Dosbox, Wing Commander`s speed adjust

[LarkInFlight]

I currently play Wing Commander 1 under Dosbox. My question: Is there any way to set dosbox to automatically adjust speed of the game while playing (to keep optimal number of FPS)? Because I have to manually set speed of the dosbox between transitions. The game is too fast while playing "movies" and too slow on playing the game itself. Is there any way to fix this problem? How do you play Wing Commander on your computers under dosbox?

 

[ChrisReid]

There isn't any way for DOSBox to know what the optimal speed would be. Something like that would have had to have been programmed into the original game, and it was not for WC1 and Secret Missions 1. However, the game itself was plenty playable back in the day, so you should be able to come up with a speed that works just fine. How many cycles are you currently running at? All portions of the game should run at a fairly stable speed at around 3500 cycles.

 

[LarkInFlight]

I use 1850 for "cutscenes" and then I have to accelerate (with one key stroke - I set) to 3350. But I found out that the game's engine is ineffective, when more than a few fighters and say, 1 capship is on the screen the game slows down significantly

 

[hurleybird]

what other settings are you using to run the game?

 

[ChrisReid]

Something's funny about that. The cutscenes should run just fine at 3350. You shouldn't need more than 4000 cycles even in the most intense battles in space either. How fast is your computer?

 

[LarkInFlight]

I've got Intel Celeron 1,7 GHz with 512MB RAM and GeForce4 Ti4200 AGP 8x, It is not the best computer so I don't expect it to be too fast. When I run the cutscenes on 3350 cycles it is definetly too fast - I'm not able to even read the text! (I can assure you that I can read quite fast - even English ). On the other side, when I fight with more than 4-5 enemies the game slows down, after I kill some of them, the game returns to it's normal speed. Is it normal?

 

[ChrisReid]

No, it's not normal. Even at 4500 cycles, you should have plenty of time to read every line of cutscene dialogue (and at that level, every battle should play smoothly as well). Do you have your frameskip turned way up? It should be between 0-2. CPU core should be normal. Maybe try completely uninstalling and reinstalling it with fresh options.

 

[LarkInFlight]

I had to reinstall the Dosbox. It works fine now. Thanks for help!

 

[Unregistered]

I've had the same problem ever since I started using Dosbox a few years ago. In cutscenes I have to set the cycles to 3000-4000 if I want the characters' mouths to move at normal speed, and in the battles I'm constantly switching between 3000 and 10000 cycles for optimal performance (for "optimal" I refer to WC1KS). The games run fine with 4000 cycles when there's just a few enemy ships around, but whenever I'm having a bigger battle with more than 5 Kilrathi or fly too close to a ship so that the ship's sprite gets jagged, the game becomes VERY sluggish and I quickly have to CTRL+12 to be able to play. You get used to it, but sometimes it's a real pain in the ass.

I guess Dosbox is having problems with sprites. And the cause of the problem shouldn't be my computer or my Dosbox settings as I have played these games thru 'Box on two different computers (first AMD Athlon 2700+ / 768Mb RAM / Radeon9600 / WinXP, now AMD Athlon 3800+ X2 / 2Gb RAM / GeForce 7900 GT / WinXP) and tried many different settings, including Dosbox's default one.

BTW, my current comp (specs above) is having some weird issues with Dosbox.. sometimes when I want to play, whatever game I start stutters hor-rib-ly whenever the game changes a "scene" (eg. in Wing Commander games, game start -> the Origin introduction scene -> game's title screen). This happens when I run Dosbox in fullscreen. Running in window makes the games work just fine, but in my opinion the only way to enjoy the game is to play in fullscreen. The only solution I've found is to restart Dosbox a couple of times or re-install the whole thing.

Could Dosbox have issues with dual-core processors?

- Lassi

 

[ChrisReid]

I've had the same problem ever since I started using Dosbox a few years ago. In cutscenes I have to set the cycles to 3000-4000 if I want the characters' mouths to move at normal speed, and in the battles I'm constantly switching between 3000 and 10000 cycles for optimal performance (for "optimal" I refer to WC1KS). The games run fine with 4000 cycles when there's just a few enemy ships around, but whenever I'm having a bigger battle with more than 5 Kilrathi or fly too close to a ship so that the ship's sprite gets jagged, the game becomes VERY sluggish and I quickly have to CTRL+12 to be able to play. You get used to it, but sometimes it's a real pain in the ass.

WC1 Kilrathi Saga has an automatic frame rate limiter which keeps the game at a constant speed. This issue exists because the original DOS WC1 and SM1 did not. However, it should be nowhere near this pronounced. Shifting up one notch to the high 3000s during the most intense scenes should be all that's necessary. Did you reinstall the new version of DOSBox like the previous poster?

BTW, my current comp (specs above) is having some weird issues with Dosbox.. sometimes when I want to play, whatever game I start stutters hor-rib-ly whenever the game changes a "scene" (eg. in Wing Commander games, game start -> the Origin introduction scene -> game's title screen). This happens when I run Dosbox in fullscreen. Running in window makes the games work just fine, but in my opinion the only way to enjoy the game is to play in fullscreen. The only solution I've found is to restart Dosbox a couple of times or re-install the whole thing.

Could Dosbox have issues with dual-core processors?

Many computers can have issues with DOSBox in full screen mode in some games. It varies a lot, and could have to do with your sound or video card as well.

 

[Unregistered]

Did you reinstall the new version of DOSBox like the previous poster?

Yes, I have done that a couple of times and also tried playing WC games on earlier versions of Dosbox and on a compeltely different computer than what I am currently using. I've discussed with various people on a different board and the speed adjust problem seems to be a fairly common one... hmmm.

Do you mean that at ~3000 cycles the game should run about as smooth as WC1KS at a fairly constant framerate?

Many computers can have issues with DOSBox in full screen mode in some games. It varies a lot, and could have to do with your sound or video card as well.

That might be the case. It's just funny that on two completely different computers the games are having exactly the same problem.

Oh, I just solved the stutter at start up -problem: I had to change the (I'm not sure if I remember this correclty) drawing mode from "surface" to "ddraw".

Thanks for your support!

- Lassi

 

[ChrisReid]

Do you mean that at ~3000 cycles the game should run about as smooth as WC1KS at a fairly constant framerate?

That might be the case. It's just funny that on two completely different computers the games are having exactly the same problem.

Yeah, I've played through most of the game at around 3300 cycles fairly well. It seems to be a fairly common problem that is likely to be caused by numerous separate things. The dual-core thing is an interesting possibility, but in the past things like that have more often been influenced by sound and video card hardware/drivers/settings.

Oh, I just solved the stutter at start up -problem: I had to change the (I'm not sure if I remember this correclty) drawing mode from "surface" to "ddraw".

Good to know.