Hi ! I can test on a real 286.

Whoa, email-address-exposed-to-the-internet alert.

ScoutPilot19 wrote:

Hi ! I can test on a real 286.

No need for e-mail, Just download the engine: https://github.com/gandrewstone/GameMaker. And post if it works.

You run: cd\gm\gm.exe, thats the main program.

Then in the folder: cd\sharware\ you'll find test games, most of them should work slow, because they have a lot of sprites and sounds.
But for example "signhdg" seems to run at 60 fps in the main map, and If you enter a level (platformer) it should run slower, at about 25 fps.

I just wanted to know if a real pc would run it well like dosbox.

I also found it is not so difficult to use... and it includes a image importer in gif format, it loaded my tiles and images just perfect into the vga palettes.

Thanks a lot!.

I tested PCem, an emulator that can be set to simulate very specific hardware such as CPU or video cards.

So I set it to emulate a 286 12 mhz, 1 MB ram and VGA.

The first time I tried the RSD GAme Maker did nothing, just went back to dos, then I realised It might be looking for a mouse, so I installed a mouse driver, and..

It works vey well, the scrolling is running very smooth, like in the comander keen games, even a bit faster. But the simulated VGA seems to be a bit slower than dosbox and it has glitches that turn the screen black, if you try to scroll a map up or down.

So the engine should run on a real 286 😀.

PCem's okay at simulating old computers for development, but don't rely on it too much because you could hit a case of Schrodinger's Bug.

Really cool for later generations with the use of profiling 3d assets and engines on emulated Voodoo2s to see where hitches occur on old "hardware" in a more convenient way 😀 (i.e. booting a tiny win95 image solely to run a batch-generated ISO of a test version)

most games seem to work as they should on a 286/16mhz/4mb ram/512kb vga. some have files missing...