Descent - laggy. PIII 1GHz, 384mb ram, nVidia 32mb \ VOGONS

Descent - laggy. PIII 1GHz, 384mb ram, nVidia 32mb

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First post, by 776

Posted on 2008-12-23, 22:28

776 Offline

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Hey. I'm trying to run Descent. I have a PIII 1.0GHz, 384mb ram, nVidia GeForce2 MX 32mb. That should be more than sufficient for running Descent on Dosbox, I would think. But I can't get the game to run with decent fluidity. I've experimented extensively changing cycles and frameskip with no luck.

Descent II runs on Windows very smoothly with resources to spare. The only thing I can think of is that the resources Dosbox uses are taking away from the resources Descent has to use. But it shouldn't have that dramatic of an effect, should it? I'm fairly certain that my system should be handling this a lot better, given the specs. Can anyone help me out?

Reply 1 of 14, by 776

Posted on 2008-12-23, 22:33

776 Offline

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Windows 98 SE, MSI 6337 motherboard, SIIG SoundWave 5.1, Dosbox 0.72

...if for some reason that information should be needed.

Reply 2 of 14, by DosFreak

Posted on 2008-12-23, 22:48

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Your computer is a POS. Either run the game in DOS, Windows or use a source port.

DOSBox is an emulator. It requires alot more processor power than the original system DOS games were designed for.

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Reply 3 of 14, by 776

Posted on 2008-12-23, 22:56

776 Offline

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Ah ok, well I was just running Dosbox for the sound emulator. My soundcard doesn't support Descent. Maybe there's a standalone sound emulator out there somewhere. I'll be looking; in the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions, please...

Reply 4 of 14, by Qbix

Posted on 2008-12-24, 07:30

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VDMSound

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Reply 5 of 14, by dh4rm4

Posted on 2008-12-24, 08:35

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776 I'm looking at the SIIG website now and I can't see any form of DOS support. Have you tried selecting Sound Blaster?

Reply 6 of 14, by akula65

Posted on 2008-12-24, 12:22

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As DosFreak suggested, a source port is a good approach:

http://www.dxx-rebirth.com/?Project:D1X-Rebirth

Reply 7 of 14, by 776

Posted on 2008-12-28, 02:40

776 Offline

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I've tried selecting Sound Blaster and various others. The sound card isn't supported. If I'm not mistaken, VDMSound can't be run on Win98SE. I don't want to use D1X rebirth either, unless I can disable all the high-res "improvements" and features. Anyone know of a standalone sound card emulator besides VDMSound?

Reply 8 of 14, by wd

Posted on 2008-12-28, 13:09

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Get a decent PC and be happy.

Reply 9 of 14, by valnar

Posted on 2008-12-28, 15:39

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Yep. Build yourself a Core2Duo and be done with it. I certainly hope you have something more modern than that PIII already. Or is that your latest and best PC? 😮

/snob off

Reply 10 of 14, by 776

Posted on 2008-12-30, 00:26

776 Offline

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Haha I'm having no part in a tech nerd rendition of a cock size contest. My specs have little to do with my problem and I'm sincerely asking for help from those who wish to give it. Now: does anyone know of a sound card emulator I could run with Win98SE? If not, maybe I'm out of luck.

Reply 11 of 14, by valnar

Posted on 2008-12-30, 00:30

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Run it from DOS on that P3. It will work fine. That PC is not fast enough to run an emulator like DOSBox.

Reply 12 of 14, by dh4rm4

Posted on 2008-12-30, 01:42

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He can't get sound if he runs it from DOS, that was the point of his initial post.

776 : You might want to invest in a PCI Sound Blaster, they're not that hard to come by on ebay and are generally not that expensive either.

Reply 13 of 14, by valnar

Posted on 2008-12-30, 02:13

valnar Offline

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dh4rm4 wrote:
He can't get sound if he runs it from DOS, that was the point of his initial post.

776 : You might want to invest in a PCI Sound Blaster, they're not that hard to come by on ebay and are generally not that expensive either.

Well yah, that goes without saying.... ok maybe not. 😵

It's too bad that mobo doesn't have ISA slots. You can also look for an Ensoniq AudioPCI or Vortex2 based board. I think both will work with Descent.

Reply 14 of 14, by 776

Posted on 2008-12-30, 02:40

776 Offline

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Alright thanks folks. Looks like I'll be getting a new sound card.

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