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Thread: Really needing help on gameplay's speed

  1. #1

    Default Really needing help on gameplay's speed

    Greetings everyone!

    First post so I'm hoping that this will be a good experience for me.

    I have a N800 Nokia Internet Tablet that's capable of running Dosbox .72.

    Here's a screenshot of it while playing ADOM.


    Dosbox on my tablet runs at a speed equivalent to an 8 - 10 mhz 8086 computer. So yeah, it's pretty gutter but don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. This honestly is one of the coolest things to have on a handheld system.

    The thing is, ADOM is apparently a processing giant so I'm looking for any way to maximize my Dosbox configuration file.


    Right now, if I start the game, I can move my character down the road and through the fields in less then one move per second.

    If I'm engaged in a battle within the fields, character movement suffers at a rate of perhaps one step per 3 or 4 seconds per turn.

    This is also the same once I enter a cave, no matter what enemies are on the screen at the time.

    I'm really hoping to shave this 3 to 4 second character movement time down by a half second or so to make it a little more playable.

    Any advice, even if trivial would be extremely welcomed!

    I'm running this through a front end called Rubybox, but someone should be able to understand my settings.

    Please respond back if you have any suggestions whatsoever.

    Here's my configuration:
    cpu cycles - 1600 (this might not be optimum, it's really hard to gauge such a speed in a text based game)
    dosbox machine - vga
    render frameskip - 0 (changing the frameskips doesn't appear to have any effect on overall movement speed)
    sblaster sbtype - none
    sdl fullscreen - true
    sdl sensitivity - 100
    bios autofire - false
    bios buttonwrap - false
    bios joysticktype - none
    bios swap34 - false
    bios timed - true
    cpu core - simple
    cpu cycledown - 1
    cpucycle up - 1
    dos ems - true
    dos umb - true
    dos xms - true
    dosbox memsize - 4 (It seems that the lower the memsize, that faster the speed. I'm not getting this.)
    gus dma1 - 3
    gus dma2 - 3
    gus gus - false
    gus gusbase - 240
    gus gusrate - 11025
    gus irq1 - 5
    gus irq2 - 5
    gus ultradir - C:\ULTRASND
    ipx ipx - false
    midi device - none
    midi mpu401 - none
    mixer blocksize - 2048
    mixer nosound - true
    mixer prebuffer - 20
    mixer rate - 11025
    render aspect - false
    render scaler - normal2x
    sblaster dma - 1
    sblaster hdma - 5
    sblaster irq - 7
    sblaster mixer - false
    sblaster oplmode - none
    sblaster oplrate - 11025
    sblaster sbbase - 220
    sdl autolock - false
    sdl fulldouble - false
    sdl fullresolution - original
    sdl mapperfile - /usr/share/dosbox/mapper.txt
    sdl output - surface
    sdl priority - higher, higher
    sdl usescancodes - false
    sdl waitonerror - false
    sdl windowresolution - original
    serial serial1 - disabled
    serial serial2 - disabled
    serial serial3 - disabled
    serial serial4 - disabled
    speaker disney - false
    speaker pcrate - 11025
    speaker pcspeaker - false
    speaker tandy - off
    speaker tandyrate - 11025

    So yeah, again, if there's anything I can gut out in this configuration that would help with overall speed, however little, please post a response.

    This is the only game I'd like to have playable on my tablet.

    Thanks ahead!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Finland
    Posts
    599

    Default

    So, your tablet can't handle more than 1600 cycles? DOSBox needs a pretty fast computer to run decently. I have played ADOM in DOSBox with a PC in the past, and it played really slow with the initial number of cycles (>1600). I usually raised the cycles to 10 000-20 000 and it then ran decently.
    You hit Andor Drakon, the ElDeR cHaOs GoD, and severely wound him.
    The greater balor summons some help!
    The ratling duelist disarms you. You drop your blessed Trident of the Red Rooster (+36, 6d12+18) [+12, +12]. It flies to the west.
    Andor Drakon, the ElDeR cHaOs GoD, picks up the blessed Trident of the Red Rooster (+36, 6d12+18) [+12, +12].
    Andor Drakon, the ElDeR cHaOs GoD, wields the blessed Trident of the Red Rooster (+36, 6d12+18) [+12, +12].

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Kentucky
    Posts
    5,067

    Default

    There is a line in your adom.cfg file that can speed things
    up a bit:

    Base_Delay_Factor = 1

    I forget if 0 works, but try that also.
    "Whip me!" pleads the adom player. The rng replies... "No."

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    London, England
    Posts
    5,014

    Default

    DOSBox can be a bit CPU intense. ADOM on the other hand should run fine on a low-end processor - pity you can't do it natively. The only suggestion I can make is to try an older version of DOSBox. The modern version is great, loads of features etc, but is way more than you need to play ADOM. Even very old versions of it should handle the game and run faster for you.

    Looks damn cool though. Even with 3/4 seconds for a move in the wilderness it'd still be fun. Just play classes like druids and rangers that can evade wilderness encounters easily :P

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Posts
    366

    Default

    Your "cpu cycles" value seems to be too low. 1600 instruction cycles per millisecond are equal to 1,6 MHz whereas your tablet runs at 400 MHz (or 330 MHz on OS2007) according to Wikipedia. Raise the value gradually to find out the optimum speed or alternatively set it to "auto". Too high a speed will slow the game down.

    http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Dosbox.conf
    Last edited by Nezur; 07-01-2008 at 04:16 PM.

  6. #6

    Default

    Well, after fumbling around an hour our two here and there, I managed to actually double the original speed I had previously.

    Now my character can take a step about once every two seconds.

    I can't imagine anyone else finding this to be acceptable, but for myself, I'm incredibly pleased.

    I just pretend that I'm playing the game in real time, so the slow speed doesn't bother me as much.

    Just a few more questions though.

    I found this for download even though the link is currently broken:
    http://www.adom.de/adom/download/lin...g15-2_i386.deb

    My tablet runs on an OS system called maemo, installing programs on this requires a .deb file.

    Would this .deb file work for such a device?

    If not, is it possible to compile ADOM for the Nokia Tablet if it compiled easily right out of the box?

    Finally, are there any additional tweaks in the ADOM options file besides the Base_Delay_Factor?

    It looks as though every time my character takes a step, I get a quick flash of the cursor right next to the speed value on the bottom status info.

    If ADOM is trying to completely redraw the entire screen after every step, this is probably why the tablet can't handle such a load.

    Well, turning up the cycles definitely did help even though I'm not understanding why.

    If trying to play something that uses Soundblaster, I can't get cycles any higher than 600 before the sound begins to studder on most games.

    So I'm definitely setting cycles faster than what it should be able to handle, but it seems to be working much better doing it this way.

    Well, thanks for all the great responses.

    Hope to hear back on some of my questions.

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