[MP4] The game is not recognized by Windows as an activity

[tm2_stadium_beta]

With power options set-up like this:

...and ManiaPlanet 4 running in fullscreen mode, Windows puts the display into power saving mode after 10 minutes of keyboard/mouse inactivity. Also, in MP4, Windows doesn't recognize Xbox 360 controller button presses as an activity.

I was able to repeat this abnormal behavior in Maniaplanet 4 on two different systems.
System 1 specs: i5-3550 | H77 | 16GB DDR3-1600 | GTX1050Ti | Windows 7 x64
System 2 specs: C2D P9600 | PM45 | 4GB DDR3-1066 | 310M | Windows 7 x64

On both systems, this never happened in TMNF and ManiaPlanet 3. When TMNF or MP3 is running in fullscreen mode the game itself is recognized by the operating system as an activity and thus display never goes into power saving mode, regardless of whether you operating your keyboard/mouse/controller or not.

Please fix this. Thank you.

[nighthawk4571]

Suggestion:
Do you run any other games in full-screen mode and, if so, does this problem happen with them? If so, then this is a Windows issue: I would check the possibility of a system/ monitor temperature issue. Maybe a good idea to make sure your fans and heat sink/s are free of dust.

* Using wireless keyboard or mouse? Are batteries good?

[tm2_stadium_beta]

Do you run any other games in full-screen mode and, if so, does this problem happen with them?

As I said before, in TrackMania Nations Forever and in old ManiaPlanet v3, this problem is not existent. This only happens in new ManiaPlenet v4. This started to happen right after latest major update at the beginning of May. At first, I wasn't sure what exactly was causing this, but recently I double checked everything, tested the behavior of TMNF, MP3 and MP4 on two different computers and came to the conclusion that the problem is indeed in the new version of Maniaplanet.

I would check the possibility of a system/ monitor temperature issue.

I always play with MSI Afterburner+HWiNFO OSD which is displaying CPU/GPU/PCH/HDD load, temperature, clock speeds etc., so trust me, everything is fine in this regard.

Maybe a good idea to make sure your fans and heat sink/s are free of dust.

My desktop PC is built inside of a quality chassis with dust filters on all intake fans, so no, there is almost no dust inside of my PC.

Using wireless keyboard or mouse? Are batteries good?

No, all of my peripherals are wired. Though, I don't usually use my keyboard/mouse while playing TrackaMania, as I am using Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows (wired version).

[nighthawk4571]

Hmmm, it's a puzzle. I think your first thought may be right - it makes sense if you can duplicate the fault on two PC's and the earlier versions of TM don't have this problem . Somebody might ask if all your drivers are up-to-date, as the new game version has had issues (especially for some graphics cards) but I see you know what you're doing . In that case, I guess you may be right in your first post.

[meuh21]

Same issue for me with MP4. So I've modified windows settings but it's not good for the planet

[tm2_stadium_beta]

Recently, I've been using Don't Sleep to prevent monitor sleep while playing Maniaplanet with a gamepad.
These are my settings for the program:



I also just stumbled upon this posting, but I haven't tried this method, since I use Don't Sleep for other purposes anyway. I pointed the Maniaplanet shortcut to a simple batch file that launches both executables simultaneously:

Code: Select all

start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\ManiaPlanet\ManiaPlanet.exe"
start /min "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\DontSleep\DontSleep.exe"

[nighthawk4571]

That's clever! . Nice find.