to explode: photo of exploding laptop

The picture posted had nothing to do with the CPU running at 100%. It was a battery defect that resulted in a major Dell recall a couple of years back. Chessmaster 10 also ran at 100% if I remember right which I agree shouldn't be the case, especially on a laptop. The CPU uses significantly more power when running at high processing load. This of course results much quicker drain in the battery charge.

Well here's some weird behavior:

After I go into online mode, then exit back to the main menu, then go into game playing mode, voila! The CPU is now running normally and not at 100%. It spikes up when the computer is thinking, and after the computer makes its move, it goes back down close to zero where it belongs.

Clearly a bug. Why can't the CPU behave that way without having to go into online mode first? After you shut down Chessmaster and restart it, it goes back into 100% CPU mode again, until you fix it by going online and then going back to the main menu.

The main menu is always at 100% CPU regardless.

Running the laptop at 100% drains the battery really fast, AND it makes the laptop hot which is a problem if you are actually using it on your lap. Furthermore, although there's no doubt the exploding laptops were defective, I do think that running them at full load is what triggered the battery explosions, because the batteries (due to defect) were unable to handle the excessive heat. It's not good for laptop hardware to run at full load for an extended period of time.

Unless your Gary Kasparov (and I'm not even close), Chessmaster doesn't need to think at full power for extended periods of time in order to kick your butt.

It's understandable that a laptop can't play a game with hot graphics like Halo III, but the only reason it can't play chess (which is not graphics intensive) is because of poor programming.

CMX behaved the same way on start up. I do remember that we found a solution for that problem. A NO-DVD patch might help or setting it to opengl...can't quite remember.

I'll look up the CMX forum and see what i can find

Looks like CM10 had the EXACT same bug and the EXACT same workaround I discovered about going online:
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/760105752/m/48...871091445#4871091445

This is the most incredibly pathetic thing I've ever seen. Ubisoft charges $40 for an upgrade that carries over a known bug from the previous edition, one that people complained about many times in the message boards here, and one that makes the program unusable for many users, especially laptop users.

Running under a clean boot helps these kind of problems, but it is not at all harmful for processors to run at 100 percent.

Clean boot:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

I don't think some of you understand what is actually happening, but I appreciate your efforts.

This has NOTHING to do with video card drivers, or the fact that it is running on a single-core processor. It is a BUG.

Here is my setup:

AMD Athlon64 3700+ (2.41GHz)
2-GB PC3200 RAM
nVidia Geforce 7800GS

All of my drivers are up to date.

The training mode starts fine.

After the first CPU move, the game freezes. It locks up, utilizing 100% of the CPU, and rendering all other applications useless. This is not normal. It is a bug. No other chess software I have used has this type of problem, including Fritz 11. Fritz 11 runs fine, and does not lock-up. This is not a hardware problem.

EDIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As was posted above(thanks to HalfSigma), I just logged onto the online server, went back to the main menu, then started training mode.

I changed the engine preferences from low to medium, The blunder alert threshold to 2.0, the chess engine priority to high, the blunder alert priority to normal, and turned on post game analysis......I set all of these settings to low or off during my EARLIER testing of training mode, BEFORE I logged onto the online server.

The program is now running flawlessly. This is a definite bug.

Now that I have 1)logged onto the online server, 2)returned to the main menu WITHOUT exiting the game, and 3)started training mode from the main menu, the game is running like it should with engine preferences set to their default settings.

What's up UBISOFT?

yes, i observe this bug too. A have a dual processor, but even setting engine to low priority results in cm using both processers. the king333.exe. uses 50%, and than game.exe uses the other 50%

So far play has been ok, except when cm gets into time pressure. then i noticed that cm is slow to react to mouse moves and everything freezes for a few seconds

quote:

Originally posted by ebutaljib:
Call it what you want but it is normal for Chessmaster. It wont burn your processor, it doesn't slow down anything on your computer and if you didn't check the task manager you wouldn't even know it. So why is this bothering you?

it is a problem because even in low resource mode on a dual processer, cm is using full resources and has no margin of error. It will start to freeze up and go slowly in some situations. I want my 50% capacity spare so this doesn't tend to happen

J

quote:

Originally posted by oozziejoe:
So far play has been ok, except when cm gets into time pressure. then i noticed that cm is slow to react to mouse moves and everything freezes for a few seconds

As a single-core user, everything freezes for up to a minute. However, during that minute, the clock is still running.

This needs to be addressed, and at least an attempt to resolve this should be made.

Same problem.
Pentium IV 2GHz, 2GB RAM, nVidia GeForce 6600.
I move ... 30 - 60 secs nothing (game window empty), computer moves... 30 - 60 secs nothing - game window empty, both times NOT RUNNING... at once game window shows the move, I can move BUT A HAVE MORE THAT MINUTE past... and so on ... impossible to play, processor 100%, game window 60 secs delays... please HELP. (sorry, I can less english)

"game.exe using 100% if tge CPU is not the cause...."

The engine using up so many resources gives very few degrees of freedom for anything else to run. It makes problems more likely. this is true even when you set priority low.

If i said the spark caused an explosion, you might argue that the spark did not cause the explosion, because you experience sparks all the time and there is no explosion. Here is how to clear up the confusion. What one means when talking about "cause" is that the spark, or the exaggerated processor utilization, forms part of a causal event. You probably need other things, and maybe you are right, you can work around the 100% utilization issue. You can also prevent sparks from causing explosions by removing all the oxygen (as when one welds sometimes).

The thing is: there is no reason for cm to run at 100 most of the time. It does not need that kind of power to produce an 1800 level opponent. One processor should do for that.


I don't have too many problems with my very modern dual processer. The responsiveness of the program just starts to slow down when cm gets under time pressure. Still, should this be happening on such a good machine? And what about people who don't have the luxury of work paying for a good machine?

I hope this is recognized as a problem rather than something that needs to be "worked around."

best
J


J