You'll need a faster CPU, it's as simple as that. Hi-res performance for a lot of these software rendered DOS titles (and especially Carmageddon) was really low unless you hit at least 500-600MHz or even higher if you want more than ~30fps.

Carmageddon is CPU hungry, but Duke3D shouldn't be. I remember running Duke3D with edited .cfg file @1024x768, 1280x1024 and even 1600x1200 on a similar config at very acceptable framerates. Best solutions for Carmageddon are getting a Voodoo card or a faster CPU.

^^ not sure what system you were running that on. The Build engine CHUGS at "high" resolutions, I needed a P4/3.0GHz (pure DOS) to get 30FPS out of it at 1280x1024 (in pure DOS.) 1600x1200 was sub-20 throughout.

@tiagotarifa: I've found the GLIDE (3DFX) port of Carmageddon runs nicely on my 233MMX with a Voodoo1, but the software version is unplayable in high-res. You could try running FastVid on startup if you're not already which should give you a boost. (For FreeDOS, disable JEMMEX/JEMM386 and use HIMEMX+UMBPCI for FastVid.)

No offense but there's no way Carmageddon "runs nicely" on an MMX 233 and Voodoo1. Unless you bring down the draw distance and car complexity quite a bit and are satisfied with 30FPS at best.

In any case, OP never came back so...

Garrett W wrote:

No offense but there's no way Carmageddon "runs nicely" on an MMX 233 and Voodoo1. Unless you bring down the draw distance and car complexity quite a bit and are satisfied with 30FPS at best.

20~30FPS, usually around 25ish, so yeah. Haven't played it in a while, but IIRC it runs about as well as the software version does at 320x200.

You don't need "locked at 60" to have a decent gameplay experience.

Agreed, 30fps is great. People were happy with a lot less than that in the early 3D hardware days (N64, Playstation, Sega Saturn, PC with Voodoo cards, etc), and lots of people still play those games on original hardware.

xjas wrote:

^^ not sure what system you were running that on. The Build engine CHUGS at "high" resolutions, I needed a P4/3.0GHz (pure DOS) to get 30FPS out of it at 1280x1024 (in pure DOS.) 1600x1200 was sub-20 throughout.

@tiagotarifa: I've found the GLIDE (3DFX) port of Carmageddon runs nicely on my 233MMX with a Voodoo1, but the software version is unplayable in high-res. You could try running FastVid on startup if you're not already which should give you a boost. (For FreeDOS, disable JEMMEX/JEMM386 and use HIMEMX+UMBPCI for FastVid.)

On a PII300, PII450 and P4 1.5GHz all well known build games performed reasonably well at very high resolutions. Of course their videocards had good VESA (Riva128, TNT and Geforce3 respectively for each system). I didn't measure their framerates at the time but they were all very playable.