your pc can handle 80.000 cycles ?
I'm pretty sure that core normal and your pc can't handle that amount. That would explain the slowness.

Synd Wars works damn fine (on my AMD Athlon XP 3200 w/ 1GB RAM, ATI X800 PRO w/ 256MB) ever since DOSBox 0.70 was released.

It was the major speed improvement I've ever seen (from version 0.65 to 0.70) with any DOSBox game. Went from a handful of FPS to fast and furious... Erm, I mean fluid! 😀

Outstanding achievement from the DOSBox team! 😎

IIRC, I played with it with default settings (core/cycles=auto), changing only output to DDRAW, full resolution to 800x600 (same as my desktop) with fullscreen, aspect=true and scaler=none.

your pc can handle 80.000 cycles ?
I'm pretty sure that core normal and your pc can't handle that amount. That would explain the slowness.

Yeah, I had tried it at 100,000 cycles, but it played too fast at 640x480. At 80,000 cycles it seemed to play fine initially, but it certain areas it was too fast and in others it was too slow. My system specs are here:

http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.aspx?rigid=34867

On second thought, the only "issue" the game has is regarding to the mission gameplay speed (plays normally) and the menu speed (way to fast). Other than that, works perfectly!

On second thought, the only "issue" the game has is regarding to the mission gameplay speed (plays normally) and the menu speed (way to fast). Other than that, works perfectly!

If I were to play the game in VGA mode instead of SVGA then I can set the cycles down to 35,000. This makes the menu render normally and the gameplay at VGA play more normally, but there still is a slight speed up and down during gameplay. 35,000 cycles is no good for SVGA though. It plays way too slow.

you have tried the cycles=auto option ?

Damn! I forgot one thing...

I was talking about SVGA resolution only, as it's the way I used to play in the old DOS PC. VGA isn't so eye pleasing to me, in this case 😉

I only wonder if there's any possibility (in the future?) for DOSBox to "detect" or "distinguish" between "menu mode" and "action mode"...

p.s. - forgive the lack of better words, having a hard time explaining 😜

you have tried the cycles=auto option ?

Yep. It sets the cycles to max which makes the game run waaayyy too fast. Although interesting, it's not ideal to play the game with.

njaydg try something like
cycles=auto limit 80000

Thank you for the hint, Qbix! 😀

However, I'm just wondering if I'm understanding this correctly...

Despite playing the game (always SVGA, as mencioned above) at perfect speed during the missions (even zooming in/out and spinning the view angle around buildings and so on doesn't slow down 😀 ), the speed in the game menu is very fast (cursor animation, debriefing texts and overall menu animations).

So with this cycles=auto limit 80000 config file option, DOSBox will somehow throttle down the menu speed while maintaining the nice speed in the missions?

not entirely
the limit option gives a maximum number for the cycle guessing code
as the game goes very fast on easy processing it is safe to assume that the guessed cycles by dosbox are then very high. so limiting those might slow down the easy code, while not affecting the regular code.

This is a guess. I don't know if it will work.

"Cycles=auto" = Automatically sets the cycles.
"limit 80000" = is the maximum that Auto can go to.

You should probably try core=dynamic and cycles =10,000 and then try to find the value that is appropriate to your computer where the menu isn't too fast but the gameplay is acceptable.

Once your find the right value then make that the limit.

DosBox emulates a PC so it cannot determine if a menu is different from gameplay.

Syndicate Wars has built-in ingame speed control, you can adjust speed with "+" and "-" keys on keypad. 😜

Sorry for all the delay, guys, but I'm sort of between jobs right now, so proper time for testing is scarce...

Qbix wrote:

njaydg try something like cycles=auto limit 80000 […]
Show full quote

njaydg try something like
cycles=auto limit 80000

(...)

as the game goes very fast on easy processing it is safe to assume that the guessed cycles by dosbox are then very high. so limiting those might slow down the easy code, while not affecting the regular code.

This is a guess. I don't know if it will work.

Sadly, it doesn't work, Qbix. The menu animations still run at lightning fast speed. Although, I totally agree with your theory and wish it worked, since on a real PC the speed of the game is treated as the general speed (not very different speeds between menu and gameplay). But this is probably something about the emulation part, and despite not being a coder/programmer, I know it's probably tricky to get that right.

DosFreak wrote:

You should probably try core=dynamic and cycles =10,000 and then try to find the value that is appropriate to your computer where the menu isn't too fast but the gameplay is acceptable.

Once your find the right value then make that the limit.

For me, 10k cycles in the menus is a bit slow, let alone on the actual game (it crawls like a snail).

My optimum settings are 25k for the menu part, and 80k for the "action" part. So it's hard to find a "sweet spot", at least in my case.

DosFreak wrote:

DosBox emulates a PC so it cannot determine if a menu is different from gameplay.

Like I said above to Qbix, a normal PC doesn't have this difference, so it's probably something in the actual emulation that it's tricky to get right(?)...

Miki Maus wrote:

Syndicate Wars has built-in ingame speed control, you can adjust speed with "+" and "-" keys on keypad.

I already knew that, but thanks for trying to help. AFAICT, it affects the gameplay speed (on a somewhat limited range) but not the menus.

no the problem is that in dosbox each instruction takes 1 cycle
if the game does complex things on menu page. that would take more time/power on a real pc then it does in dosbox
the game code might do simpler stuff so that would take less time on a real pc then it does in dosbox.
so the two might actually come together when the complexity of instructions is taken in account in dosbox it's cycle code.
However we won't add complexity depended cycle decrease to dosbox as it slows down.

forgetting all above. it might be a timer problem or so as well. I don't know

Early pre-DK bullfrog games don't have a speed throttle anyway, they mostly design stuff for 66mhz range machines

Qbix wrote:

However we won't add complexity depended cycle decrease to dosbox as it slows down.

forgetting all above. it might be a timer problem or so as well. I don't know

Your technical knowledge is once more much appreciated, Qbix! It has helped me understand (a little better) the complexity behind CPU / cycles in DOSBox emulation from a logical point of view.

Oh, and it also makes no sense to me trying to implement a "feature" that could risk DOSBox stability and speed... I'll make do with balancing the cycles using fixed values via CTRL + F11 / F12 (though not perfect, works fine that way) if I have to, so it's not a very big deal.

In the interest of trying to understand the problem, I'd like to share a thought that just came to mind...

I remember even older DOSBox versions (pre 0.70) running Synd Wars fine in VGA mode.

I'll make a (slightly mad & wild) guess that playing it in VGA (don't use it much in this game, but I'll run a test later at home) won't cause such a big speed difference (meaning it's not so demanding to DOSBox).

Maybe this is more noticeable when trying in SVGA mode, where the emulation requirements are heavier/more complex?

Have to try this when I get home.

*** EDIT ***

After trying to play in VGA mode, my theory was proved to some extent... By setting cycles=30000 (or 35000 at most) the gameplay was pretty smooth and the menus weren't so fast (only a bit more than it would be normal).

Wether this particular bit of information helps or not, I don't know. Still, should the developers find it "intriguing" enough to need some further testing done, count me in.