grand slam of slots

[steveyboy]

has any noticed that when you play tournements i.e gsos that they give you lots of chips but i never ever use them all up,is it my computer that is slow? or is anybody else out there in wonderland have the same problem just played a qualifier on all slots spring break and still had over 7000 coins left what is the point does it just make you think look at all them credits?.

[Repro]

I agree, it's kind of stupid. It's not possible to use up all the credits. This is very annoying because i always hit bonusrounds just before the time is up, so i'm unable to finish them

32RED has got a daily $250 freeroll (Avalon) where you've got plenty of time. When you use up all credits, if you get no bonusround, you got about 5 minutes out of 10 left.
Once i got about 4 bonus/retriggers and i still got over 1 minute left

[De Beuker]

I agree, it's kind of stupid. It's not possible to use up all the credits. This is very annoying because i always hit bonusrounds just before the time is up, so i'm unable to finish them

32RED has got a daily $250 freeroll (Avalon) where you've got plenty of time. When you use up all credits, if you get no bonusround, you got about 5 minutes out of 10 left.
Once i got about 4 bonus/retriggers and i still got over 1 minute left

And thats exactly what they hope for, that you hit a freespinround just before time runs out, so you deposit and buy a continue.

The 32RED daily's are indeed the only MG tourneys worth playing, I gave up on all the rest.
They are all crap because of that stupid timer and the crap playing software.
More frustration than fun.

Btw, if you get a PC with a 16-core CPU, 12GB internal memory and 3 top-of-the-shelf videocards you might use a little more coins, but its Microgaming, so you can never be sure and it can also change the next 'update' (read:downgrade).

[Repro]

And thats exactly what they hope for, that you hit a freespinround just before time runs out, so you deposit and buy a continue.

The 32RED daily's are indeed the only MG tourneys worth playing, I gave up on all the rest.
They are all crap because of that stupid timer and the crap playing software.
More frustration than fun.

Btw, if you get a PC with a 16-core CPU, 12GB internal memory and 3 top-of-the-shelf videocards you might use a little more coins, but its Microgaming, so you can never be sure and it can also change the next 'update' (read:downgrade).

I'm not convinced about that...

At the Avalon freeroll at 32RED i get a lot more spins than on a GSOS freeroll, also Avalon, on another MG casino. I've got a very fast laptop and a "lag-free" internet connection.

I believe there has even been a topic on this a while ago about "delaying spins" on MG based casino's (Tourneys only).

[09237653]

In the nearly 2 years ive played in MG tourneys, they have been getting slower and slower as the months go by, Without free spins/bonus rounds I used to be able to spend all chips in a typical 5 min tomb raider/loaded/hitman/mad hatters, but now usually more than half the starting chips are not used.

The most recent update has been the worst. I recently used two addons on a thunderstruck tourney barely managed 25 spins in 3 mins. Few years time a MG tourney will just be one spin each i think.

Im using a quad core computer too, I dread to think what this is now like on older machines.

[Repro]

come to think of it, maybe the tourney delays are because they are hosted on a different (cheaper and more crappy) server, to avoid overload on the real money games.

Had it at 3DICE once. Normal games were running smoothly but the tournaments had "hickups". The problems were solved in about 30 minutes though, after that everything ran smoothly again.

[vinylweatherman]

I'm not convinced about that...

At the Avalon freeroll at 32RED i get a lot more spins than on a GSOS freeroll, also Avalon, on another MG casino. I've got a very fast laptop and a "lag-free" internet connection.

I believe there has even been a topic on this a while ago about "delaying spins" on MG based casino's (Tourneys only).

I busted MGS a couple of years ago, they sneaked in some "crippleware" with an update. Before this, I was tweaking away, and had managed to get the slots to run just as fast as in normal play, with one second or less between spins. After the update, and with the same tweaks, I found that once you started spinning faster than 3 seconds apart, the server held back the results for these spins for about 6 seconds before sending it out, and continued to add this 6 second lag until you allowed 6 seconds before spinning again, at which point the "crippleware" switched off.

Further experiments showed that the trigger point for this "crippleware" is just below 3 seconds, so once you have managed to tweak your system to achieve this, there is no point in going any further.

The update early this year then made things worse, and everything has slowed down, not just the tourneys, this CAN be countered by a hardware upgrade, one that can handle the newly "megabloated" client, and it's ENORMOUS demand for video processing compared with earlier clients.

I would suggest maxing out the RAM, and getting a decent Full HD graphics card with a decent chunk of on board RAM, otherwise the video processing has to share RAM with the OS and software, and may even have to use the paging file, which being on the hard drive, is much slower than RAM.

It may even be worth getting a new PC, one that would support "gaming", in order to satisfy the present demands of the MGS client. I have noticed that hardware has moved on a great deal in the last 3 years, with very much faster RAM, and solid state drives - useful as the main "C: Drive" on a PC because it loads software much faster.

Another approach would be to cut back on background tasks to see whether this makes an improvement to tourney performance.

Remember, the target is 3 seconds between spins, the "crippleware" enforces this lower limit. My system can achieve this, but needs the occasional re-tweak, in one case because it was too FAST

[nerv]

This last update actually introduced "5 seconds cycle" lag for all MG tourneys.

And I will quote one big IT company explaining this behavior: "This is by design"

This last update has nothing to do with increased hardware requirements though.

[vinylweatherman]

This last update actually introduced "5 seconds cycle" lag for all MG tourneys.

And I will quote one big IT company explaining this behavior: "This is by design"

This last update has nothing to do with increased hardware requirements though.

It is clearly something MGS want kept VERY quiet, since if you ask any casino, or even MGS themselves (via a casino), you will be told it is down to your PC being "too slow/old", or your ISP being "poor".

If they actually admitted this, players would desert the tournaments as they would know they NEVER had a fair chance of getting what they have PAID for in terms of the number of continue "coins" bought. It also makes the tournaments BORING, because when you are playing against the clock, you want to be FAST, and being dragged back makes one IRRITABLE, and thus more likely to give CS "an earful" over the problem, especially where it appears to have cost you a placing and a significant prize difference.

I don't think it has gone up to 5 seconds though, more like 4 (trial recently on a Ladies Nite tournament).

The lobby games have also been slowed down a bit, but this may be down to them being HD video now, and with more animation than before.

MGS are NOT taking this into account when working out how many coins to allocate per minute of time, and this is what leads to the discontent.

I don't see the need for a set number of coins AND specific short periods of time at all, it should JUST be coins, and the only time constraint should be the end of the tournament as a whole, which should be displayed instead of the current session timer.

It seems that MGS want to make as much money as possible, but do NOT want to invest in the increased server capacity needed to cope with more players being able to get though the coins they have bought.

The current set-up actually gives an ADVANTAGE to those who know how it works, especially timings and behavior of the "crippleware", and this can be seen by looking for players who get through the most coins.

[nerv]

It is clearly something MGS want kept VERY quiet, since if you ask any casino, or even MGS themselves (via a casino), you will be told it is down to your PC being "too slow/old", or your ISP being "poor".

Heh, I contacted support on a few occasions about this just to see if the have prepared some special "template answer" but nothing. Just a classical "its your end, no one complained about this" one.

It also makes the tournaments BORING, because when you are playing against the clock, you want to be FAST, and being dragged back makes one IRRITABLE, and thus more likely to give CS "an earful" over the problem, especially where it appears to have cost you a placing and a significant prize difference. "

I don't konw what their aims were with this intentional lag, but they surely made playing tournaments irritable. Looking at reels spinning continuosly and lag bar raising while timer counting dount is pretty much frustrating. Whatever they meant to introduce, they did it non-elegant way.