smartdrv as expected makes the game works with the same regular jerkiness. The only thing it solves is that if sth was already loaded from hdd it is not loaded again, so after making a circle on the walls around the city, the next circle is done almost without any hdd access.

So pianoman72 what you say just doesn't make sense. Have you checked without smartdrv too?

So pianoman72 what you say just doesn't make sense.

Well maybe there's some additional detail there in what PCs differ,
maybe related to some bios/graphics card detection or whatever.

Yes, I have checked without smartdrv as well, but the difference seems minimal, at best.
For the graphics, I am using an STB Tseng 4000/w32p vlb card.
In the BIOS, I am using tight ram timings, with write-back cache. I'm not sure if that matters with my 486 33mhz CPU.

I also tested the game on my 386DX40 PC, and that does have a substantial amount of jerkiness, probably due to the slower overall performance of that particular computer.

pianoman72:
There are two important things here: one is proper testing, the other is your perception.

Proper testing requires eliminating hdd access, and a straight space for walking. So go to the north gate of the city and walk down with a mouse till you reach the building on the south. Now all what was needed was already taken from the hdd and no more access to it will be done when you go up to the gate again (unless of course a cloud will appear or sth like that which happens very rarely)

you can check your perception doing exactly the same but in dosbox with dynamic core and cycles starting from 50000 and lowering it by 5000 after every walking. This way you will be able to tell us at what amount of cycles you start seeing jerkiness.

Sure, thanks for letting me know how to test it properly, robertmo. I will do so tonight, after work, and will report on the result.

Also, no offense, but I personally always find maximum enjoyment in playing most games with the real, period-correct hardware, rather than using dosbox.

... until the magic smoke escapes 😀

Hehe, very true, h-a-l-9000, I know there will be a day when all our ancient hardware will cease to work.

Here is the follow up result after testing:
Walking the party with the mouse from the north to south gates and vice versa, the visual result is the same, with or without smartdrv loaded. Smartdrv only eliminates the hard drive from being accessed after the first pass, as robertmo correctly mentioned. There is a very slight hesitation on the movement of the party, which happens about every 2 seconds while walking continuously back and forth between the gates. I wouldn't call that jerky motion, since it is barely noticeable, and I only noticed it now because I was testing for it.

I hope that answers some of the questions.