Privateer 2 runs too fast...

F

Falcon MMI

Spaceman
I installed P2 on my new comp, and now it runs WAY to fast to be enjoyable. It's a shame. That is a great game. Here are my new comp specs:

Falcon Northwest Talon 1.2

AMD K-7 (Athlon) 550Mhz
128 MB RAM
Voodoo3 3000 AGP
13.5 GB HDD
Toshiba 40X CD-ROM
Monster Sound MX300 (Aureal Vortex 2 - A3D 2.0)

Sooner or later I'll slap a TNT2 or low-end GF256 in there.

Origin should have included a patch to slow it down on newer systems, give it a max limit.



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Excuse me while I defrag my mind.
 
P2 has a built in frame limiter (as all of them after the WC1 games do)... But it tends to conflict with many things or something that is really common. Install something to slow down your system (eg. CPU Killer) and that will slow it down.

TC

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CAG of the Blacklance HQ
"Canadian and proud of it"-TC
 
Actually, frame rate is not a problem. Thing is, on non-3D-accelerated games, a faster CPU means a faster rate of play, but framerate usually tops out around 25-40fps, depending on the game. After that, the speed of the game itself speeds up.

When a game is 3D-accelerated, usually, the framerate has no max limit, and the speed of the game remains constant as the computer speed is increased, only the framerate increases. Unfortunately, Privateer 2 is not 3D accelerated.

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Excuse me while I defrag my mind.
 
P2 doesen't need to be acelerated. It's the best looking non-acclerated engine I've seen. It's even better than Prophecy on software.

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A good soldier is not the one who die for his country, it's the one who makes his enemy die for his.
Gen. Patton
 
Why not run old games on your old machines? I got a 486 a P-90 as well as my K6-2. That way I can match the age of the comp to the game.
 
I have also a question to the Privateer II game. As mentioned before there are 2 game lines. The first is finding your idendity and finishing this line ends the game.
The second line (I call it the comercional line) starts with escorting the weapon transport from CRIUS to KARATIKUS.
Now my question: Are there time syncronisations between these two lines as especially I cannot met HASAN on HADES before I have rescued MELISSA BANKS, or in the other direction can I met LORD VONX on ANHUR before I have shipped HUGO CARMICEL to HEPHAESTUS.
And continuing on this syncronization idea, have all this something to do with the Missions I get from Bulletin Board or by email?

Thanks for playing, finding and helping!
Steffen
 
I don't know, Cat Killer. It seems so to me. But sometimes I get contacted by Dr. Loomis before Xavier Shondi, then vice-versa. I'm not sure if there's actually a correlation, though.

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If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!

[This message has been edited by Dralthi5 (edited October 30, 2000).]
 
Falcon MMI: Don't know if this will help you, but for what it's worth--I have a 450 PII SCSI-based system with a Plextor 32x player. Privateer 2 (for Win95) ran much too fast on my system until I reduced the drive speed of the player to a setting of "8x-20x CAV" (as allowed by the Plextor software). The game now runs perfectly. Don't know if your Toshiba player permits such tweaking too, but if so, you might try this first to see if it makes any difference.

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"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." Carl Jung
 
NEMISIS- that sounds kind of interesting I have a 12x10x32 Plextor Plexwriter in the system i just built and a 72x Kenwood for my main. DO you you think I could work something like you said with my Plextor, if so tell me where I would go on my system to configure my drive speed. THANKS!

"THE GUILTY MUST BE PUNISHED!"

THE PUNISHER!
 
You can adjust drive speed for your PlexWriter with the program called "Plextor Manager", which is on the utility CD that should have come with the player. (The most current upgrade available on Plextor's website is "Plextor Manager 2000" (v.1.07).) The program must be installed on your system, then you simply run it and choose a speed; the interface is straightforward and any speed change takes effect immediately.

Good luck.
 
COOL! I've got PM2000 cause I just built my system about a month ago so I will read the book and experiment with it thanks again, NEMISIS.

