This was very interesting, but you made one big blunder, I think? You said "I could get into various technical details on this, but I won't for your sanity's sake."
Do you know one list member who is sane? If so, kick'em off! They don't fit in! (ornery grin) --- If you don't stand behind our troops, please, feel free ... to stand in front of them! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 6:12 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] jaws and self voicing games > Hi Nicol, > Personally I advise all my customers to unload Jaws or Window Eyes when > playing games for a variety of reasons. > First, games like Montezuma's Return are very system resource intensive. > At any given time there is several sounds being played, mixed, and > loaded and unloaded in real time which uses quite a bit of processor and > memory resources. In addition there are internal clocks, called timers, > running which draw upon your processor to perform hundreds of > calculations and enemy AI decisions at or near the same time. The last > thing you want when playing a game is for another program to be eating > into your computers speed and memory resources when all that is going on. > Screen readers as a rule tend to be resource intensive applications in > themselves. That is why when you load a large program or do a very > resource intensive task Jaws or Window Eyes will be silent or > unresponsive until the major process finishes. There is not enough CPU > output or memory to run both applications at the same time so Jaws or > Window Eyes tend to get called only after the app has finished doing > whatever it was doing. I could get into various technical details on > this, but I won't for your sanity's sake. > Second, APIs suchas DirectX were designed from the get-go to basically > acquire and control your computers hardware independantly from the > Windows event cue. What this means in average human speak is that > DirectX actually acquires total control of your sound card, keyboard, > joystick, vidio card, etc unless the developer specifically passes flags > to let other sound events, mouse events, keyboard events, through to the > device. Otherwise other apps can't use the device until DirectX releases > hardware control back to the Windows event cue. > That is why Window Eyes and especially Jaws can encounter issues running > at the same time as a game running DirectX DirectInput. Jaws might > recieve an input call from the keyboard to do something, and your game > app will recieve the same call to do something else and since both are > trying to recieve control from the keyboard both actions are carried > out, or it causes the keyboard to symply lock altogether. The only way > to avoid this is to unload the screen reader, put it to sleep, or the > developer has to add some other special keyboard handling in the game to > let the Windows keyboard events through when the game does not have > focus on the screen. > Although weather or not you unload your screen reader or put it into > some sleep mode is your choice I do think for the two reasons above it > is more than compelling reasons not to get into the habit of running > both at the same time if you can help it. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the > list, > please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
