party missing action buttons response
bonkey
This is in reference to the e-mail sent to us.
This happens when the hardware acceleration is set to maximum.
To minimize the acceleration and set it to zero, you need to:
1. Right-click on the desktop and then click on the Properties.
2. In the display properties window click on Settings and then on Advanced.
3. In the new window click on the Advanced / Performance Tab and then drag
the scroll bar for hardware acceleration to minimum.
4. Click on Apply and OK on this window and then click on OK on the
Display Properties window.
This should resolve your problem.
However, If you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate
to contact our Customer Care Department at any time. We are here 24/7 to
assist you via email.
Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site!
Sweta A K,
Customer Care Department
_________________________________________________________________
Posted using RecPoker.com - http://www.recpoker.com
vehn
Henry Estes
>
>This does nothing and does not fix the problem.
>
They were probably listening to Ozzie.
RichM
I received the same advice, which did not fix the problem for me either.
After several emails back and forth with Party, I was told that this was a
known bug and that it would be fixed in the next release of their software.
They refunded my money on the tournament and apologized, but I do not play
at party very much anymore as a result of this problem. I should have quit
PP when this happened the first time, but the last straw for me was when
this bug caused me to lose a tournament by forcing more than a dozen
auto-folds in the final hands. I was the big chip leader going into the
final three players, and had killer cards, but was forced to fold them by
this bug.
I have since heard about a couple of work-arounds, but I am not really
interested in buggy software. I realize that this may have something to do
with settings on my computer (because this has never happened on my laptop),
but it is *not* the graphics acceleration settings. Removing all hardware
acceleration certainly did bring my computer to its knees, but it did not
solve the missing buttons problem.
Rich M
Born Stoopid
"RichM"
> Removing all hardware
> acceleration certainly did bring my computer to its knees, but it did not
> solve the missing buttons problem.
Me neither. I don't play there at the moment for exactly the same reason.
Pokerstars is the only US-Centric one I play at now after the buttons
vanished when I had AK suited and AK on the board and one other of my suit
with 5 heavy bets into me. Happy? Oh yes, ecstatic.
Bill Patterson
"RichM" wrote
> > This does nothing and does not fix the problem.
>
> I received the same advice, which did not fix the problem for me either.
>
> After several emails back and forth with Party, I was told that this was a
> known bug and that it would be fixed in the next release of their
software.
> [snip]
>
> I have since heard about a couple of work-arounds, but I am not really
> interested in buggy software. I realize that this may have something to
do
> with settings on my computer (because this has never happened on my
laptop),
> but it is *not* the graphics acceleration settings. Removing all hardware
> acceleration certainly did bring my computer to its knees, but it did not
> solve the missing buttons problem.
Sounds like they've got a programming issue with some versions of code for
graphics drivers. From my experience, Windows in general, and all the
hardware drivers in particular, is a pretty wild and wooly beast under the
hood.
Doesn't in any way excuse Party having the bug (if they're going to support
running under Windows, they're taking responsibility for making it work).
But (slightly) in their defense, I can say that making things work right
under all the different versions of hardware and software Windows "supports"
is easier said than done. Standardization of the "interface" to drivers and
hardware for software to use is a terrible, cruel joke in the windows world,
made worse by the competition among video card drivers/makers to have the
fastest proprietary hardware and software acceleration tricks and gizmos
around. It's remarkably easy to have latent bugs that don't show up no
matter how through you try to be with diversifying your testing platforms.
As I said, though, doesn't absolve Party of their responsibility. They
shouldered the "playing with windows" burden voluntarily.
--Bill
jimpepper
> [Party line from Party: turn off hardware acceleration.]
<snip>
>
> Sounds like they've got a programming issue with some versions of code for
> graphics drivers.
I'm lost,why should they have to write code for graphic drivers.
There is no way any of their code interacts directly with video drivers.
If it did you would never see anything on your monitor until you rebuilt
your entire system,from the OS up using windows default drivers.
From my experience, Windows in general, and all the
> hardware drivers in particular, is a pretty wild and wooly beast under the
> hood.
>
> Doesn't in any way excuse Party having the bug (if they're going to support
> running under Windows, they're taking responsibility for making it work).
