Correct. (33.3333... ms = 30 fps).

I have no idea how the game is implemented, nor -- as far as I remember -- does anyone here, exactly. (And given the kind of problems that we see, we're probably better off not knowing!) So this is a purely empirical exercice. I should completely expect the sweet spot to be different for every configuration.

In your case, the widescreen mod -- which I do not use -- may be integral to your sweet spot being different from mine. Or maybe your sweet spot *is* generally better than mine --- I would have to reinstall and test to see how long it takes Apollo to kill the monster, but I *think* it took him a full month and change in my case.

Hi all,

I have found a solution

I have Windows 10 x64 and run on a CPU i3 2100 Sandy Bridge at 3.1 GHZ.

I run ZEUS with compatibility for Windows XP SP2 . Before I start the game I have disabled everything about sound card check the printscreen atached.

In game, When Atena appear on invasion I press simply the ALT button. The game freeze for moment. When I press again ALT button the game unfreeze and the Slow effect dissapear ! Every time there is slow God animation, press ALT button, then press it again. I don't know why it's work it seem pressing the ALT button work like a reseter or something like. So I have solved for the moment . Nice how Atena decimate entire enemy army without reaching my defending army :D .Cheers :)

Thanks a lot! 17ms and -80% works fine for me. God animation is a liiiitle bit slower than it should be (playing the adventure with Poseidon harrasing my fishermen atm), but waaaay better than before and everything else is almost perfect (incl. that Trading Post guy).

This solution worked for me on Windows 10 laptop. Thanks a lot
I actually played through a bunch of campaigns without being bothered by glitchy gods. But 2 hardest campaigns in Poseidon require you to build urchin catchers and fisheries as a prime food resource. and to MY HORROR the animation of fishing boats and urchin catchers was also glitching, so it made them useless without a way to deal with animation.

Thank you for the tip. For the first time in years, I now have correct god animations.

On my Core i5 2500K O/C at 4.0 GHz, the optimal settings with BES 1.7.5 seems to be a 90-95% limit with 20 ms cycles.

I have found another solutions beside BES that works reasonably well. CheatEngine. Just start Zeus, then start CheatEngine, load Zeus into it, check "Enable Speedhack" box and that's it. (you can press Apply just to be safe, leave speed at 1.0).

I did that and it only partly worked: the people and things that are animated show up but aren't actually animated except for the trade depot guy who moves far too fast

If anyone's still looking for a permanent solution without having to install extra software or changing drivers: I have uploaded a patched version of the GOG exe at Zeus Heaven that fixes the gods and urchin collectors.

Link: zeus.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=967

Thank you - I'll use this next time I install Zeus :)

Thanks, applied the patch only tested it a little but gods now seem to appear normally. Sometimes the gods would lag only in appearing but if i pressed alt twice they appeared normally without the patch.
Since this is another pc i am using i am not sure if this one had the sea urchin problem without the patch on win xp.
My previous pc didn't have any animation bugs, but was too old and broken to properly play games on it.
I only have the odyseey or what it's called to beat and then i have tgo continue to poseidon campaign.

Thanks for testing and confirming that it works for you! The slow gods and the unproductive urchin collectors have the same underlying cause, so if you have slow gods, you also have the urchin problem and vice versa.
The animation bug happens because the game logic only advances the animation when both the time is right (every X milliseconds), AND the screen is redrawn in the same cycle. With ever faster computers, those events do not occur together as often as with older hardware.

Just wanted to chip in; your patch is on the Steam forums of this game as well where I took it from and it works like a charm on the Steam version too.

I checked the patch out, it actually works! game is finally playable for me now, thanks!

Works fine! But unfortunately, it doesn't work with the widescreen patch :/

@Koowluh: thanks for checking the Steam version, that's great to hear! I've updated the description on the file.

@mautschi: if I can get hold of one of the folks who made the widescreen patch I'm more than willing to share the changes I made to the .exe.