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Sky's Software Improvements

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  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    i have just bought a new pc, an i7 thingy, from component warehouse .co.uk for £580. i have played 13 tables, or should say tried to. there was no lagging or problems at all. "just saying" best present i,ve ever bought.... it should  pay for itself in no time. :-) devon
    Posted by devonfish5
    How many could you play with old pc?
    I have never been able to run more than 2 browser or DL.Its been so long even if it improves old dog and new ticks i think i will be stuck in my ways. 
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements : Playing more than 3 tables for me uses cpu usage fluctuating between 90-100% with periods of 30 seconds or so at 100% - which isn't great when I want to multitable about 16 tables!!!! Can manage about 7 before it becomes unplayable.  Aparently it's my high spec laptop or 50mb internet connection at fault blah blah blah blah blah blah.................................................................................................................................................
    Posted by Die_hard
    If sky poker alone takes 90% of your cpu then you don't have a high spec laptop. Flash player won't take that much even for a budget laptop for what it's doing with 3 tables. I have what was a mid range laptop over 6 months ago, i3 2.1ghz, 8gb Ram and that can run 6-9 tables using 30% CPU max. If you have issues running the software then it's down to your laptop and whatever else is running on it.

    Running the sort of promotions they do has very minimal effect on software development. Stopping promotions just means the player base will slowly dwindle.
  • edited March 2012

    Bear with me chaps, & I'll respond to this fully, openly, & honestly, soonest, certainly no later than tomorrow morning.

    I'll answer as many of the questions as I am able - or that I know the answer to - though I'll swerve the sarcastic & ironic ones if you don't mind, as I'm not sure how they contribute to the adult & informed debate which we expect, & get, from the vast majority of the Clientbase here.

    Much of what I reply may surprise some of you, as there is a degree of misinformation in the thread.

    Hopefully, I can appraise of various other new stuff, not mentioned in this thread, too.  

    Please bear with me.

    Thank you.
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    Bear with me chaps, & I'll respond to this fully, openly, & honestly, soonest, certainly no later than tomorrow morning. I'll answer as many of the questions as I am able - or that I know the answer to - though I'll swerve the sarcastic & ironic ones if you don't mind, as I'm not sure how they contribute to the adult & informed debate which we expect, & get, from the vast majority of the Clientbase here. Much of what I reply may surprise some of you, as there is a degree of misinformation in the thread. Hopefully, I can appraise of various other new stuff, not mentioned in this thread, too.   Please bear with me. Thank you.
    Posted by Tikay10
    Amazing responce...Really appreciate it...

    I am looking forward for your answers TK...

    Please take your time...No need to hurry...
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements : Amazing responce...Really appreciate it... I am looking forward for your answers TK... Please take your time...No need to hurry...
    Posted by GreekWay
    Thank you, though I am not sure why you should be amazed. I reply to all these matters in the same way, & always have. I don't, obviously, reply to repeated troll-type matters or sarcastic comments when we have been over it numerous times before, but I've never ducked a single question on here, and I keep my replies, polite, too.

    I watched the thread develop, but I needed to check some facts with Adam first, & he was on holiday until yesterday. Some very up to date stuff was due to happen during last night's scheduled outage, too, & did, but I needed to know if it had gone to plan. 

    Note, please, that Clients will NOT always immediately see the benefit of changes that take place under the bonnet. Some stuff is for the longer-term, or is not immediately released to all.

    One change took place last night, which I, & a handful of others (Beta Testers) ONLY can see right now. It's rather super, but it will not go to "general release" until everyone is sure it is 100% glitch & bug free.

    Many of you, however, will have astutely noted that Sky Poker has had at least one overnight scheduled outage every week for some time now. Players very rarely ask what these are for. It's almost like a car in which they are overhauling the whole thing from top to bottom, or fitting a completely new engine...... 

    Really would appreciate it if we can await my Posts on what has, is, & will be happening, before posting further. 

    Thank you. 
  • edited March 2012


    A quick basic question then....... 