> But (slightly) in their defense, I can say that making things work right
> under all the different versions of hardware and software Windows "supports"
> is easier said than done. Standardization of the "interface" to drivers and
> hardware for software to use is a terrible, cruel joke in the windows world,
> made worse by the competition among video card drivers/makers to have the
> fastest proprietary hardware and software acceleration tricks and gizmos
> around. It's remarkably easy to have latent bugs that don't show up no
> matter how through you try to be with diversifying your testing platforms.
That may all be true,but party does not supply drivers for every
version of video hardware out there.
Drivers are custom to your own box,depending on hardware and sofware.
If you buy a video card,and it does not work with windows then you
are not going to see shit. If you buy a video card for windows,
the manufacturer makes dam sure it works on windows.
If I make car parts for Ford and they dont fit or work,
can you tell me its Fords fault?
If your box is functioning,then their software should work with it.
Very simple. Funny how no other site has had problems like this.
>
> As I said, though, doesn't absolve Party of their responsibility. They
> shouldered the "playing with windows" burden voluntarily.
And they should of done what? Went with a unix platform? How
about a Mac? They should of went for that what,the %2 apple users market?
Its not windows,it is their software.There could be some bugs
with older boxes,but I doubt it is due to a video driver,or any
other driver. Speed or memory,maybe,but not drivers.
jim
>
> --Bill
Bill Patterson
> On Mar 19 2004 10:08AM, Bill Patterson wrote:
>
> > [Party line from Party: turn off hardware acceleration.]
> <snip>
> >
> > Sounds like they've got a programming issue with some versions of code
for
> > graphics drivers.
>
> I'm lost,why should they have to write code for graphic drivers.
> There is no way any of their code interacts directly with video drivers.
Programs do interact with video driver code through the contract interfaces
provided and published by microsoft, as well as the Windows video API. It's
very, very messy down there.
> If you buy a video card,and it does not work with windows then you
> are not going to see shit. If you buy a video card for windows,
> the manufacturer makes dam sure it works on windows.
Really? So the bug I had with my Diamond Mosster Fusion AGP card that caused
the computer to totally lock up (every time, 100% predictably) when I opened
IE 6 on a 2nd video monitor didn't exist? Even though it was confirmed by
the vendor a few months later?
And the problems I've had with PCI video cards in the past didn't exist
either? Good to know...
Get a clue, jim. "Works" is not a binary state.
> If I make car parts for Ford and they dont fit or work,
> can you tell me its Fords fault?
> If your box is functioning,then their software should work with it.
> Very simple. Funny how no other site has had problems like this.
Not so simple. Do you have any clue at all how many lines of program code
are involved in Windows? The last version of DOS alone had something on the
order of tens of millions lines of source code (34M is the number that's
coming to mind, but I'd have to research that). And when you mix in external
code written by dozens of different manufacturers of hardware, in several
different versions, there's literally no way to test and verify that
everthing works, in all the gagillions of permutations and combinations.
It's *extremely* difficult to even set up white-box testing that will reliab
ly and provably run every single line of code involved *once* for even a
single given configuration.
>
> >
> > As I said, though, doesn't absolve Party of their responsibility. They
> > shouldered the "playing with windows" burden voluntarily.
>
> And they should of done what? Went with a unix platform? How
> about a Mac? They should of went for that what,the %2 apple users market?
> Its not windows,it is their software.There could be some bugs
> with older boxes,but I doubt it is due to a video driver,or any
> other driver. Speed or memory,maybe,but not drivers.
Party had no choice but to go with Windows. But nobody forced them to go
into business and take on that responsibility.
You don't know that it's not windows, not the hardware vendors, not the
generic device driver vendors, or not Party. If you can tell me how you've
eliminated all the variables involved in the interaction of many hundreds of
thousands of lines of code, if not millions, from at least three different
sources minimum, and concluded with certainty that it's party's code, well,
then, I know a whole community of software testers that would like to have
you explain your methodology to them so they can stop having to show up for
work.
--Bill
Linda K Sherman
> On Mar 19 2004 10:08AM, Bill Patterson wrote:
>
>
>>[Party line from Party: turn off hardware acceleration.]
>
> <snip>
>
>>Sounds like they've got a programming issue with some versions of code for
>>graphics drivers.
>
>
> I'm lost,why should they have to write code for graphic drivers.
> There is no way any of their code interacts directly with video drivers.
> If it did you would never see anything on your monitor until you rebuilt
> your entire system,from the OS up using windows default drivers.
