• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Speed Issues On Games Despite Meeting System Requirements

G

Guybrush3pwood

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2015
Messages
155
I have a 486DX2 system with 8mb of ram and a video card of unkown origins. What I do know about the card is that it is a multi IO card with intergrated Cirrus Logic CL-5424 chipset and is an ASI-VLB card. It seems like this hardware should be able to run stuff like Doom and System Shock without issue, and it certainly meets the requirements detailed on System Shock's listed requirements, and yet it runs like a slideshow. Any ideas on what might be slowing things down? Let me know if any other info is needed.
 
System Shock is generally "playable" with these system specs (I assume 66 MHz), but definitely in the lowest resolution (320 x 200). VGA card doesn't matter for this. To play in 640x480 I'd recommend at least a P200 or above. Also sanitize your DOS environment accordingly, I'd set buffers to 30, files to 40 and if you use Smartdrv then use the "C" parameter to disable write-back caching. Make sure to not run any unnecessary drivers or TSRs.
 
Last edited:
kyodai said:
System Shock is generally "playable" with these system specs, but definitely in the lowest resolution (320 x 200). VGA card doesn't matter for this. To play in 640x480 I'd recommend at least a P200 or above. Also sanitize your DOS environment accordingly, I'd set buffers to 30, files to 40 and if you use Smartdrv then use the "C" parameter to disable write-back caching. Make sure to not run any unnecessary drivers or TSRs.
Click to expand...

What I was getting wasn't playable (very, very slow) and I had it set to the lowest settings. Files already set to 40 and buffers not set at all. I can set it if you think it'll help, but what should I set the read-ahead to?
 
I assume you use the CD-ROM version, then I'd sacrifice around 512K for read-ahead. Also try to disable smartdrv to see the difference, juggle around a bit. You do have 66 MHz, right? It's like 2 decades ago since i last played this, but back then i also had a 66MHz DX2 and even though it was no rocket the game was halfway playable, at least not a slideshow.


Look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoD0KNEdXnY

Go to 54 minutes, system shock on a dx2-66. Defeinitely not 60 fps, but that's how it should look on your system.
 
Last edited:
How does Doom run then? A 486DX2-50 or faster should run Doom fine. The CL5424 is a reasonably good VLB-chip.
If Doom runs fine, then the problem may be System Shock. If Doom is also slow, I suspect some problem with the system, perhaps cache not working?
I also assume you try to run it in a clean DOS boot environment? Not from Windows, OS/2 or something? And no 'fancy' memory managers?
 
Scali said:
How does Doom run then? A 486DX2-50 or faster should run Doom fine. The CL5424 is a reasonably good VLB-chip.
If Doom runs fine, then the problem may be System Shock. If Doom is also slow, I suspect some problem with the system, perhaps cache not working?
I also assume you try to run it in a clean DOS boot environment? Not from Windows, OS/2 or something? And no 'fancy' memory managers?
Click to expand...

I would say Doom runs a little worse than System Shock. Yup, just a dos environment. It has windows for workgroups installed as well but I don't run it from there.

How do I check to see if the cache is working? Not sure where the settings are for that.
 
It should say something about the cache on the POST screen, and you should also be able to configure it in the BIOS setup.
 
The BIOS setup screens typically include a section about the cache. Make sure it is on.

Look at the motherboard and check the cache chips. If the chips look small or lack pins, that motherboard may have fake cache.

Check some benchmarks. http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/oldones.htm#anchorBus should include ones that test the speed of the cache. https://dosbenchmark.wordpress.com/ would lead you to system wide tests.

If you have the ability to record a video of the games running, you may want to post that. It may be that what you see as too slow would have been considered quite fast in 1992.
 
So here is my bios page.



As you can see, there are settings for internal and external cache. I enabled both and here are the results.

System Shock - Set at the lowest resolution with max detail. I tried setting detail to min, but it kept crashing back to dos for some reason.



I'll run the benchmark thing tomorrow.
 
Doom - Vast improvement over before. Still not perfect, it runs kinda chunky at max detail as seen in the video, but was much smoother at low detail. Seems like it should be able to handle max detail, but whatever.
 
Stupid question perhaps: but do you have a turbo-button connected, and if so, have you tried switching it?
The way Doom runs, it seems it's like running on a fast 486 with turbo disabled (assuming cache is now enabled and working properly).
If you don't have a turbo button on your case, you could try putting a jumper on the turbo-header of the motherboard (or if there is one, remove it).
 
Scali said:
Stupid question perhaps: but do you have a turbo-button connected, and if so, have you tried switching it?
The way Doom runs, it seems it's like running on a fast 486 with turbo disabled (assuming cache is now enabled and working properly).
If you don't have a turbo button on your case, you could try putting a jumper on the turbo-header of the motherboard (or if there is one, remove it).
Click to expand...

Yes, there is a turbo button and it is turned on.

smeezekitty said:
Why is your cache disabled?
Click to expand...

It was, but it wasn't at the time I shot those videos.
 
I'm looking at a diagram on my motherboard. It appears there are jumpers that set the CPU speed. The options are 25/50iMhz, 33/66iMhz and 50MHZ. Which of these speeds is the fastest?
 
I thought the 486DX2 ran at 66mhz. So is my motherboard limiting it to 50mhz?

Also, not sure what you mean by "expect things to break."
 
Go tits up, fall over and die.

No. dx2/66s are clock doubled on die internally but run at 33mhz on the mobo. Hense the 33/66 setting=33mhz mobo clock speed for DX/SX33 and DX/SX2/66 cpus. 25mhz= DX/SX25 and DX/SX2/50 cpus but some of these cpus will work fine on the 33mhz settings.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top