    How is that I can 3/4/5 table on other sites without Lag/screen or table freezing but I struggle to do the same on Sky? I can only play one table safely or two at a push without getting issues on Sky. BTW, when on Sky, that is the ONLY thing running and I do have a decent broadband.

    I realise my pc is not of great spec and is a major factor in my predicament, but not being very technically minded, I can not comprehend why it is so different from one poker site to the next.

    FWIW, I would prefer to multi table on Sky (Monday's DTD comp esp) but unfortunately can not ATM. 

    There was talk of having a 'technical' show sometime on Sky Poker for all us non geeky folk. Any news on this?
  • edited March 2012
    Really would appreciate it if we can await my Posts on what has, is, & will be happening, before posting further. 

    ^^^, sorry TK. I was posting my question before I read this.
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements : Playing more than 3 tables for me uses cpu usage fluctuating between 90-100% with periods of 30 seconds or so at 100% - which isn't great when I want to multitable about 16 tables!!!! Can manage about 7 before it becomes unplayable.  Aparently it's my high spec laptop or 50mb internet connection at fault blah blah blah blah blah blah.................................................................................................................................................
    Posted by Die_hard
    I have a 18 month old laptop (it was high end at the time, prob just about avg spec now) and I have no problems with CPU usage and can 9 table on it fine.

    I too have a fairly normal i7 processor desktop which can handle 24 tables with zero lag.

    I used Sky on my Mums laptop once and it was awful, like 2 tables max, and thats cos her machine is quite old.

    I know its prob an obvious question, and you have prob tried it, but hvae you given your laptop a good cleanup?  I always do notice a difference after spending some time doing just basic housekeeping on my machine.
  • edited March 2012
    My Laptop has the i7 620M and 6Gb of RAM memory.

    As I stated before I don't have problems multitabling in other sites so it's not my laptop's problem I suppose.

    Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing TK's answers on the matter about Sky's software.
  • edited March 2012
    hi belsibub,
    used to play 6 tables on old pc,
    although previously before i signed up with twitter,facebook
    and using e-mail,etc,i could play up to 10/12 tables on it.
    it was only a mid-range one,
    i bought it second hand for £199,
    when new it cost £399.
    so i do think that by using it for other things as mentioned
    can/does slow down performance,
    (but i am no expert,just my opinion/observation).
    with my new pc,

    again as already said,
    an i7 8GBmemory also with dedicated graphics card,
    (which i was advised to buy as an extra,(cost £50),
    i have played 13 tables,with no lag at all.
    it would be interesting to see just how many more tables
    it is possible to play on it,
    but that is for the future,not now!!!
    lol

    devon




  • edited March 2012
    The trouble with PC's and laptops are that we all have different setups and different software running that can cause problems with certain things.

    Two of us may have the same processor and the same ammount of RAM, but we maybe running different operating systems such as Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista etc. Then we all have different software installed and running in the background such as anti virus software, Firewalls and tonnes of other things.

    Then you've got differences in one person maybe using a better graphics card than somebody else, different  drivers that may perform better than others etc. One persons Ram may perform better than somebody elses even if they have the same ammount.

    Hard drives vary in speed too, plus if it's a little messy and crammed full of data this can harm performance.

    I'd guess Sky's software may use more resources than some others but without checking i'm only guessing here as I'm lucky that I don't have any problems on any site I play.

    For anybody having problems on here just try doing some defragging (use some free software to do this as it's much quicker than using windows defrag utility). If your hard drive is over 70% full try backing up some data onto discs and clear some space.

    Do some adaware and virus checks. Have a look at what's running in the background and see what else is using alot of your systems resources.

    Be careful though, don't stop anything that you shouldn't.

    Some firewalls and anti virus software are known to hog resources so if you check and yours is using alot of memory, cpu power then try a different one.

    Then we can talk for ever about internet problems, wireless network problems (which should be avoided if possible) but i'm not going to bother because i've got some work to finish before tomorrow.



