First post, by dcdk
I would like to talk about how to optimize running Extreme Assault in dosbox. I have attached a screenshot of my setup.
The reason for this thread is that I don't get the performance of EA that I'm hoping for. There is a constant struggle with potential framerate drops and the screen tearing can be pretty bad at times. Lowering the game's graphics settings improves things a little. I have recorded a video to illustrate what I'm talking about with the in-game graphic settings changed to medium visibility and no fog:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCEeYtPfMAs (there is an audio desync, but that can be fixed)
I'm running without any other applications open at the same time. When checking the computer performance, the CPU runs at ~30%. Dosbox accounts for ~20% and the rest are system processes. The memory is at ~40%. The GPU runs (as expected) at ~0% without recording and then bumps up to ~40-50% when recording (I use Shadowplay for the capture). So there is no bottleneck with my computer that I can see. And still, I need to run on pretty low settings to get a performance that is barely acceptable in my eyes.
- Is anyone able to produce better results with this game? (I've checked a few of the online VODs and I must admit that I do see some of the same problems in many of them, but not sure how much effort they put into optimizing the experience)
- What kind of modern setup would you need to get a smooth experience? Better processor? More RAM?
- Am I not using the computer resources correctly? Ideas on parameters to experiment with?
- Bonus question. Has anyone managed to get the 3dfx patch to run smoothly? What kind of rig do you have for that?
I have attached the dosbox configuration file I used and below are my comments of the parameters I have been playing around with. In addition, I have activated vsync and triple buffering in the settings of my graphics card, but I can't say that it made any noticeable difference.
* fulldouble - Set to true to hopefully help with screen tearing. I can't immediately say that I see any difference whether it's set or not.
* output - Surface and overlay don't work properly for me (doesn't stretch to full screen). I have trouble seeing any big difference between opengl, openglnb and ddraw. I find the online information conflicting with different people recommending different settings, but I'm going with openglnb for now.
* machine and memsize - I changed this to vesa_nolfb after having read that it might provide better performance, combined with memsize 63, than svga_s3. I'm not sure I can see much difference though.
* scaler - I tried all of them, but can't really say that I noticed any difference at all... It's a bit weird because I would have expected at least some of them to give very visible differences. Anyways, I set it to none as I assume that's the least demanding setting.
* core and cycles - I changed this to dynamic core and max cycles as I read somewhere that would allocate the most resources to dosbox. This might have improved the performance marginally, but (again) difficult to say.