Windows being such a piece of shit, the public has become conditioned by
years of Blue Screens of Death to blame Windows and operating-system
level components for just about everything. "Reinstall Windows",
"download a new driver", "turn off video acceleration", and "defrag your
hard drive", have become the Pavlovian responses for problems on Windows
systems.
But most bugs are just plain code bugs, and this one obviously is. The
countdown timer is not getting initialized to 20 seconds--that's a code
problem. The value it's getting initialized to is almost certainly the
value it stopped at some previous time it was invoked, since the
interval keeps getting shorter rather than randomly
increasing/decreasing. There are other possible scenarios, but this is
the most likely one.
It obviously has nothing to do with video, but I've become convinced
that Party has some programmers who aren't very good and who snow their
managers and customer support people with responses like this when they
don't know what the real problem is. I know how bad programmers try to
cover their asses with their bosses; this is pretty typical behavior.
--
Linda K. Sherman
linsherman [atsign] tampabay [stop] rr [stop] com
John Kerry for President.
Bill Patterson
"Linda K Sherman" <dim...@pwy.com> wrote in message
news:AAG6c.305070$Po1.2...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
> jimpepper wrote:
>
> > On Mar 19 2004 10:08AM, Bill Patterson wrote:
> >
> >
> >>[Party line from Party: turn off hardware acceleration.]
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >>Sounds like they've got a programming issue with some versions of code
for
> >>graphics drivers.
> >
> >
> > I'm lost,why should they have to write code for graphic drivers.
> > There is no way any of their code interacts directly with video
drivers.
> > If it did you would never see anything on your monitor until you rebuilt
> > your entire system,from the OS up using windows default drivers.
>
> Windows being such a piece of shit, the public has become conditioned by
> years of Blue Screens of Death to blame Windows and operating-system
> But most bugs are just plain code bugs, and this one obviously is. The
> countdown timer is not getting initialized to 20 seconds--that's a code
> problem. The value it's getting initialized to is almost certainly the
> value it stopped at some previous time it was invoked, since the
Yes, but why would that cause the buttons to disappear entirely (which is
what I think the premise of the thread was, not the "5 seconds to respond"
bug, which I think is almost certainly Party's fault)?
That's the part where I think Party may have some "should have worked" code
that isn't working because there's some funky behavior in the interaction
with everything their code is talking to. We used to get this with IE all
the time: documented features in the programming interface that were
supposed to work, and just plain didn't. Work-arounds were the order of the
day when dealing with windows API's and hardware.
I totally agree with you that it's a code bug (or several). I'm just not
convinced yet that it's definitely any particular company's fault.
--Bill
jimpepper
> "jimpepper" wrote in
<Big Snip>
> You don't know that it's not windows, not the hardware vendors, not the
> generic device driver vendors, or not Party. If you can tell me how you've
> eliminated all the variables involved in the interaction of many hundreds of
> thousands of lines of code, if not millions, from at least three different
> sources minimum, and concluded with certainty that it's party's code, well,
> then, I know a whole community of software testers that would like to have
> you explain your methodology to them so they can stop having to show up for
> work.
>
Bill,
Ok,one site all of a sudden does not work.
I do not have to go thru a million lines of code.You cant see thru
the forest for the trees.
When party updates again,lets see what new bugs are there this time.
They introduce a new bug every other update.
Funny it did work at one time previously,so what changed? Windoze code,
or partys software?
As for your particular problem,
Really? So the bug I had with my Diamond Mosster Fusion AGP card that
caused
the computer to totally lock up (every time, 100% predictably) when I
opened
IE 6 on a 2nd video monitor didn't exist? Even though it was confirmed by
the vendor a few months later?
So they then duplicated your configuration, and found
a solution to the bug.So they probably never
did test it in your config in the first place.
But is that windows fault? No,its not.
Vendors can't test every possible config, I agree.
So they let customers like you find those bugs for them.
So who changed their code? I'll bet it wasn't windows.
The point is vendors have to work with windows,not vice versa.
Bill Patterson
"jimpepper" <anon...@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:MqH6c.175773$iA2....@news.easynews.com...
> On Mar 19 2004 12:29PM, Bill Patterson wrote:
>
> > "jimpepper" wrote in
> <Big Snip>
> > You don't know that it's not windows, not the hardware vendors, not the
> > generic device driver vendors, or not Party. If you can tell me how
you've
> > eliminated all the variables involved in the interaction of many
hundreds of
> > thousands of lines of code, if not millions, from at least three
different
> > sources minimum, and concluded with certainty that it's party's code,
well,
> > then, I know a whole community of software testers that would like to
have
> > you explain your methodology to them so they can stop having to show up
for
> > work.
