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City of Heroes stop keys from being passed two ways/delay

PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 1:01 pm
by AlexRowe
Hi, the client is working fine. I have made copies of the original exe and each one is their own inner space instance I launch using the character set for the two characters.

Mouse clicks and keyboard presses pass through character 1 and through character 2. First question is how do I stop keypresses from going back to the char slot 1 from slot 2? Basically stop the keystrokes and mouse from trickling up to the char 1 so it only goes one way.

Second, it seems that the delay is to great and the character 2 copies the mouse clicks far to late and ends up getting turned around or is to far behind to be effective.

If anyone has any experience with this please chime in, I would greatly appreciate it.

Re: City of Heroes stop keys from being passed two ways/delay

PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 1:33 pm
by bob
AlexRowe wrote:Hi, the client is working fine. I have made copies of the original exe and each one is their own inner space instance I launch using the character set for the two characters.
Seems unnecessary, but ok.

AlexRowe wrote:Mouse clicks and keyboard presses pass through character 1 and through character 2. First question is how do I stop keypresses from going back to the char slot 1 from slot 2? Basically stop the keystrokes and mouse from trickling up to the char 1 so it only goes one way.
The default setup is intended so you switch to any character and have them as the active main, and control the rest. Disabling this design is actually quick tricky. The easiest approach would be to disable keymaps/broadcasting when switching to the character you don't want to control the other, and re-enabling them when you switch back.

AlexRowe wrote:Second, it seems that the delay is to great and the character 2 copies the mouse clicks far to late and ends up getting turned around or is to far behind to be effective.
You need COH to be running the same FPS on all windows. i.e. foreground and background FPS should be set the same. You can do this in the CPU Strategy Wizard, or after the fact, by using the performance tab on each slot in the character set. FPS matters in this game.

Re: City of Heroes stop keys from being passed two ways/delay

PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 8:00 pm
by AlexRowe
bob wrote:
AlexRowe wrote:Hi, the client is working fine. I have made copies of the original exe and each one is their own inner space instance I launch using the character set for the two characters.
Seems unnecessary, but ok.

AlexRowe wrote:Mouse clicks and keyboard presses pass through character 1 and through character 2. First question is how do I stop keypresses from going back to the char slot 1 from slot 2? Basically stop the keystrokes and mouse from trickling up to the char 1 so it only goes one way.
The default setup is intended so you switch to any character and have them as the active main, and control the rest. Disabling this design is actually quick tricky. The easiest approach would be to disable keymaps/broadcasting when switching to the character you don't want to control the other, and re-enabling them when you switch back.

AlexRowe wrote:Second, it seems that the delay is to great and the character 2 copies the mouse clicks far to late and ends up getting turned around or is to far behind to be effective.
You need COH to be running the same FPS on all windows. i.e. foreground and background FPS should be set the same. You can do this in the CPU Strategy Wizard, or after the fact, by using the performance tab on each slot in the character set. FPS matters in this game.


I really appreciate the reply, is there perhaps a screenshot of your isboxer toolkit setup just so I can get an idea of what a working one would look like? I apologize for you wasting time on me with this.

Re: City of Heroes stop keys from being passed two ways/delay

PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 8:23 pm
by bob
I don't have a setup for COH, and even if I did, a screen shot would not help. Too many things would need to be shown.

For the broadcasting/key maps. When controlling from slot1, things are passed from Slot1 to Slot2. There is no further return back to Slot1. When control from slot2, things are passed from Slot2 to Slot1, and nothing is then returned from Slot1 to Slot2.

If, when controlling Slot2, you do not want commands to go to Slot1, then disable KeyMaps and Broadcasting, when Slot2 is active.

For the FPS, use the CPU Strategy Wizard, and in the top half, set the Foreground and Backgroup FPS numbers to the same value. 60 or 30 doesn't matter, just that they are the same.

For the CPU itself, select the last option in the drop down in the lower half of the window. It's something along the lines of "Select all cpus for all windows (60/60)…………." (the ……. represents a bunch of other stuff which depends on your CPU and the number of slots).

Re: City of Heroes stop keys from being passed two ways/delay

PostPosted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:03 pm
by AlexRowe
bob wrote:I don't have a setup for COH, and even if I did, a screen shot would not help. Too many things would need to be shown.

For the broadcasting/key maps. When controlling from slot1, things are passed from Slot1 to Slot2. There is no further return back to Slot1. When control from slot2, things are passed from Slot2 to Slot1, and nothing is then returned from Slot1 to Slot2.

If, when controlling Slot2, you do not want commands to go to Slot1, then disable KeyMaps and Broadcasting, when Slot2 is active.

For the FPS, use the CPU Strategy Wizard, and in the top half, set the Foreground and Backgroup FPS numbers to the same value. 60 or 30 doesn't matter, just that they are the same.

For the CPU itself, select the last option in the drop down in the lower half of the window. It's something along the lines of "Select all cpus for all windows (60/60)…………." (the ……. represents a bunch of other stuff which depends on your CPU and the number of slots).


Thank you for the response again, I was out of town for work which is why I am just getting back to this. Anyway so the powers activating are perfectly in sync, however when I move they are delayed a bit. I am not to sure what I am missing, I made a short 18 second clip to show you what I mean. Any help at all I would greatly appreciate it! https://youtu.be/neqSm9VfTaw

Re: City of Heroes stop keys from being passed two ways/delay

PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:11 am
by lax
We can't determine much from your video, because it only shows one window. If you show us all windows, we can probably show you that they are all, in fact, jumping at the same time. Or, use one window, but a window that observes all of your characters without being one of them. (i.e. have your buddy record it for you from his toon). Your friend sees all of you moving at the same time, it's actually your main window that you see "wrong".

