Hi!
First of all, this game is great! I practically grew up with Supaplex, completed it about ten times. And now I found this - and it is just wonderful!!! THANKS!
I have a question, though. I downloaded both the Windows and DOS version of the game. The DOS version runs fine, no problems. But when I play the Windows version, the game slows down a great deal when the screen scrolls in either side. This is not a problem in small levels (Sokoban), but it is very annoying in larger ones (Supaplex, Emerald mine).
I know my computer is not top-of-the-line (300MHz, 160Mb RAM), but since the DOS version works fine...
I would really like to run this game in Windows. Is there something I can do?
Thanks for your help!!!!
Lipa
Technical issue
Moderators: Flumminator, Zomis
Rotfl. You mean he can turn off all levels bigger than screen? Thanks for the good laugh.Grunt002 wrote:You can turn off the scrolling thing (I don't know which ones cuz my computer
works fine)
Just enter the setup in the main menu and somewhere you can find it...
Lipa: You could try http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/, I'm not sure it it helps much, though, as it takes CPU time and memory as well. My nephews have that scrolling issue in Windows RnD as well, and their config is somehow similar to yours. So it's just a hardware problem I guess.
Bojster, I think you know what Grunt002 means.
Lipa: Welcome to the forum, I think 300 MHz and 160 MHz of RAM should be enough. RND even works pretty fine on my mothers old 233 MHz (Cyrix processor, which isn't produced anymore) with 64 MB RAM (EDO-ram, which also isn't produced anymore).
Have you tried changing the options under Setup -> Graphics?
Try changing Scroll Delay (might have some effect on "slower" computers, I don't feel a change though) and Soft Scroll (toggling it off might get you nacious, but it really does increase the scrolling - it even makes scrolling faster than moving without scrolling
)
Lipa: Welcome to the forum, I think 300 MHz and 160 MHz of RAM should be enough. RND even works pretty fine on my mothers old 233 MHz (Cyrix processor, which isn't produced anymore) with 64 MB RAM (EDO-ram, which also isn't produced anymore).
Have you tried changing the options under Setup -> Graphics?
Try changing Scroll Delay (might have some effect on "slower" computers, I don't feel a change though) and Soft Scroll (toggling it off might get you nacious, but it really does increase the scrolling - it even makes scrolling faster than moving without scrolling
)
Lipa, I know what you mean. I had the same experience on a pentium II 350 MHz. It was over wehn I got a new, faster PC (2.5 GHz).
So I think your PC is too slow for this game. It's a pity, I know.
There are certain speed up programs which speed up your computer. But most of them aren't freeware.
So I think your PC is too slow for this game. It's a pity, I know.
There are certain speed up programs which speed up your computer. But most of them aren't freeware.
Visit my Boulder Dash website at:
http://www.bd-fans.com
Watch my avatar! That orange little thing is Murphy, the Supaplex star!
http://www.bd-fans.com
Watch my avatar! That orange little thing is Murphy, the Supaplex star!
-
Lipa
Hi Lipa, welcome to the R'n'D forum! :-)
> I have a question, though. I downloaded both the Windows and DOS version of the game.
> The DOS version runs fine, no problems.
Thanks for telling that there's still interest in the DOS version -- I'm always not sure if I should continue support for it. (In fact, I don't really test it anymore -- the DOS version archive is automatically created in my current build process under Linux, using a cross-compiler for DOS executables). But good to know...
> But when I play the Windows version, the game
> slows down a great deal when the screen scrolls in either side. This is not a problem in small
> levels (Sokoban), but it is very annoying in larger ones (Supaplex, Emerald mine).
Yes, the SDL version (Windows, Linux) needs an additional whole screen buffer copy each frame, which is entirely not needed, but impossible to skip with the current SDL library. :-(
(It uses a backbuffer abstraction that forces copying the larger-than-screen backbuffer to a same-size-as-screen backbuffer which then gets copied to the window, instead of directly blitting the corresponding rectangle to the R'n'D window. :-( )
> I know my computer is not top-of-the-line (300MHz, 160Mb RAM), but since the DOS
> version works fine...
Yes, the DOS and X11 (Linux, Unix) versions are quite noticeably faster on older systems than the version using the SDL library...
But more important than the CPU speed and memory (although recent versions of R'n'D, especially the SDL version, eat lots of memory) is your graphics card. I have a AMD K6 system with 200 MHz CPU speed, but with a good graphics card (for its time, I mean ;-) ),
and R'n'D works (and scrolls) quite fine on it. Compared to that, even very new graphics cards with a lot of 3D voodoo sometimes have very poor 2D performance. :-(
> I would really like to run this game in Windows. Is there something I can do?
Try to play in fullscreen mode instead of windowed mode -- this can give a remarkable speedup on some systems. If you prefer playing in windowed mode, using HighColor / 16 bit color depth (64K colors) instead of TrueColor (24/32 bit color depth or 16,7 million colors) can also let the game run much faster.
Then, as Grunt002 already mentioned, you can "turn off the scrolling thing", which is "you can turn off soft-scrolling" in the setup menu, to be precise. But I'm not sure at the moment if this really has an effect in recent versions...
The "scroll delay" setting should better be left as the default "on", as it reduces scrolling if possible.
> I have a question, though. I downloaded both the Windows and DOS version of the game.
> The DOS version runs fine, no problems.
Thanks for telling that there's still interest in the DOS version -- I'm always not sure if I should continue support for it. (In fact, I don't really test it anymore -- the DOS version archive is automatically created in my current build process under Linux, using a cross-compiler for DOS executables). But good to know...
> But when I play the Windows version, the game
> slows down a great deal when the screen scrolls in either side. This is not a problem in small
> levels (Sokoban), but it is very annoying in larger ones (Supaplex, Emerald mine).
Yes, the SDL version (Windows, Linux) needs an additional whole screen buffer copy each frame, which is entirely not needed, but impossible to skip with the current SDL library. :-(
(It uses a backbuffer abstraction that forces copying the larger-than-screen backbuffer to a same-size-as-screen backbuffer which then gets copied to the window, instead of directly blitting the corresponding rectangle to the R'n'D window. :-( )
> I know my computer is not top-of-the-line (300MHz, 160Mb RAM), but since the DOS
> version works fine...
Yes, the DOS and X11 (Linux, Unix) versions are quite noticeably faster on older systems than the version using the SDL library...
But more important than the CPU speed and memory (although recent versions of R'n'D, especially the SDL version, eat lots of memory) is your graphics card. I have a AMD K6 system with 200 MHz CPU speed, but with a good graphics card (for its time, I mean ;-) ),
and R'n'D works (and scrolls) quite fine on it. Compared to that, even very new graphics cards with a lot of 3D voodoo sometimes have very poor 2D performance. :-(
> I would really like to run this game in Windows. Is there something I can do?
Try to play in fullscreen mode instead of windowed mode -- this can give a remarkable speedup on some systems. If you prefer playing in windowed mode, using HighColor / 16 bit color depth (64K colors) instead of TrueColor (24/32 bit color depth or 16,7 million colors) can also let the game run much faster.
Then, as Grunt002 already mentioned, you can "turn off the scrolling thing", which is "you can turn off soft-scrolling" in the setup menu, to be precise. But I'm not sure at the moment if this really has an effect in recent versions...
The "scroll delay" setting should better be left as the default "on", as it reduces scrolling if possible.