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Conquest of the New World -Slow?

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First post, by Pizlenut

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I've been trying to get this game to work for a few days now and have had different marks in success.

Im using the original CD (non-deluxe), and im pretty sure its dos-based however I remember it running on older 95 or 98 machines but I could be mistaken.
note: the game is patched - but I don't feel this would make any difference.

Raw run on WinXP results in the game crashing on the world generating load screens. It will run everything up to that point. Sound stutters constantly.
note: the sound stutters in setup as well, and auto-detect (sound) will crash the setup program.
the opening video will stutter and the video is slow.
The "setup battle" option will run and the battle proceeds smoothly IF the sound is off.

default options on DosBOX result in simular issues with sound stuttering however the game does successfully load and works with the exception of it being fairly slow. Slowdowns occur when overlay windows become available. Like the "newspaper" and "colony management".
It also presses buttons and issues orders slow. Even moving the map from left to right will cause delays (it actually has to stop and load each time you move the map)

Increasing cycles does nothing but decrease load times, dynamic core will crash, and simple mode "won't work for this game".

The computer also takes a significant amount of time processing AI commands in battle sequences. Specifically move orders.

note: Sound does *not* stutter in setup in dosbox, and auto-detect will successfully detect a sound card. (it does, as mentioned above, stutter in-game and during the cinamatic)
Sound has no noticeable effect on performance rather its enabled or disabled.

System Specs:
3.0 AMD barton
Nvidia 6600 GT
1gig DDR
MSI mboard with nforce chipset.
Audigy2
Fully capable of playing any of the newest games... if only half of them were worth playing.

If anyone has any ideas id be happy to try them out. Also note that im fairly new to dosbox so its possible i missed a configuration setting somewhere.

Reply 1 of 4, by Qbix

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simple mode "won't work"
what do you mean by that ? I recall that simple mode would switch to normal if a game like this is encountered. (as it's paging game)

Things to try:
Set emulated memorysize to 64 mb
run fullscreen

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 2 of 4, by Pizlenut

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yea what I meant by "can't be used" is dosbox reports that message and switches it back to normal.

I tried changing the memory and it had what appeared to be an adverse effect on the game. It seemed to load slower with more memory, additionally it only seems to request up to 16mb. (it checks ram in an initialization check and only displays up to 16mb)
aside from the load times there appeared to be no difference.

I changed the memory to 64 then to 256 then to 32 then to 0.
0 had the obvious effect of the game reporting not enough extended memory 😀
It is now back to 16.

edit: also full screen or windowed seems to have little to no effect

Reply 3 of 4, by Hazekel

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Well I don't have XP, as you have these sorts of problems, but the game does run on 98SE fine. I do not have a patch with (unless it was included with my edition). You might try Windows 98 compatiblity mode and see if that works or try messing with the DOSBOX settings for cycles and frameskip. Also check to see if the patch is for Windows compatibility. If so, you would need to remove it for DOSBOX.

Reply 4 of 4, by Pizlenut

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the patch just fixes some bugs and added some features.
I vaguely remember it running on a 98 machine as well, but I think it only ran on that because 98 was compatible with dos.

I've tried compatibility mode already both on dosbox and the game individually and together.

the cycles and frameskip have no effect other than more cycles reduce load times.
Its not really a video problem that I can tell. The game is fine up until the point where it actually has to do something.
Like, for example, a build order for a colony, moving the map, or even overlaying windows (like the newspaper or management windows).
All of which cause it to slow down.

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