What you might be missing is the same thing Diablo 3 players are missing when they look at one window and move all of their characters together. "Hey, my main character moves before my other characters, they are OUT OF SYNC!" Well no, they're not out of sync, you're just observing the fact that it is a client-server game. (Here is one example thread from the Diablo 3 section, with this exact discussion, complete with a video just like yours: https://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11784#p11784 there are MANY MORE like it!)

The window you're looking at always moves the current character instantly based on your inputs. It does that because otherwise, it would feel laggy; when the game lets you move instantly based on your inputs, it feels nice and responsive.

All other windows have to wait for a message from the game server, to understand that the character that you're moving is actually moving. So your current character always appears to have zero latency. Your other characters, when observed from your current window, will move later because before you see them move, they send a message to the server, and the server sends a message back to your game window. This "delay" is directly related to your ping to the game server. If you have a 500ms ping, your other characters will appear to move about 500ms after your main character, from any window other than their own.

That's why you would want to look at all windows at once, or observe from someone else's account entirely. If you look at all windows at once, you can see each window with THAT character moving instantly, and the others all appear delayed. If you look at all of your characters from a different account, theyre all perfectly synchronized.

Hope that helps.

Re: City of Heroes stop keys from being passed two ways/delay

PostPosted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 4:27 pm
by Lost Ninja
I'm using Homecoming (I play on Reunion). I play 3 accounts at once though I'm set up for 4 (more than three isn't allowed so I don't do that) (often) ;)
((Current rules are that you may play up to 3 accounts at once off peak (server under 1600 players), people found breaking the rule risk getting their accounts banned, though I haven't actually heard of it happening, recently they banned a load of RMT accounts.))

I can't really help with your specific setup but I can tell you how I'm controlling things. I use very little of the ISboxer account switching/control switching, I doesn't work well with how I play or my set up. I have three monitors, each one has a single window (if I were to play 4 one of the outer screens would have two smaller windows). Each character/account has the same set of binds, and I can switch between who is following/leading with two key-presses (if my leader dies etc). Though generally I have one leader on the central screen and the followers to either side, sometimes if I'm using a team teleport with a long cool-down I will use a follower to lead/run through maps to reach a safe teleport spot. I generally only move the actual game windows around if I need to concentrate on a specific task, respecs etc. Much easier to just position them then leave them alone (with my setup). For reference each display runs at 1920x1080 @60+fps, and I'm using a GTX 1060 6Gb (Ryzen 1600/16Gb).

The binds I use in game are pretty much Shift+1-8 to select who the followers follow (this is normally set to target team members eg for healing & buffs), I then use shift+9 to unbind the follow key on my leader. B is my follow key. ISBoxer broadcasts Shift+1-8 and B but not Shift+9. My current setup has the shift+1-8 call a bind file to load the specifc binding, this has two reasons (though I don't currently use the 2nd reason). 1)It gives a visual confirmation that the bind has been changed in the chat window. 2)You can add additional binds to the file that would allow for instance the followers to place location attacks on the ground at the same time as your leader placed them, without needing to actually click things (which doesn't always seem to work). The only other character control option I use is I have CTRL+S (Back) mapped to other screens (followers but not the window I have active) to allow resetting the in game follow.

The above system also allows me to join groups with non-boxers and still have my characters follow the leader, I tend not to do it much as many people don't like "boxing" they feel it's cheating or exploiting the game.

Notes:
  • I don't use InnerSpace to launch the clients directly as I never got that to work. I use a custom .bat file that actually launches each client with custom settings per launch. (and you periodically need to load the game by the legit launcher (in my case Tequila) to have the game kept up to date). To be more clear (I just re-read what I wrote) InnerSpace launches the .bat file, I select an option in that which launches the game with custom settings (Graphics/Sounds Including window positions load from the registry and while I know there is a way round this in ISBoxing, my system works and I don't need to work out how to do it elsewhere (plus I can save the registry settings from the .bat).
  • I currently have a single setup that works for all characters, using in game macros & binds to get round some of the limitations of working in this way. And yes you could use the system to simulate Round Robin... might be easier for me to work out how to play with multiple ISBoxer loadouts...
  • I use a G13 which also has some additional macros (only for the leader), that adds options that I might use in future. (Like having a different page of buttons to allow me to control a follower directly without switching windows.
  • I generally pick ATs and builds that have direct synergy with each other, so while a Brute and a couple of /kins might seem like a great idea I find that (so far at least) they don't work as well as 3 Fire/Rads (Who eat the hardest non-incarnate content for breakfast...)
  • I do it for fun and unless I was prepared to spend more time on it, or run bigger teams, I will never be as fast to level or as powerful as a well honed group. On the other hand I can do content aimed at groups without needing to find a group and deal with people being idiots. (*/Rad cannot perma Accelerate Metabolism at low levels in teams of less than 4. You can't hit both the Def Cap & Res Cap without more than 2 FF or Sonic... I'd love to run 6-8 characters (if my machine could handle it) but I won't unless the rules change). Ignoring IO sets OFC, one of my existing Incarnate 50s is already running perma AM, which isn't as godlike as I'd like...)
I'm present on the Homecoming forums, (same user name as here, and if you (or anyone else would like to chat in game) I can PM my @global (to keep spammage to a minimum). I prefer forums to talking it out in the game. However if you feel like joining me in game I'm up for some multi-multi-boxing action... :D