Golden Axe for pc dos has got sluggish behavior (like framerate drop) when 3-more enemies are onscreen. I tried messing up with cores, cpu types and cycles but the problem seems to never be really solved. I remember I had it on a 386sx machine and the framerate was stable and fluid. Any suggestions? 😀
What exactly have you tried?
1+1=10
well...I started with default config settings (framerate is not so fluid) but simply raising cycles ingame using ctrl-f12, the game gained the correct framerate with zero/one enemy but there are frame drops sometimes and with 2 enemies on screen (less fps), 3+ enemies (even less). Then I tried using normal core, select a machine (like 386,486slow) and select fixed cycles (5000, 7000, 10000). I tried to disable sound blaster and use pcspeaker only. still no luck. I select vga when I start the game.
edit: maybe I made progress
put core normal, cputype auto and cycles max...no framedrops now but game is a bit too fast. do I try changing cycles max to some lower value like 25000 20000.... ? 😀
What is your CPU utilization?
1+1=10
cpu utilization of dosbox app is like 2-3%
cpu cycles utilized ingame are usually on 3000-8000 range but sometimes for some seconds or in some menus it goes up like crazy to like 20000-25000 or more (O_O)
and the more enemies / less framerate is pretty evident. It never happened on that old pc (or it was not visible).
The thing is evident with first level boss (the fat guys). A visible drop in the game speed. Or in the second level final (with the skeleton, one woman walking and one dragon rider). Raising the cycles to max seems to speed up everything but the problem is always here in some circumstances.
I have 2 pc: a p4 3ghz ht and a dual core 2ghz.
Not that the game is not playable, it runs pretty well indeed and using simple core the fps drop is a bit less evident. For now I'd suggest if someone got it and want to try the game itself, it can better understand and verify what I mean and can post here how the game feels . 😀 bye
What about dynamic core? It is usually the fastest, by a lot.
tearex
maybe use the stock 0.74 instead of an experimental build.
Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!
ooook. I tried running it on a real dos environment (an old pentium 200 mmx): well...the game runs fast (just the same way as in dosbox raising the cycles) but it suffers the same framerate drop with a lot of enemies onscreen, and another minor problem with your keyboard missing the keypresses sometimes during the low framerate periods, this happened in dosbox too. So I tried running it again in dosbox with default config file and NOT touching the cycles. Well...the game runs a bit sluggish but the framerate will be more or less constant in every situation at least. ah those shitty sega convertions, smells like a not so good game engine in the end.
