Time bug fix

So... if you've been playing PSO PC for a while, you've probably noticed that it has a habit of reducing your play-time counter now and then. Sometimes it doesn't seem to record the time you spent playing, while other times it actually makes your play time decrease.

After almost 10 years, I finally found out how to fix the problem.

As it turns out, the bug happens because PSO doesn't understand how Windows handles Daylight Saving Time. When DST is active, everything works correctly. When DST is off, the way Windows corrects the time confuses PSO, and the fact that your clock is set back by an hour causes PSO to subtract 60 minutes from your play time when you quit the game.

To prevent this from happening, right click on the Windows clock and select "Adjust Date/Time", and then go to the "Time Zone" tab. Uncheck the box labeled "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes", and click "OK". Your play time will no longer decrease in PSO. (You may want to restart your computer before you try to play.)

Just remember that when March/April rolls around, you need to check the box again when you set all your clocks forward, or your computer clock will be an hour off. As long as you check the box every March/April and uncheck it every October/November, you won't lose time in PSO anymore, and your computer will still display the correct time.

Oh... So that's why I've never gotten that bug.

lolArizona

That's also why the bug exists in the first place. Apparently, Japan doesn't use Daylight Saving Time, so Sega didn't design the game to be able to understand how Windows deals with it. Japanese versions of Windows don't even have the DST option, so Sega didn't worry about it, since the game only came out in Japan/Taiwan/Korea.

On any sane operating system, this wouldn't be a problem (because the time functionality just always returns UTC). Silly Windows.

It doesn't even make sense, because when DST is off, the time shouldn't be changed. It should only get virtually altered to be fast when DST is on, so you would think that your characters would gain an extra 60 minutes when DST was active, and nothing would happen when DST wasn't. Instead, it's the opposite.

Deleted

That's odd, as a Japanese friend of mine told me they don't. Perhaps I misunderstood what he was saying.