  • edited March 2012
    there must be something up with alot of pcs and lappies.. i did a test on my hp i3 pro. and i can run 24 tables. cant see them all but it will run that many and comes up with a warning for cpu usage..  i never play that many tables but i wanted to test it..  sky software atm does use a little more thn other sites, but if they have changed it (coming soonish((maybe this year)) then we can all enjoy ourselves or in my case (have more to moan about).... 

    enjoy ur poker, relax. when ur bad beat comes at 2 am. run in the garden and scream..
  • edited March 2012
    I was gonna comment to people on the lack of being able to play tables.

    These days it's pretty hard to even find a low enough speed internet that couldn't cope with quite a few tables of poker. So most people aren't gonna be getting held back massively by their speed.

    I'd say a big factor that no-one mentions when stating whether they can handle lots of tables or not, is what operating system they have on their laptop. For instance, Vista is majorly memory-hungry and have been told by Llama (the techy in my life lol) that you need to have about 2gb memory absolute minimum just to run Vista comfortably. I've heard windows 7 is supposed to be less of a strain on your cpu and memory.

    Another major consideration is the amount of junk you will almost certainly have built up in the dark recesses of your laptop. Download something like SpyBot (it's what I use, and it's free), it will protect your computer against any malware/ads (bad stuff) and remove the ones you already have. Also do regular virus checks (I use AVG cos it's free)

    Thirdly, don't have a million and one things running even if you aint using them. Just a few of the things that might be running in the background without you even knowing it... M S   N, iTunes, Skype, windows media player (and the like), all just wasted usage if you aint using them.
  • edited March 2012
    I actually can't be bothered to (yet again) go into all my details of how much my laptop cost (a lot), how much RAM is has (a lot), processor it has etc etc etc. except to say I have tried everything stated on this thread plus more and nothing makes any difference on this or my other computer.

    I'm sorry Mr TK if you think my posts are sarcastic. Maybe it's unwarranted and I apologise if so. However, the fact remains that a lot of people who play on here can easily play 10+ tables on every other site but can manage about 2/3/4 on here! Then you wonder why people make sarcastic comments when the software imo is to blame for most (obviously not all) people.

    You seem to be hinting that there are changes that will sort this out? (high CPU usage therefore causing lag/timouts etc). If that's not what you're hinting at then I apologise in advance If it is though, then you are obviously saying that you know this is a problem, hence people are right to be annoyed about it when they are continually being told it's their laptop/pc/internet/processor etc at fault.

    The exact same thing happened when Betfair left Cryptologic and took over the Pokerchumps software when they went alone (pre Ongame days). Lots of people (not everyone as is here) experienced extremely high CPU usage and the site denied it was the software. In the end they admitted it was the software and it eventually got sorted in an update.

    Personally I can play over 20 tables on other sites but can't play more than 7 on here. (This is the same scenario I have seen numerous people stating in numerous threads.) How can that ever be anything but Sky Poker's software to blame? Even then it's a struggle playing more than 4 with lag/being seated timing out and having to go to the back of the queue again etc etc.

    Whilst I'm moaning, I'm also tempted to start on about the issues I have with (so-called not allowed) HUD's used on this site but I will leave that for another thread until my latest email is replied to by the Head of Poker. (I hope this post doesn't disappear after saying that, though I can't see why it would if there was nothig to hide).
  • edited March 2012
    To be honest Die_Hard, I don't Tikay or Sky have ever accused people of it being their internet connection/laptop spec, I'm 99% sure the only people who have ever said that has been members of the forum, and you can't exactly blame Sky for other people posting their thoughts on a public forum.

    So blame the people on here.
  • edited March 2012
    Hi again,

    I'll be the first to admit that the software is slower than other poker clients. This is due to it being developed in as3/flash/air. It is more resource heavy because of this and takes more CPU/RAM to run than the equivalent of a standard windows application. Theirs plenty of clever optimisations etc to improve the performance but the only real way to see a significant performance boost would be to start the client again from scratch which would take 6-24 months dev time.

