Interstate 76's a big one. Too much speed breaks weapons, kind of vital... If you have a GPU that bottlenecks well (i.e. PowerVR PCX2) it'll be playable at normal speed on a fast P4 for example. 😀

Red Alert doesn't have fatal speed issues, but you can crank it up to inhuman speeds and the game will still function properly.

Other major speed sensitive games are UnrealEngine1 based (all of them) - they don't react too well to dynamic throttling CPUs and will alter the gameplay speed when that happens, which will happen on laptops mostly. Also the fractals/fire texture animations aren't capped and look weird when your framerate is high.

leileilol wrote on 2023-02-11, 23:59:

Other major speed sensitive games are UnrealEngine1 based (all of them) - they don't react too well to dynamic throttling CPUs and will alter the gameplay speed when that happens, which will happen on laptops mostly. Also the fractals/fire texture animations aren't capped and look weird when your framerate is high.

There is a hex edit you can make in Engine.dll to fix the DeltaTime problem but because textures don't have a default "MaxFramerate" of 60 every single Fire.dll texture that never has a max framerate set will update WAY too quickly and look absolutely ridiculous.

When applying the hex edit to fix the completely stupid "DeltaTime clamp" Unreal Engine 1 games will happily work correctly up to 300+ FPS, but there's really no point because of the fractal texture animation speed problem.

leileilol wrote on 2023-02-11, 23:59:

Red Alert doesn't have fatal speed issues, but you can crank it up to inhuman speeds and the game will still function properly.

Yep, only map scrolling speed might get out of hand with fast CPUs but adjusting the in game scrolling speed slider should be enough to get that under control, same goes for C&C95.

Deathkeep = Win95 , 1996
Has no speed throttle, and the game sucks when the framerate isn't fast enough, finding a machine that can play it properly is a game in itself. The framerate is highly variable as well. You might have more luck with the 3do version.

According to GameSpy, DeathKeep was "the last Dungeons & Dragons game for SSI, and it was a pretty ignominious end for a pretty distinguished run".

The DirectX native version of Gunmetal (1998) has problems coping with very fast CPU and video access. There's a hex edit you can use to fix only ONE of the issues, but leaves several other issues unresolveable, but the game is still relatively completable from start to finish regardless. The hex edit also varies depending on what kind of CPU you're using as well.

If you don't figure out the proper value for the hex edit the game can be quite impossible to play when it's ticking way too fast.

Command & Conquer - I thought it was the DOS version which plays too fast on faster CPUs? The Windows 95 edition (but also includes a DOS version), when played with DirectX, doesn't have the same problem.

Blood Omen is already playing noticeably too fast on a Pentium II 450MHz. It's to the game's benefit, though, as it speeds up the walking around. FMV and dialogues are not affected.

Resident Evil plays fine, but the in-game cutscenes are out of sync with dialogue as they rev up to wacky speeds from fast CPUs. A lower-end Pentium II is about as fast as you should go, but you will notice sync'ing issues begin even at these speeds. The PowerVR version has the same issues, but not as bad. Also on faster CPUs, the game will lockup with Jill in the first room after the first zombie encounter unless you exit the dining room and then go back in - DO NOT talk to Barry until you exit the dining room into the main hall, then back in. Or get a slower CPU, of course.

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron - your ship will fly off further and faster into the sunset the faster the CPU becomes. Somewhere around a Katmai Pentium III 600MHz is ideal. The issues can be worked around by toggling views or staying in cockpit view.

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire - Game runs too fast. Limit framerate to 30fps (still playable at higher FPS, but in-game cutscenes play too fast 60fps is about as fast as you should go (GoG version is limited to 60fps, for example.) There's a fix here with a member who created a modified DLL to limit the game to 30fps combined with a hex editor: Re: Windows 98 DirectX Framerate Limiter

Darkened Skye - In-game cutscenes skip completely on fast CPUs. I think a low-end Pentium IV is about as fast as you can go, but I have not done extensive testing.

Wipeout 2097/XL is another notorious speed sensitive game, it becomes unplayable on systems faster that the intended ones. Also another one that can be "fixed" the leileilol way, i.e. by using a power vr card to (handi)cap it

when it comes to earlier directX titles, i wonder if somethings might be fixable when hardware acceleration is turned down from the control panel>my computer...

You mean slow down the rendering loop by switching to software (if the game supports it, which for the early DX titles might be a reasonable assumption), leaving less cycles for the game logic to burn? I guess that might bump a machine that's only slightly too fast down into "working" territory.

elszgensa wrote on 2023-02-23, 14:35:

You mean slow down the rendering loop by switching to software (if the game supports it, which for the early DX titles might be a reasonable assumption), leaving less cycles for the game logic to burn? I guess that might bump a machine that's only slightly too fast down into "working" territory.

It's a theory, considering the very case-by-case nature of the matter.

DracoNihil wrote on 2023-02-12, 14:47:

The DirectX native version of Gunmetal (1998) has problems coping with very fast CPU and video access. There's a hex edit you can use to fix only ONE of the issues, but leaves several other issues unresolveable, but the game is still relatively completable from start to finish regardless. The hex edit also varies depending on what kind of CPU you're using as well.

If you don't figure out the proper value for the hex edit the game can be quite impossible to play when it's ticking way too fast.

It should be noted this hex edit is no silver bullet to the issue of speed because it changes from system to system. Basically we need some other edit or a wrapper to correct the problem. Don't know many people who can do this and are available. If anyone is interested, we are slowly working to narrow down game functionality through reverse engineering.

alberthamik wrote on 2023-05-28, 02:06:

It should be noted this hex edit is no silver bullet to the issue of speed because it changes from system to system.

I mean, I stated that in my post that it's dependent on your CPU clock and IPC. Funnily enough the value I used for my Phenom 2 still worked for my NUC6i7kyk which is running a Core i7 Skylake. Both have a 2.60 GHz default clockrate though.

I'm strugling with Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. The game runs too fast when setting it to full screen (smooth) with vsync enabled, which in theory should run the game at 320x240@60fps. Strange is that it happens even with period correct hardware below the recommended requirements!