Game runs very choppily.

[Belladonna]

I really have no idea why, but the game runs POORLY for me. Mouse jumps around, nothing is fluid. I have an EXTREMELY powerful laptop and many games runs amazingly, so I don't know why this doesn't. Windows 7 64-bit Professional.

[Error]

I'd suggest trying it in windowed mode by pressing ALT+ENTER after it launches. The window is smaller and won't stretch the graphics, but it can be quite small (640x480) depending on your native resolution. You may also consider using Windows Magnifier by pressing the Windows key and + to zoom it in 200%.

[Tiptoe12345]

Hi. Ran into same problem. That doesn't help at all. Even just playing in windowed mode, it runs terribly.

[JohannZA]

This game was built in an earlier version of RPG Maker which doesn't officially support 64 bit operating systems, namely RPG Maker XP. Newer versions of RPG Maker, including and from RPG Maker VX Ace, do however support 64 bit OS's.

Note, whether 64 bit OS support in the utility affects the games created, I do not know.

Additionally, it should be noted that games created in versions before RPG Maker VX often have frame rate problems (that would include To the moon). This was an issue related to games being forced to run at 40 fps; a setting which doesn't sit well with native monitor refresh rates (60 Hz and up). From RPG Maker VX on, however, all games created run at 60 fps, which eliminates most (if not all) performance issues from these games.

Note, To the moon would have to be rebuilt from scratch in one of the newer versions of RPG Maker to take advantage of this feature. Meaning it's unnecessary and/or unfair to bug the dev about it, as I doubt he'd have the time.

[Reives]

^That's actually not it -- I myself use Windows 7 64-bit Professional as well, and there's no such issue.

From what I've been seeing, the problem actually comes from a very rare case of incompatibility with certain hardware... and the other case of this I've heard also came from an extremely powerful laptop. I've been trying to look into it, but since I don't have access to the engine, there's not too much I can do.

Although it's a very uncommon problem, it's still rather frustrating. So if the issue still persists without a workaround, feel free to email me (kan<at>freebirdgames.com) and I'll get a refund sent. Sorry about the inconvenience!

[JohannZA]

That's interesting.

I honestly thought it was the 40 fps problem, as I've read comments from devs who've done freeware games in different versions of RPG Maker and stopped encountering the issue as soon as they switched to VX (or VX Ace).

I'm currently playing To the moon on an Acer Aspire 5742G laptop computer. It's decently powerful (i.e. runs numerous graphically-intensive titles well) but To the moon has horrible screen tearing that can be quite intrusive. (I don't want a refund. I'm just mentioning my experience here in case you want to check up on my computer's specifications.)

On another note, it's nice that you're keeping an eye on this forum. I've noticed several devs being initially involved and then bailing on their games' forums a few weeks after release.

[timeskills]

Horrible tearing breaks the game.

It looks interesting but it'll have to wait until there's some sort of hack or proper solution to make it stop doing that.

[Reives]

Hm, that's odd; sorry for the inconvenience. If you press F1, there should be options to check/uncheck "Smooth Mode" and "Reduce Screen Flickering" -- see if those help.

[timeskills]

Originally posted by Reives:

Hm, that's odd; sorry for the inconvenience. If you press F1, there should be options to check/uncheck "Smooth Mode" and "Reduce Screen Flickering" -- see if those help.

Reduce screen flickering did the trick (no tearing anymore, at the very least).

No clue why it isn't the default (hint... that alone would make a world of difference as for the first impression when running the game).

Pressing F1 is also something I would probably never have figured out on my own... ESC is the unwritten yet pretty much de facto standard for this sort of thing. Accessable via right mouse button's menu would also be expected. Or a comment somewhere "press F1 for options" would not harm either.

Another problem is the mouse pointer (in fullscreen mode at least) is not visible while navigating the F1 menu... meaning keyboard ways (tab etc) need to be used to mess with the options.

Concluding, with these issues it can't be expected from non-technically-inclined game players to be able to enjoy it... but on the bright side, just making "reduce screen flickering" on by default would fix the game for most people.

Going on to play it a little now.

[Mauro]

Originally posted by Reives:

^That's actually not it -- I myself use Windows 7 64-bit Professional as well, and there's no such issue.

From what I've been seeing, the problem actually comes from a very rare case of incompatibility with certain hardware... and the other case of this I've heard also came from an extremely powerful laptop. I've been trying to look into it, but since I don't have access to the engine, there's not too much I can do.

Although it's a very uncommon problem, it's still rather frustrating. So if the issue still persists without a workaround, feel free to email me (kan<at>freebirdgames.com) and I'll get a refund sent. Sorry about the inconvenience!

I have this setup. A notebook with a corei5 dual core, quad thread. Setting the affinity to one single core did the trick for me, the game runs very smooth now!

AFAIK, this can be set in the executable to make it permanent, I'm going to the task manager and setting it manually.

[[99FFFF]EWEE]

By the way, it would not be an "overhaul" to remake the code. I wish people knew what they were talking about. It's as simple as Graphics.frame_rate = 60 but yeah..

[Sturmlilie]

Originally posted by 99FFFFEwee:

By the way, it would not be an "overhaul" to remake the code. I wish people knew what they were talking about. It's as simple as Graphics.frame_rate = 60 but yeah..

Since all game logic is frame based, every cutscene would have to be remade to run slower as to not look unnatural. Also animations would be sped up and might look out of place. So there's definitely work involved for this.