Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I notice occasionally that the background music in HPS games skisp like a record that gets stuck on the same track..

anyon else seen this and/or have a solution ?

Monsieur le Marechal Baron John Corbin
Duc de Paive
Commanding the Division de Cavalerie de la Jeune Garde
NWC President

Occasionally. Just restart the game.

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

Ah, but won't that cause the game to give your side those punitive <b><font color="red">negative</font id="red"></b> modifiers because it thinks you're cheating???

Colonel Rick Motko
1er Bataillon, 33° Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne
2eme Brigade, 11eme division
IIIe corps, Armée du Nord


Vive l'Empereur!

I have yet to see a game that THINKS. [:p]

Seriously, the game has no way of knowing that you restart. A file is a file is a file.

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

I get that in Battleground all the time these days...

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Herr Windbagenführer General der Infanterie Scott Prinz Ludwig von Saxe-Weimar
Aide-du-Kamp and Webmaster
Heer am Niederrhein

[url="http://www.prussianarmy.com/"]Königliche Preußische Armee[/url]

http://www.networkforgood.org</center>

No, really. If I play a turn and have to end it before finishing the turn (no PBEM save available) for any good reason, upon my return to the game, the melees and fire combat that worked so well (earlier for my side) end up with the absolute worst possible results when I try them again. <font color="orange"><b>This happens even if I do everything in exactly the same order as before.</b></font id="orange">

I seem to remember reading something years ago that was posted by Bill Peters that said something to the effect that we will have to delete those nasty .xxx and .yyy files and turn off our computer off for a while because a file is created in RAM that records this in order to apply the negative modifiers when we restart the game.

Supposedly this was designed to prevent a player from "fishing" for the best results in each situation and then saving the game after each one, only to open the gamefile again in order to "fish" for some more desireable results.

Another thing it prevents is a player that moves all his units all over the map just to find out where the opponent's units are. He could then close the game and reopen it and play his turn with such important foreknowledge.

Neither actions by a player are very nice and are cheating plain and square, yet who would know? --except for your computer? Afterall, efforts in game design to prevent cheating are not unheard of.

Colonel Rick Motko
1er Bataillon, 33° Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne
2eme Brigade, 11eme division
IIIe corps, Armée du Nord


Vive l'Empereur!

I am afraid I believe this sounds rather like a conspiracy theory, no offence. I sometimes wish the games were half as smart as that.

Unfortunately, the .xxx and .yyy just serve to corrupt game files, not to do anything intelligent. [8)]

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

Rick is quite right. It does happen. Hopefully the new games coming out will address such an issue.

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Herr Windbagenführer General der Infanterie Scott Prinz Ludwig von Saxe-Weimar
Aide-du-Kamp and Webmaster
Heer am Niederrhein

[url="http://www.prussianarmy.com/"]Königliche Preußische Armee[/url]

http://www.networkforgood.org</center>

It could be that the computer (CPU) is "doing" something that is CPU intensive. Perhaps the game is going through some things, like firing or melees.


Perhaps the computer is doing something outside of the game, like FAST.EXE is doing some scanning or your VIRUS/SPYWARE program is updating or found something it needs to check and is using up CPU cycles.

Otherwise, it SKIPS because you HIT your DESK or bumped the keyboard causing the NEEDLE to skip on the CDROM.

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<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
GdD,1e Brig,1eme Div,VI Corps,AdR
President, Colonial Campaign Club
</b></font id="gold">

Ernie, you are not being helpful.

I will say this again. In years past (was it 2001?) this <u>was</u> a topic of discussion and I clearly remember Bill Peters supporting the measures taken.

I remember it well because it was <u>part</u> of the reason why I left the club back then. Specifically, there was a reference by me about catholic school and the steps that had been taken to prevent cheating. I felt that things had gone too far.

There <u>is</u> a penalty for ending a PBEM turn and returning to the game.

Colonel Rick Motko
1er Bataillon, 33° Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne
2eme Brigade, 11eme division
IIIe corps, Armée du Nord


Vive l'Empereur!

There is NO penalty for stopping and starting any PBEM game. I frequently play part of the way through a game, save it and go back to it later. This is especially true for the very large scenarios and even the smaller ones when I am interrupted and have to stop for one reason or another.

In the HPS/Tiller games in the Panzer and Nappy series, there is an option that can be used that PREVENTS saving a game while playing PBEM and I don't use that and do not know why it is even an option.

And I stand by my contention that jarring your computer will make the needle on the CDROM skip![;)]

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
GdD,1e Brig,1eme Div,VI Corps,AdR
President, Colonial Campaign Club
</b></font id="gold">

Rick are you refering to playing your turn over again, as opposed to just saving it and returning to it?

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Herr Windbagenführer General der Infanterie Scott Prinz Ludwig von Saxe-Weimar
Aide-du-Kamp and Webmaster
Heer am Niederrhein

[url="http://www.prussianarmy.com/"]Königliche Preußische Armee[/url]

http://www.networkforgood.org</center>

I almost ALWAYS save, close the game, and then open it again later, sometimes because the combat sounds go into an infinite loop and restarting clears this, and more usually because I like to take a break after playing so many minutes to give my mind a rest, or have other things to do and I don't like to rush my gaming. Quite innocent and quite reasonable. I don't delete the .xxx and .yyy in between either - can't be bothered. And I have never noticed bad or unexpected results resulting from this. I think Ernie is correct, there is no penalty for stopping and starting and it would be ridiculous if there was. I really doubt that anything sophisticated is going on to prevent cheating.

<center>[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/Napoleonic/nap.htm"]Lieutenant Colonel Antony Barlow[/url]
~ [url="http://www.geocities.com/anglo_allied_army_stats/Anglo_Allied_Army_Cavalry_Corps.htm"]2nd British (Union) Brigade, Anglo-Allied Cavalry Corps[/url] ~
~ [url="http://www.geocities.com/militaireacademie/dragoons.html"]4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards[/url] ~
</center>

If there were a penalty for saving and reopening a turn, MP games would become quite impossible.

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

John,

Here's some possible solutions for your sound looping problem:

1) Update your sound card drivers.

2) Reduce the "Hardware Acceleration" setting for your sound card

3) If neither of the other two solve the problem you can investigate your system resources. I've had it reported before that a sound card was sharing the resources on a guys system with his hard drive controller. He moved his sound card to a new PCI slot that didn't share any resources and his problems went away for good.

Maréchal Hamilton, Baron d'Barbancon
21st Division
VII Corps, ADR

Saxon Leib-Garde, de la Jeune Garde, Garde Impériale