apparently, different video settings = different speed, at least on my machine.

if i use direct draw, level 1 bless lasts about 10.5 seconds

and if i use direct 3D, level 1 bless lasts about 18~19 seconds...

i found this out because i was wondering why my level 1 freeze would only last like 1.5 sec when it used to seem last longer.

This is a really good question. I just counted out a few spells one day and figured one time unit was about 2 seconds.

so you are saying that on your machine,

level 1 bless lasts 30 seconds?

did you stopwatch it, if no, could you please?

Hmm don't really have a stopwatch, but I'll try to figure something out, sure. But yeah, 30 seconds sounds about right. Actually now that I think of it, it seems that the 5 time unit spell I was testing lasted just under 10 seconds, more like 9 maybe. But again, I was just counting out my best estimation of a second.

Would this possibly mean that the day/night cycle might be faster or slower depending on your settings?

hmmm...this is bad then, because my level 1 bless lasts only "up to" 19 seconds, and that means i am only getting 2/3 of the full potential of any spell that "lasts x time units".

But maybe everything else is sped up just slightly too, so the amount of things you can do in that timeframe is relatively the same? Do you notice anything else sped up or slowed down at the different settings (like your movement speed, weapon swinging speed, etc) or just the spell durations? Just curious, I don't really know what the answer could be.

is Raze around?

we need you

is anyone with a stop watch around? i need someone to start a new game with female mage, use bless and count how many seconds it lasts. if you don't have a stopwatch, try checking out your cell-phone, they usually have one somewhere under tools/organizers/etc.

Any watch will do (or even counting consistently), since sub-second accuracy is not required.

AFAIK one time unit is one second, but I rarely used spells with time durations. I did check the timing of Survivors Instinct. With that skill you recover 1 hit point at a rate determined by the skill level. At level 1, with a 'rate of 12' you get a hit point every 12 seconds, etc. This skill isn't very helpful during battles, but is handy to top off your hit points between fights, whenever you head back to base to drop off loot, etc.

I may have time later today to try a couple spells under different rendering methods.

ya, any watch will do! if you have time, please try it out for me. i am guessing here it's either 1.5 sec or 2 sec for 1 time unit. i hope it's 1.5 second because that means there is nothing wrong with my game.

i am pretty sure it's not 0.7 seconds tho, which happens if i use directdraw, level 1 freeze lasts 2 sec isn't fun

I started a new female mage and tested the level one bless three times, it lasted right at 20 seconds. I used the stopwatch on my phone. Hope this helps.

thanks!

let's say you are within 1 second of error

19~21/15 = 1.3~1.4, which implies that 1 time unit is 1.3~1.4 seconds, or, 3 time unit is 4 seconds.

Casting Bless, I got slightly different times the first try than on subsequent ones (subsequent times differed by less than a second). I don't know if that is because I didn't move or do anything else between casts, or if a couple programs I left running in the background were slowing the game down, or something.

Bless level 1 (15 time units)
Direct3D - 20s first try, 18-19s subsequent (~1.2s/time unit)
DirectDraw - 25.5s first try, 24s 2nd/3rd (~1.6s/time unit)

Bless level 5 (120 time units)
Direct3D - 172s first try, 181s 2nd/3rd (~1.5s/time unit)
DirectDraw - 238s first try, 210s 2nd/3rd (~1.75s/time unit)

Which is the better setting to have it on visual and performance wise? Direct3D or DirectDraw?

Edit: nevermind, I found out myself, DirectDraw blows on my comp. Any change with clicking the AlphaBit setting? I don't know what that does.

thanks Raze man!

now it would be awesome if i could get my game to run at 1.75 sec per time unit. it would make things so much easier.

and while you are here raze, what does frost(5) mean? 5 time units? also lightening(5) and poison(5) and so on.

The frost(5), Lightning (5) etc. indicates the level of damage, i.e level 5 lightning doing more damage than lightning level 4.

that's the easy part, it's obvious.

now what about the actual details/mathematics?

Raze seems to know everything about DD so i asked him.

The damage skills on weapons are roughly comparable to the corresponding passive damage skills or spells (except that Frost on a weapon ignores the target's resistances, so is much more effective than the Freeze spell). As for the details, the Larians have not published any specifics, and I have not done any comparisons (and don't know if anyone else has).

Actually, I never used the passive damage skills (other than Augment Damage), and damage skill bonuses were not high on my list when upgrading equipment, so I don't have a feel for how comparable Lightning(5) would be to level 5 of Lightning Damage, for example.

I did have a couple swords with damage bonuses, which were nice, but not missed after upgrading. I found Stun on a weapon handy, though, and started investing in the passive Stun skill after replacing a sword with Stun(2). Poison on a weapon might be effective... With the passive damage skills, low levels didn't seem to have a high enough chance to hit to make them worth investing in, and by the time I was a high enough character level to max them, I didn't need the extra damage (and higher level monsters have higher resistances, anyway).

That's for sure, he knows a lot. I think he's only finished the game once or twice, but he's played it hundreds, if not thousands of times just to test every single aspect of the game. He's easily the person on this Forum who's set the most people straight, why, he's probably helped just about everybody on this Forum at one time or another. I could drag on and on and on about all his accomplishments and successes in helping people, but it's recorded in the pages of all these posts anyway. He's almost never "tripped" on answering a question, I've only seen it happen once...

all of this have nothing to do with what i asked...

less worshiping, more testing, go go

care to do some testing?

i am pretty sure that (5) frost does not freeze the target for as long as level 5 freeze.

i will try to do some testing once i finish my finals!

thanks again Raze man

To do an accurate test you would have to timer each different level of the damage. (i.e have weapons with levels 1,2,3,4 and 5 frost on them) I'm already near the end of my game so I probably won't be finding such a variety of items with those levels... so good luck to you!