Sensitivity Issues in games while XMBC is installed.

[SwiftW]

XMBC Version:2.19.2:
Windows Version: 10:
Mouse Information (brand/model):Razer Deathadder Essential:
Laptop Dell 4GB Ram Intel Processor:
Did the problem occur after an upgrade of XMBC? (If so, from what version?): No:
Did the problem occur after a Windows update/upgrade? (If so, from what version?): No:
How long have you used XMBC?A few days:
What language and keyboard layout do you use in Windows?: English, normal:

Ever since I downloaded XMBC a couple days ago, it seems to be messing with my sensitivity when playing games like minecraft. I really like the idea of the software but this bug is a gamebreaker for me. My mouse starts to glitch out and will sometimes move by itself, also seems to be speed up the base dpi and i dont know why. As soon as i uninstalled XMBC it reverted back to normal. Is there any reason why this could be happening? And how do I go about fixing it, because this program is unbelievable but its a shame i cant get it working properly.:

[phil]

Hi,

XMBC runs at user level and hooks into all mouse messages (movement and button) so it is possible that it can introduce a small delay/lag although generally it shouldn't be noticeable if your PC specs are up to it (and by no means to I mean high spec!). But if your CPU is very busy with other things, it can cause more problems (I don't know how CPU intensive minecraft is but I cant imagine its that high!??) It may be worth having Task Manager open while playing just to see how much CPU is in use and how much is available... Same goes with RAM. If minecraft or anything else takes all the available RAM, Windows will start paging out the the swap file on disk. If XMBC gets swapped out, it will almost certainly be noticeable when Windows has to swap it back into RAM.

To be fair, 4Gb RAM is the minimum requirement for/by Minecraft (8Gb RAM is recommended) so it is possible that Minecraft could be grabbing all your RAM and starving out other running applications. While this wouldn't normally be a problem as your not using the other applications, XMBC is always running and inspecting those mouse messages - so if it gets held up, it could cause this lag.

What CPU is in your Dell laptop (how old is it, how many cores does it have, what model number (i3/i5/i7/Atom/Celeron))???
Generally all my PC's are pretty high spec so maybe someone else here can comment of using XMBC with lower specs

You could try checking what the process priority is set to in the advanced settings tab. If its not already "realtime" try setting it to that - that should give XMBC a higher priority to the Windows task scheduler, meaning when multi-tasking XMBC should get a bit more of a look-in.

XMBC can control the speed of the mouse based on the window profiles (i.e. you can change it for different applications). It does this by manipulating the standard Windows cursor speed settings. But if you don't change these settings, it shouldn't touch the Windows speed settings in any way (so the DPI/Speed shouldn't be any different.

If you are not interested in remapping buttons IN minecraft, you could disable XMBC (rather than ending/exiting it) and see if that makes a difference (you can setup hotkeys to toggle XMBC on/off (disabled/enabled). In any case, it would be interesting to see if that actually makes any difference (fixes the problem)

I can't say I've ever noticed problems except maybe the odd (very occasional) hiccup here or there, certainly nothing that has had any impact for me on games I play (I don't play as many as I used to and I don't play Minecraft so I cant comment too much in that regard).

Regards,
Phil

[SwiftW]

Hi thanks for the reply!
My processor is an intel Pentium CPU 5405U 2.30Ghz.

Im able to run minecraft on minimal settings at around 120 fps so I dont see why my laptop wouldnt be good enough to use XMBC. Its just weird that as soon as its installed onto my device it changes the sensitivity completely, as well as moving by itself and freezing.

I use it for button remapping so disabling it would be an issue.

I really need to get to the bottom of this but I just cant seem to figure out the problem.

Anything else I should try?

[phil]

Im able to run minecraft on minimal settings at around 120 fps so I dont see why my laptop wouldnt be good enough to use XMBC.

I explained why above. Did you look at task manager while minecraft is running? How much RAM/CPU is it taking? To be fair, with a modern two CPU cores and 4 threads, I wouldn't expect it to be a problem either - but no harm in actually checking!

Does the sensitivity/moving by itself and freezing occur in standard windows then or only in game?
I really cant see what could be causing the random movement or freezing unless Windows isn't giving XMBC enough CPU time to finish what it needs to do. Again, looking in task manager (details tab) to see how much CPU XMBC is taking would be useful - for me it rarely goes above 1 or 2% when clicking lots.

