High CPU usage

[dj_papeles]

Hello! First of all let me say that you have made a great great job with exult, i love U7 and you have made possible to play again.

My system are Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon 64 bits, i have an Lenovo X230, i have compiled exult 1.6 from Source and used the gog version of U7, everything worked fine, but the CPU usage is at constantly 100% i have tried all the scalers but whithout effect, tried windowed and fullscreen but with no luck, the fan of the laptop Max out rpms.

Mi question is this is a normal behaviour? There are any settings to low CPU usage?

Forgive my english and thanks.

[Dominus]

definitely not normal.
Things to try: latest Exult git code, latest SDL version (not necessarily the one offered by your package manager). Try disabling audio alltogether.
lowest possible res (320 x 200 with pointscaler 2x) in a window.

[dj_papeles]

Thanks i Will try your suggestions and see if It works

[dj_papeles]

Well i try latest git code and sdl 2, disabled audio and the lowest resolution possible, with no luck, the CPU still go to 100%.

But i have access to a Win 10 Computer and installing exult, same version than with Mint and same settings, with my surprise CPU only go to 16% so definetly is some issue with the distro i am using?

[Dominus]

yes, it's definitley not normal. I have no idea why the cpu usage is at 100% for you. it makes no sense

[Dominus]

a quick conversation with Marzo, brought up https://lwn.net/Articles/676664/ and that Mint is probably doing too many things that aren't standard by mix and matching packages from other distros

[dj_papeles]

Dominus, i had read that article and i did not know those facts, thank you very much for the help both you and Marzo, probably going to Debian and see the results.

[dj_papeles]

Well i can confirm that Mint is the reason for this behaviour, i installed Debian 10 on the same computer and compiled exult the same way and with the same settings, and the CPU usage is between 8 and 18%, i have attached a screenshot, so thank you very much, i hope this be useful for someone.
The reason why mint maxes out the CPU escapes my understanding.

[Dominus]

Oh great! Marzo suspects the window manager somehow but who knows. Apparently it's one of the problems of Mint's way of doing stuff

[dj_papeles]

The DE are in Mint Cinnammon and in Debian Mate, both 64 bits, in Mate using Marco as window manager and so good.

[dj_papeles]

Update: Posting here to communicate that the problem returns, the first times that run exult the CPU usage was very low but after several days go to 100% even in the main menu, so i decided to investigate the problem, the first times i executed exult doing from a terminal, but i realize that if i run the Game from the menu Launcher in games category the problem with the CPU appears, dont know why but launching from the terminal works perfectly.

Another thing that discover is that in mint, debían and Ubuntu executing exult from the terminal solves the problem, so finally not a mints fault, is something with the terminal?