    With the abov said though, you should still be able to run a significant amount of tables with a decent setup. With an i5+ and 4gb plus you should be able to comfortably play 16+ tables with a well maintained machine on windows 7 or xp. If you have these specs and are struggling to play 5-10 it's likely due to other factors that you may not even be aware of. 

    The quickest solution everytime is to backup files you want to keep, re-install your OS, update drivers and software such as flash player, java etc. After that you'll have the bar minimum running and a nice clean and tidy pc and will see performance boost across your system.

    For HUD's etc, these are against the ToS of many many sites and you can be banned for using them. However most sites let it slide even if it's against the ToS. The reason none of the major HUD software's support Sky is due to the lack of hand history. Sky doesn't store any hand history locally for easy access and HUD software uses hand histories to compile stats. It's a big ask for them to support Sky with a lack of direct hand histories for a site with lower traffic.
  • edited March 2012
    To be honest, I personally think it makes for a better quality player in terms of forcing people to work things out themselves rather than looking at a programme and going 'ok this guy 3bets 20% of the time'.

    People don't have HUDs in the real world and it makes for a much fairer playing field if you aint sat on a table full of people using HUDs when you either don't wanna spend the money on one (or illegally download it) or don't believe in the use of them.
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    I actually can't be bothered to (yet again) go into all my details of how much my laptop cost (a lot), how much RAM is has (a lot), processor it has etc etc etc. except to say I have tried everything stated on this thread plus more and nothing makes any difference on this or my other computer. I'm sorry Mr TK if you think my posts are sarcastic. Maybe it's unwarranted and I apologise if so. However, the fact remains that a lot of people who play on here can easily play 10+ tables on every other site but can manage about 2/3/4 on here! Then you wonder why people make sarcastic comments when the software imo is to blame for most (obviously not all) people. You seem to be hinting that there are changes that will sort this out? (high CPU usage therefore causing lag/timouts etc). If that's not what you're hinting at then I apologise in advance If it is though, then you are obviously saying that you know this is a problem, hence people are right to be annoyed about it when they are continually being told it's their laptop/pc/internet/processor etc at fault. The exact same thing happened when Betfair left Cryptologic and took over the Pokerchumps software when they went alone (pre Ongame days). Lots of people (not everyone as is here) experienced extremely high CPU usage and the site denied it was the software. In the end they admitted it was the software and it eventually got sorted in an update. Personally I can play over 20 tables on other sites but can't play more than 7 on here. (This is the same scenario I have seen numerous people stating in numerous threads.) How can that ever be anything but Sky Poker's software to blame? Even then it's a struggle playing more than 4 with lag/being seated timing out and having to go to the back of the queue again etc etc. Whilst I'm moaning, I'm also tempted to start on about the issues I have with (so-called not allowed) HUD's used on this site but I will leave that for another thread until my latest email is replied to by the Head of Poker. (I hope this post doesn't disappear after saying that, though I can't see why it would if there was nothig to hide).
    Posted by Die_hard
    The only reason I suggested taking the 15 seconds to post your CPU model is then perhaps people with a similar processor could post their experience.  (press Winkey+Pause/Break and write down the Processor listed btw)
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    Bear with me chaps, & I'll respond to this fully, openly, & honestly, soonest, certainly no later than tomorrow morning. I'll answer as many of the questions as I am able - or that I know the answer to - though I'll swerve the sarcastic & ironic ones if you don't mind, as I'm not sure how they contribute to the adult & informed debate which we expect, & get, from the vast majority of the Clientbase here. Much of what I reply may surprise some of you, as there is a degree of misinformation in the thread. Hopefully, I can appraise of various other new stuff, not mentioned in this thread, too.   Please bear with me. Thank you.
    Posted by Tikay10
    Lets gooooo info ;)

    I read a post from you TK that said 'antes' are near the bottom of sky pokers list of pirorities with regards changes....