Did you check that XMBC was set to run at realtime priority?
What have you remapped the buttons to do? And is the problem worse or no different when your actually pressing buttons that have been remapped?

Do you have many profiles? You could try turning off "Enable profile switching on mouse move" as that's probably the most CPU intensive thing XMBC does as it does it every time the mouse is moved (it does it in a separate thread so it shouldn't lock up the hook but you never know!).

I don't really know what else to suggest - sometimes running in debug mode and capturing the log can be useful to see whats going on but I dont think it will help much in this case because a) debugging slows things down and potentially will make it worse and b) I don't think the log will give any information on this as it does not log anything to do with movement. It may tell us if the muse hook is taking too long though. You could try turning on debug logging (settings -> updates and logging tab) OK/Apply that then run minecraft for a bit, then send me the log file (in a PM here or by email) and I'll take a look - but as I said, I don't expect it to reveal all that much.

[SwiftW]

Minecraft is taking up 10-15% cpu and around 600-700 MB of RAM only and XMBC .1%-1.5% cpu.

It sort of feels like my dpi has been increased whenever its installed and i havent touched the sensitivity options in XMBC at all. Glitchiness and random movement only happens in game but i can sort of feel dpi being increased out of game too.

XMBC wasnt running at realtime priority, but when i changed it nothing changed.

Is there any way to check what an application is doing to my device? Ive tried uninstalling and reinstalling several times and I can tell you for a fact that everything turns back to normal once uninstalled.

I have programmed mouse button 5 to left click and left click to click on release.

Ill PM you the debug file once i figure out how to send it to you.

[phil]

OK XMBC does not change anything on the device - all XMBC can change is windows cursor speed settings - the one you see in the standard Windows mouse control panel - this is not DPI but changing the cursor speed in Windows has a similar effect to changing DPI on the mouse. You can look at the settings in the Windows mouse4 control panel (the position of the cursor speed slider) before running XMBC and after running XMBC (you probably have to re-open the control panel window for it to pick up the changes if XMBC did make any (it shouldn't if you haven't touched any of those settings in XMBC but its worth a look as you seeing this "dpi" effect).

As for the debug file, I'll respond you your private message - but there should be a "attachments" tab below the message editor where you can upload an attachment (in the private message editor and the forum editor - but to do so on the forum itself, you need to have made enough posts (5?) as it does limit new users sending attachments to help prevent spam bots flooding the forums with malicious attachments!)

[SwiftW]

Got it, Ill pm you the debug file now.

[SwiftW]

Oops, need 5 posts.

[phil]

Just a little update, I have looked through the log, and XMBC is definitely not changing the windows mouse speed slider, the log is peppered with messages like "Ignoring mouse speed as XMBC is not allowed to change it". This is because the "Allow XMBC to set the mouse speed and DPI" setting on the "pointer" tab in settings is turned off. This setting was added in 2.19 to ensure that XMBC did not play with any cursor speed related settings if you did not want it to.

I have checked all the places that can change the cursor speed and they are all protected by checking that setting :/

So this leads to more confusion as to why you are seeing a difference in DPI/Speed of the cursor when XMBC is running. Unfortunately there is nothing in the log to indicate what that may be.

Did you try turning off "Enable profile switching on mouse move" and did it make *any* difference?
UPDATE: The reason I ask this again, is that is clearly the most XMBC is doing in your log file. Every time you move the mouse cursor, XMBC runs a check (in another thread) to see if the window under the cursor has changed. Even though its in another thread, it takes resource to do this - and that's therefore the most likely reason for any lag. Normally its not noticeable, but if your game happens to be running on the same CPU Core as the thread in XMBC doing this, it could cause it to respond slower. So its worth turning that option OFF to see if it makes ANY difference - if only to prove/disprove my theory!

Additionally, If you simply disable XMBC (normally you can do this by right clicking the tray icon and selecting disable), does that make a difference (does it fix it just like uninstalling? Same if you manually exit XMBC (without uninstalling it, just select ext from the tray right click (context) menu. When XMBC is disabled or not running it should not have any impact at all (just like when you uninstall it).

Apologies for all the questions, right now I'm at a bit of a loss as to what could be going on here.

Regards,
Phil