Probably the better thing to do is up the emulated cycles in DosBox and then try running the install program again. Since you have a decent machine, it should be able to handle a higher number of cycles. Eventually, the X-Wing install will configure itself to automatically be set to the "FAST" setting.

If I increae the cycles manually, won't it decrease game performance?

I want the game to run as it is back then and not have to compromise.

I take it that I should not go ahead and change machine speed?

Watch your CPU time in Task Manager until it reaches 100% with the current cycle number, then turn it back a couple hundred cycles.

just read "dosbox guides" - "how to speed up dosbox"

I know about cycles. But does increasing cycles decrease game performance?

I know that increasing the frameskip DOES decreases performance because DosBox skips over some frames, making the game a bit choppy and less smooth. What about cycles?

I want the game to run as perfectly as if it was run in an original DOS machine.

The X-Wing install program is just making a poor guess as to what your machine's clock speed is, don't worry about it. You can change it manually any time.

Raising the frameskip doesn't decrease performance, if you're talking about CPU usage etc it actually improves it because DOSBox has to render fewer frames. A frameskip of 1 or 2 is usually good to use because the difference between 60 and 30fps (or whatever it is) is usually quite difficult to detect, and your CPU is having to work less.

More cycles == smoother game play, until you hit that glass ceiling where your CPU can't emulate any more cycles without slowing down.

Like other people have pointed out, this is all covered well in the guide(s).

hi, I am using a laptop with 700 MHz, 128 RAM under WinXP SP 2. I am using DosBox 0.63 and I experienced choppy sound and choppy game play when I tried syndicate wars and settlers2 gold edition.

So I just wondering is my computer simply too slow to use Doxbox 0.63 to play game like these ?

yes those are heavy games for full cpu emulating programs as dosbox.

Just curious, does anyone have a machine fast enough to play Syndicate Wars at full speed (normal VGA or (gasp!) SVGA)? If so, what are the specs? I've sort of assumed that I won't get to play those games for another 5 years or so 😀

uhm syndicate wars runs with dynamic core and should be quite runable with current high end machines I recall..

Maybe somebody should try.

Thanks for ansering most of my questions.,

You said that the frameskip does not decrease performance. The DosBox README file says that increasing the frameskip will decrease the fluidity of the video. It states that this is a compromise, you gain speed but lose video fluidity. So, it does decrease performance.

I'm sorry for repeating a question, but I didn't get an direct answer to this. The README file says nothing about what happens if you increase the cycles. Does it decrease game performance like frameskip does?

Optim_1: If you could please define "performance" for us, then I am sure we can answer your question. So, what do you mean by "performance"?

No performance loss by increasing cycles. I find that upping cycles until CPU utilization is at around 90% is good. After that the sound starts chopping up usually. How fast you'll be able to run the game in the end depends on how fast your CPU is. I can run games like doom just fine. If your game uses a DPMI extender (DOS/4GW) then download Dos32a (dunno the link offhand), and that will give you a nice performance boost too 😀

-Brian

Thanks. I understand that increasing the cycles does not decrease the performance of the game.

BTW, by "performance" I mean does the game have great graphics, sound, music, play control, speed, and fluidity of play. In other words, a total play experience given the capabilities it was designed for at the time.

In the case of the X-Wing floppy game which came out in 1992, I would like the game to perform exactly like it would run in a DOS machine. I can't expect the graphics to be accurate to the original because the lowest resolution my high-end monitor can support is 800x600 but the game was designed for a much lower resolution. But for the others, like sound, control, music, speed, and fluidity I would like them be exactly like the original if it is possible. Unless it is neccessary, I don't want to have to compromise such as increasing speed at the cost of sound or increasing frameskip for higher CPU at the cost of fluidity of play. Because then I won't get the total game experience it was designed for in 1992.

I would like to thank all who put up with me and answered my questions.

I'm sure your system will be able to run it (especially if that's a 2.6ghz AXP 😀 ). In case you havn't read this by now, setting your core in the conf file to dynamic will give a performance boost, but depending on the game, could be unstable, though I have never had a crash while using it.

-Brian

I just happen to have a ripped version of Crusader no regret without movie... Well.. it is runable and the speed is disguistingly slow..... very choppy indeed....

So I guess if I run Crusader no remorse with movies on, then I will get wrose right ?

BTW, my computer is 700MHz, 128 RAM... HAHA, I guess I am asking too much for computer like this isn't it ?

IIRC, VPC v5.2 can run Crusader...except the sound is screwy. Other option is to run it on your current PC in DOS..

I am sorry to bother you all again. I have a new problem.

I switched the Machine Speed setting on the X-Wing Installation program from "slow" to "fast". The installation program still recommended that the machine be slow, so I increased the cycles up to 7000 so that it would recommend that it be fast. I now both have a "fast" machine speed setting and a "fast" reccommendation.

However, the Sound Board setting of the Installation program lets you select either Adlib, Roland, or GMIDI music in combination with a Soundblaster that lets you hear digitized speech and digitized sound. I can't hear any digitized speech and sound from the Soundblaster card. I also can't hear any Adlib music. But I can hear either Roland or GMIDI music.

I could hear all those things before I changed everything from "slow or medium" to "fast". I tried everything. I set the core as "dynamic" instead of "normal". I increased cycles till it went over 100. I still can't hear digitized speech and digitized sound from the X-Wing game.

I want to keep the fast setting and fast recommendation. It did wonders for play and for the cut scenes from the game. But I also want to hear digitized speech and sound that I was able to do before.

Please help me.

I think the point of confusion here is that, in DOSBox terms, frame rate (number of times per second the screen is updated) is not the same thing as "performance", which affects control response time, smoothness of sound, etc. You can increase frame skip, slightly, to make the screen update less frequently, and actually gain some responsiveness. Does that make sense?

Like I said earlier, the "recommendations" of the install program are just guesses based on what it thinks your machine's clock speed is. What they REALLY control are just detail levels, slow turns off stuff like engine glow and uses lower detail models for the spaceships. So if you want to play with the best graphic settings, just tell it FAST and tweak DOSBox until it runs smoothly.

As for the digitized sounds not working, I have no idea what's going wrong there. I can't reproduce that problem with my version of X-Wing. Make sure your DOSBox and X-Wing settings are the exact same in either test case. Make sure Sound Blaster emulation is enabled in your dosbox config file, if you're using one. Make sure it's using the default settings too, address 220, irq 7, dma 1, as X-Wing doesn't allow you to set those manually and it might not be able to detect different settings.