    Why is this? I can't think of many more things that are more important, if any at all.

    Sync breaks, stretchy tables, and time banks....

    Then prob antes for tournys comes 4th on the list?

    Can you give an idea of what changes we are most likely to see first? 

    Even if you cannot give timescales, you should 'safely' be able to tell us what to expect?

  • edited March 2012

    Apologies for the delay, today has been a "bit busy".

    Some of it is quite complex, & so I have drafted it out & just sent it up to Adam for approval, which seemed prudent.

    If he gives the nod tonight, I'll Post it straight away, failing that it will be tomorrow.

    Thanks.
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    The trouble with PC's and laptops are that we all have different setups and different software running that can cause problems with certain things. Two of us may have the same processor and the same ammount of RAM, but we maybe running different operating systems such as Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista etc. Then we all have different software installed and running in the background such as anti virus software, Firewalls and tonnes of other things. Then you've got differences in one person maybe using a better graphics card than somebody else, different  drivers that may perform better than others etc. One persons Ram may perform better than somebody elses even if they have the same ammount. Hard drives vary in speed too, plus if it's a little messy and crammed full of data this can harm performance. I'd guess Sky's software may use more resources than some others but without checking i'm only guessing here as I'm lucky that I don't have any problems on any site I play. For anybody having problems on here just try doing some defragging (use some free software to do this as it's much quicker than using windows defrag utility). If your hard drive is over 70% full try backing up some data onto discs and clear some space. Do some adaware and virus checks. Have a look at what's running in the background and see what else is using alot of your systems resources. Be careful though, don't stop anything that you shouldn't. Some firewalls and anti virus software are known to hog resources so if you check and yours is using alot of memory, cpu power then try a different one. Then we can talk for ever about internet problems, wireless network problems (which should be avoided if possible) but i'm not going to bother because i've got some work to finish before tomorrow.
    Posted by AcidMan27

    This is all good advice. 

    Your BB speed will effect your experience. Google BB speed test and find one that tests your speed and shows what your neighbours are achieving. If you are considerably lower than your neighbours then your provider is the likely cause of some of the problems.

    I have a speed of 9.91 and .89 at the moment. It does vary sometimes but not by much. Some of my neighbours are in the 3.0-5.0 range.

  • edited March 2012
    I did once try to give an idea how difficult it is to troubleshoot any sort of 'performance' issues HERE ... not sure how useful that is but people may get the point ;-)

    I may well run the oldest PC on this site haha. It's about 10 years old - a Pentium IV 2.4Ghz with 2Gb RAM (Win XP). Just can't be bothered to change it - but it will run 4 tables easily in either browser or DC.   I couldn't begin to list all the tens/possibly hundreds of optimisations I've had to make though!


    PS wireless should never be used. Do it and you deserve everything you get :-p ;-)


  • edited March 2012
    One moan I have that hasn't been addressed . The number of times I've entered a tourney and gone to do something else and missed the start. It doesn't pop to the front as on other sites which would help or perhaps a klaxon sounding to signal the start. Something is needed - even an electric shock thro the keyboard.
    How about it ?
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    One moan I have that hasn't been addressed . The number of times I've entered a tourney and gone to do something else and missed the start. It doesn't pop to the front as on other sites which would help or perhaps a klaxon sounding to signal the start. Something is needed - even an electric shock thro the keyboard. How about it ?
    Posted by tiercel
    If your off to do something else try the sound settings, there is one setting to have a jingle for everytime it's your turn to act. If you don't notice the tourny started it will jingle when it's your turn to act so you won't even miss the first hand =).
  • edited March 2012
    In Response to Re: Sky's Software Improvements:
    One moan I have that hasn't been addressed . The number of times I've entered a tourney and gone to do something else and missed the start. It doesn't pop to the front as on other sites which would help or perhaps a klaxon sounding to signal the start. Something is needed - even an electric shock thro the keyboard. How about it ?
    Posted by tiercel
    Is Options, Auto-Focus My Table ticked?
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