Originally posted by HunterZ The game requires an extreme amount of free conventional memory to run...

I dont suppose setting the conventional memory on the EXE's shortcut to 640 helps?

Would DOSBox fare any better perhaps?

Give it a try. You can disable EMS and XMS memory in the configuration file.

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

I dont suppose setting the conventional memory on the EXE's shortcut to 640 helps?

I don't know how to do that in conjunction with LauchPad. Do I point LaunchPad at the .PIF instead of the .EXE or something?

Give it a try. You can disable EMS and XMS memory in the configuration file.

Tried it on DOSBox 0.57. The game runs but locks up when I get to the doc check screen (I'm using the Neverlock loader). This doesn't happen in XP's NTVDM+VDMSound. DOSBox 0.57 is garbage anyways though - the sound is all choppy because they removed the multithreading. Maybe they'll release another build someday - I'm too lazy to learn about CVS just so I can bang my head trying to compile the lastest code in MSVC++. Oh well :p

Originally posted by HunterZ I don't know how to do that in conjunction with LauchPad. Do I point LaunchPad at the .PIF instead of the .EXE or something?

I apparently goofed on that one. I was thinking that whenever you ran the executable, it would call up the PIF and apply those settings. Apparently not (I set a pif for a dos-tool to have only 400k mem, but it still reported 655K).

Tried it on DOSBox 0.57. The game runs but locks up when I get to the doc check screen

Hrmm. Too bad.

DOSBox 0.57 is garbage anyways though - the sound is all choppy because they removed the multithreading.

Two things to remember:
1) Edit your dosbox.conf file and change the "keepsmall" setting to "true". The double-sized window wreaks havoc with audio.

2) It's small, so there's nothing keeping you from having multiple copies/versions at hand. If 0.57 doesn't work, try 0.56., then 0.55, etc...

In any case I suspect your initial memory problem is a bug or compatibility issue as the NTVDM seems to have plenty of base memory.

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

1) Edit your dosbox.conf file and change the "keepsmall" setting to "true". The double-sized window wreaks havoc with audio.

Yeah I read about that on the forum... Unfortunately it doesn't improve things significantly.

2) It's small, so there's nothing keeping you from having multiple copies/versions at hand. If 0.57 doesn't work, try 0.56., then 0.55, etc...

I suppose, but I have this thing about having to use the newest version 😁

In any case I suspect your initial memory problem is a bug or compatibility issue as the NTVDM seems to have plenty of base memory.

Yeah the thought crossed my mind too, although it doesnt take turning many options back on for the game to say that it can't load due to too little conventional memory. I don't know how I ever managed to get it to run on my 286 back in the day - I must have used a boot disk or something.

Hit Alt+Enter to put it in full-screen. That will solve the audio problem for the most part. However, on my 450MHz Celeron, once I started getting up into and over 3000 cycles the audio started jumping.

Thanks for the tip Snover but I already thought of that. It's still just as choppy but it may be because I was using the 4000 cycles default setting.

Hm... well, seeing as how you're on a 450MHz Pentium 2, basically equivilant to my Celeron, try reducing the clock to 2800 or so cycles.

/asshole
hehe Celeron. HA HA!!!
/asshole

😜

Yea yea. It's on my laptop. Which is a hand-me-down.

Originally posted by DosFreak hehe Celeron.

1.7GHz Celeron+AS40GT Motherboard for $99 is good thing.

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Originally posted by Nicht Sehr Gut
1) Edit your dosbox.conf file and change the "keepsmall" setting to "true". The double-sized window wreaks havoc with audio.
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Yeah I read about that on the forum... Unfortunately it doesn't improve things significantly.

Slow pc eh ?
Will increase frameskip (ctrl-F8)
Will solve the problem

If You want the latest source:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/dosbox-cvsroot.tar.gz

It's a nightly build cvs source tree.
I have no idea what's in it and we don't offer support for it.

Qbix

Strangely enough, increasing the frameskip also had no effect on the choppiness of the sound emulation. I think the current official release of DOSbox just REALLY doesn't get along well with my PII-450. I'll have to try the CVS - I hope it's easy to compile with MSVC++ because I don't know jack about building complex native Win32 apps.

Well. *sigh* I went to the trouble of compiling the DosBox CVS. First I had to get a CVS tool because I wasted a bunch of time trying to uncompress the tarball using WinAce and tar/gzip, only to get a big mess of files ending in ,v due to something weird with SourceForge. Then, I had to get a bunch of libraries that DosBox needed but didn't include. Once I finally built it, it ran just as horribly as the release version of 0.57. I also tried increasing the frameskip and lowering the cycle count as people have suggested, but it has no effect on the choppiness of the adlib sound in Hyperspeed. I guess the multithreaded code is still disabled in the CVS, despite everyone's claims to the contrary?

I should also mention that I upgraded to a PIII-550, so I had high hopes for a significant improvement in DosBox's performance, but I was apparently wrong. What a frustrating mess.

oh it's really enabled
But it doesn't fix all problems offcourse

I think your private build is just slower that the release builds so the gain of multithreading is done in vain for your version.

I think the debug0.57.3 version might run the game
Anybody care to try ? 😉

Don't have Hyperspeed to test so maybe someone else can try it with DosBox 0.573

I think the plain exe is a bit useless.
the libmmd.dll is needed and quite rare.

I got Hyperspeed from Abandonkeep, but I had to use a Neverlock loader to get past the doc check because my manual is packed away in a box somewhere. I'll try that version of DOSbox when I get home today if I remember to.

Qbix, what is libmmd.dll for?

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Don't have Hyperspeed to test so maybe someone else can try it with DosBox 0.573

Nope, there was a noticeable improvement, but the adlib music and graphics were still too slow and stuttery to make the game playable. Increasing the frameskip, lowering cpu cycles, and going fullscreen still have NO effect whatsoever on the choppiness/slowness of the emulataion.