> Bill,
> Ok,one site all of a sudden does not work.
> I do not have to go thru a million lines of code.You cant see thru
> the forest for the trees.
We had an app where we changed some of the JS code we were using in the IE
client. All changes per published specs from microsoft. Changed code just
plain did not work. We typed in the examples from the microsoft website.
Their code didn't work either. We tried it on several machines, two
different versions of windows. Just plain did not work. The code we were
trying exposed a bug in that part of IE, but just something we hadn't used
before.
So who was at fault? Us, because our app broke when we changed the code, or
Microsoft for having a bug in their code that our (correct) code was now
invoking because we thought there was a better way of accomplishing the task
when we redesigned?
> As for your particular problem,
>
> Really? So the bug I had with my Diamond Mosster Fusion AGP card that
> caused
> the computer to totally lock up (every time, 100% predictably) when I
> opened
> IE 6 on a 2nd video monitor didn't exist? Even though it was confirmed by
> the vendor a few months later?
>
> So they then duplicated your configuration, and found
> a solution to the bug.So they probably never
No, they were not able to fix it. It was burned into the hardware.
> did test it in your config in the first place.
> But is that windows fault? No,its not.
Yes, it is. The whitepaper on the bug clearly indicated that there was a
Windows drawing routine that was supposed to return particular code values
based on the results of a vector rendering routine, but didn't under certain
circumstances (coordinate spaces on extended desktops, e.g. 2nd monitor).
Who's fault is that?
> Vendors can't test every possible config, I agree.
> So they let customers like you find those bugs for them.
> So who changed their code? I'll bet it wasn't windows.
Not all code uses the same part of windows to accomplish whay you see as
"identical" results. Changing your code has chaotic (in the sense of
unpredictability) effects beyond what you as a software author have control
over. That's why testing is so important.
And, just to be clear:
I'm not defending Party here. I think they released software with bugs, that
was not adequately tested. I am simply not yet convinced that the bugs are
all their fault. You can do everything "right" by the Microsoft Book and
still not have it function for reasons beyond your control, making you
responsible for finding a work-around or alternate solution path.
Writing bug-free software when you only have control over a small portion of
the entire code-base involved is lot more complicated than you seem to
think. Again, that's why testing is so important and where I think Party has
definitely failed.
--Bill
Linda K Sherman
> Yes, but why would that cause the buttons to disappear entirely
Because that's what the code should do when the client thinks the timer
has expired, otherwise what's the point of having a timeout?
> That's the part where I think Party may have some "should have worked" code
> that isn't working because there's some funky behavior in the interaction
> with everything their code is talking to.
The symptoms aren't consistent with that sort of problem. The symptom is
that their code is setting the timer to the residual value from a
previous timer operation, since the starting count never goes up and is
clearly non-random.
> I totally agree with you that it's a code bug (or several). I'm just not
> convinced yet that it's definitely any particular company's fault.
It's always someone's fault. Windows users need to get over the idea
that failure is a normal and unavoidable consequence of using computers.
Bill Patterson
> Bill Patterson wrote:
>
> > Yes, but why would that cause the buttons to disappear entirely
>
> Because that's what the code should do when the client thinks the timer
> has expired, otherwise what's the point of having a timeout?
You're right. I didn't make the connection.
>
> > That's the part where I think Party may have some "should have worked"
code
> > that isn't working because there's some funky behavior in the
interaction
> > with everything their code is talking to.
>
> > I totally agree with you that it's a code bug (or several). I'm just not
> > convinced yet that it's definitely any particular company's fault.
>
> It's always someone's fault. Windows users need to get over the idea
> that failure is a normal and unavoidable consequence of using computers.
I just meant that Jim doesn't know who's fault it is, and so shouldn't be
stating that it's definitely the fault of X. Of course it's *somebody's*
fault.
I'm a mac, windows and unix user. Windows is the only OS to which I've
resigned myself to unsolvable problems (that is, problems I can't solve
because the vendor(s) give me software with issues beyond my control).
Expecting, or even asking for, a windows sytem without problems is a pipe
dream for those of us (even us software developers who "expect better") who
live in the real world of the real existing Windows. It is what it is, and
it ain't good.
--Bill