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Imperium Galactica now works! But...

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First post, by Emanuele, Italy

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Hi DosBox team!!!

First of all: thanks for your program! I think it solves many many annoying questions about configuring old dos with more than 620 base kb, and not only! T-H-A-N-K-S!!!

Here i'm reporting only some issues, not big problems.
I'm following dosbox way from when i buyed a game, Imperium Galactica... hmmm, some years ago, two or three.
Until version 0.60 dosbox was unable to launch that WONDERFUL game, but i have waited your DELICIOUS program to reach perfection version after version, and now all the world, everybody, thanks to you, can play with that game.
0.61 is the first version, so, also if emulation was really good, it is also not perfect.
I'm here to report the issues i have found and i hope that this text can help you in searching for point of optimization and upgrades in your already GREAT program... i know only Java language and i cannot directly help you with c or c++ or some high level knowledge about first ms-dos computers 🙁

Here is my configuration: Athlon XP 2100+, 256 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 8500, SB Live! Basic version.
I think Imperium Galactica is a DPMI game, probably an heavy DPMI game 🙁

The first issue is about the installation screen of Imperium Galactica: in version 0.60 executable is not a valid file, but in 0.61 now it works. All things works fine, until you exit from the installer: Dosbox shows a screen full of numbers and letters of various colors and all is locked. No problem: it is sufficient to exit and relaunch Dosbox, but i report it hoping it is useful.

The next issue is about graphic output of Dosbox: i have used your tips about seeing the percentage of used cpu during the utilization of dosbox and i can assure that under Windows XP i can arrive to 18000 cycles (18000 cycles = 80% CPU used, because in windowed mode i prefer to set a number not greater than that to pass safely in fullscreen) and frameskip 0.
Now, if i set 'surface' these values are ok, if i set 'opengl' (or openglnb) cpu used is EVER 100%, independently from cycles i have setted. I can see that also from the cursor of dosbox: it is lighting sloooooowly.
That issue is also present in Linux, but more more more heavily 🙁
In my opinion this is not a problem, because i have ever used 'surface' mode, but, again, if it can helps i have reported it.

An obvious issue is about performance, NOT TO WARN, only to report. In Windows XP Imperium Galactica works fine and also the videos are well reproduced with at least 8000 cycles, and frameskip 0. During the playing the things are a bit different: the click of the mouse button are lagging also with 18000 cycles and frameskip cannot fix that thing. A note also about sounds: sometimes sounds are choppy and not ever synchronized with videos.
Linux version (i'm using Gentoo 1.4 with optimized by me kernel 2.4.22 and ALSA 0.9.2) of Dosbox, on my machine, is not good 🙁 Strange thing is that sounds are REALLY good and not choppy also if the emulator cannot reach the speed of Windows version (!!!), but Imperium Galactica is choppy and lagging also with cycles under 5000 and frameskip 10: i do not know why, i'm only reporting it. Excuse my too good opinion, but i think the problem is not my Linux configuration, because i'm able to play in Linux some famous Windows games at speed rate also superior to Windows speed 😀

And here is the end: i think Imperium Galactica is a really HEAVY game, is playing videos from cd and surely it push the cpu to make many many computations, but here i have reported that FINALLY dosbox 0.61 can launch that game and we can play it thanks to your valuable efforts! Excuse me for the length of this message, but i have tried to explain the issues with all my strength! 😉

Reply 1 of 7, by Chrysalis

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Hi

I noticed the same problem, I got a xp2200+ cpu and setup the game with sb pro sound (no sb16 support in dosbox?)

With frameskip on five I managed to get cpu cycles up to 16000 (90% cpu usage 96% peak), but the game is very slow and lagged response to mouse, I am guessing it needs around 30000 cpu cycles to run smooth.

I also had to have the sound buffer very high 4x the defaul (8192) which makes sound laggy. This doesnt bother me as much as the above but I can see this game is going be to be tough to get to run smooth.

Reply 2 of 7, by Gregorius

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I can only agree with everything mentioned above. Although sound sync is not a problem of DOSBox but of the game. See, when the game came out there were not so many kinds of different pieces of hardware so the game was perfectly written to 386 and 486DX but fortunately the game ran just fine on P100 as well. As computers became faster and soundcards became more diverse sound and video fell out of sync do to the lack of implementation in the videos. You can solve the problem by slowing down your CPU, your Video Card or SoundCard, maybe speed them up. Or the ultimate soultion would be to completely emulate the hardware speed of early computers with all the hardware present in your computer. I doubt that it can be done, so I guess it will stay a pain in the but unfortunately to play with the settings. 😖

Reply 3 of 7, by Chrysalis

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its an interesting one, on my second sys (pentium3 500 sblive value, ati rage pro) using windows xp the sound isnt in synch, the game also has crashes, I havent tried dosbox on this sys it would have no chance of coping. But on windows 98 the game runs fine, no sound desynch and no abnormal crashes, remember that windows 98 is more or less just on DOS, so it seems to be an OS thing or maybe the drivers and how they use the hardware, what you say about the hardware I do agree with as it could be that windows 98/DOS throttles the cpu to make it all work.

Reply 4 of 7, by Fed

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The game works for you people? When I run Imperium.exe that screen loads up, but when I press start new game or load game (which is basically a redirection to main.exe) it just sits there doing nothing or crashes. Running main.exe yields the same results (since its basically the same thing). Could you give me all the config settings you use please? Im on a P4 2.53 system so CPU power should be enough.
Thanks

Reply 5 of 7, by Fed

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After digging a little and stuff, I found yet another IG1 directory stashed on all my drives, and there I had saved original and patched exe's and well its running now. Thats good stuff. After optimizing everything though I also get the lagged response to the mouse which makes things very annoying for me, unplayable even. So you people think we'll have to wait for like 10Ghz to run it smooth or will newer versions make a big performance difference?

Reply 6 of 7, by Sharpey

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I have a MSI Mainboard, KM2M Combo series, AMD processor, don't know how much ram, no sound card and obviously i'm having a problem with Imperium Galactica 1. The problem is when i tried to use DOSBox(0.61) i can't select the install button on the install screen, can anyone help me with this?

I also need to find what the error code: 2 is because i think that is why my game won't work, does anyone know where i can find this?

Reply 7 of 7, by worzoy

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Hi everybody !

I have the same problem as Fed with my Imperium Galactica. When I run the game and I select start a new game or load game, it sits there with a black screen and does nothing with no error. My computer is a P4 2GHz with XP and I succeed a few month ago but since there, I formated my computer. I am desesperate because I have tried everything you have told on this forum or in the guide.

Please help me !

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