33 MHz is good. The game's going to vary from slower to faster depending on how many ships are in the area.

I guess video card speed and memory settings have a role, too.

It's totally overkill just to build a machine based on a single game. Once the fad runs out, you'll be left with discontent.

I once did an experiment where I was dealing on internal and external cache via software and BIOS, combined with Turbo button switch on my Pentium 133 based machine. I was able to run Wing Commander at the proper fluid speed, without being too fast. That machine was versatile as I could play most DOS games at any comfortable speed.

That said, for the purpose of this discussion, 25MHz is the sweet spot, but there may be slowdowns with more ships/activities. 33MHz is more convenient, and not too fast.

Thanks for the info....I have 25 in there now...guess I will give it a shot at that speed and upgrade to 33 if needed

As for building for a single game...its OK, I have other plans for the 386 to, plus I have a bunch of other retro computers built for various gaming years....I just want one to play Wing Commander properly without making a ton of changes....

I've been wondering this as well.

Fortunately, Phil has our backs. He recorded playing Wing Commander on several processors. To me I look for the sound effects to line up with the "Wing Commander" Title to determine when it is correctly timed.

Using that as my metric, the DX-25 and SX-33 seem correct. DX-33 is a bit fast, and DX-40 is very fast.

DX-25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxMt-bIm5bk&i … _6_byYe7oglQTc2

SX-33
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW7wvTn-In0&l … glQTc2&index=13

DX-33
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6T0qd-A6WU&l … glQTc2&index=14

DX-40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqbhxhlN9_g&l … glQTc2&index=10

There's another reference speed for the gameplay, also. The Kilrathi Saga Win95 re-release has the free running speed variance corrected, set at a brisk pace. This was my preferred version until MIDI became a concern.

I thought Secret Missions 2 already had a similar fix, but turns out what they had there was an adjustable frame delay.

I have the DX-33 installed right now and may just leave that in for this build and build an SX-33 machine just for Wing Commander....can never have too many machines!!

Did a quick test with Secret Missions 2 and it does have more consistent speed than the original executable, even before manual frame delay adjustments. It's probably the best gameplay reference to try to approximate. The perfect setup will still always have that slowdown in busier spots, though.

It has been a very long while since I played the original Wing Commander. Pretty sure I had a 386DX 40 that I played it on back in the day.

When I upgraded to a 486DX2-66 it ran too fast.

You can always use a slowdown program such as moslo or similar to eat up some of the CPU cycles.