THE PUNISHER!
 
DAMN! Well I just tried it and it didn't work. I didn't even lower the speed like you said. Which shouldn't matter it should just make the game run faster like my other drive.

What Happens is I put the cd in my plextor and it autoruns it (i've also tried just clicking on the drive myself)then right after that (you don't even see the orign symbol.) It says "please insert cd 1" well of course the cd in their is cd 1. So I tried it with my X-wing Alliance it autoruns the menu and then when I click on "play xwing alliance" it tells me to insert the cd and retry.

What the heck is happening? I just can't figure it out do you think it has something to do with the cd rom drive i had the cd in when I installed the game. Because I had it in my faster one which is a Kenwood tru-x 72speed.

HELP! What am I missing?

THE PUNISHER!
 
Yes, since you installed the games using your Kenwood drive, that's where your computer now expects to find the CDs when you play the games. There's a "quick fix" you can try for each game, short of having to reinstall it.

For Privateer 2, you'll find a file called "dark.cfg" in the directory for P2 that was created on your hard drive when you installed the game. Don't know for sure (since I haven't done it), but you should be able to open and edit this file (using Notepad or WordPad), changing the CD-ROM drive letter presently listed (which should correspond to your Kenwood drive) to the drive letter for your PlexWriter. After saving the file, try launching the game again. If this doesn't work, uninstall P2 and reinstall it using the PlexWriter.

Don't know how X-Wing installs (i.e., if it, like P2, copies the basic execution and related files to your hard drive and so launches from the hard drive, or if it does little more than create a game icon or shortcut on your desktop and otherwise launches and runs from the CD), but if it's like P2, then same advice as before (though I can't tell you the name of the file or files you will have to find and edit on your hard drive).

If X-Wing launches from the CD, then you can probably find the nettlesome pointer to your Kenwood drive by right-clicking on the game icon or shortcut on your desktop (or in your "Start/Programs" list or wherever you have it) and choosing "Properties" in the menu that pops up. A dialog box will then open showing the path statements your computer uses to locate the game CD and files. One or more path statements should presently be pointing to your Kenwood drive. Change every reference to the Kenwood drive letter to the drive letter for your Plexwriter. Click on "Apply", then "OK". Try launching the game again (using the same icon or shortcut you just modified). If this doesn't work, uninstall X-Wing and reinstall it using the Plexwriter.

Hope the above helps.
 
OK Great NEMISIS. I tried what you said and it worked kind of. My Plextor drive will read the game now. But even when i put my drive speed down it runs too fast....BUT! I did notice somthing. I have a couple of different drive speeds my 3 lowest ones are 8, 4, and 1. I tried all of them and I noticed the lower I went the slower the origin symbol went on my screen. It was just the rest of the game was too fast. SO my theory is that the parts of the game that run off the cd are slow but not the parts running off of my hardrive. I remember someone saying something about running the game off of your hardrive or the cd. How do you do off of the cd cause I just installed it and it copied files to my hardrive that was the only way I knew how and the i thought the only way there was.

About X-wing don't worry about that it runs fine on my kenwood i just wanted to see if it was Privateer 2 that was the only game i couldn't switch rom drives on.

ANyway if you know how to play from the cd directly let me know. OR if you think it might be ssomthing else. BUt we are making progress. Thanks alot for the help!

THE PUNISHER!
 
Sorry that changing the CD-ROM speed didn't help you. (Still haven't figured out why it helps me.)

Don't know if it's possible to have P2 play any "more" off of the CD than it already does. I suspect the reference you heard was about playing P2 entirely off of the hard drive. (I've done this with the CD-based version of Privateer, which comprises just one CD, but not P2.) P2 comprises three CDs, but if one has the disk space . . .

Don't know if it'll work for P2, but I recall that with Privateer, I copied the CD into a directory on my hard drive and then ran the install program from the hard drive, thus ensuring the game configuration pointed to the hard drive as the source for all the files.

Happy experimenting!
 
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