System Shock on a 486 DX50??
Michael Palomino
Anyone out there with a 486 DX 50 and a double speed CDROM (and a VLB
card card too) have System Shock CD? How does it run? I played the demo
but with the thought of 640x480x256 it gets me nervous how it'll bog down
my machine =) Will I need a Cray II to run this thing? Thanks in advance
Michael Palomino
palo...@ritz.mordor.com
Dennis Andrew Blazewicz
: Hiya,
You should have no problems. It ran VERY smoothly on my 486-50DX ISA
Chris Szurgot
palo...@ritz.mordor.com (Michael Palomino) wrote:
> Hiya,
> Anyone out there with a 486 DX 50 and a double speed CDROM (and a VLB
> card card too) have System Shock CD? How does it run? I played the demo
> but with the thought of 640x480x256 it gets me nervous how it'll bog down
> my machine =) Will I need a Cray II to run this thing? Thanks in advance
Well, I'm running it on P90 with PCI SVGA and 8 meg of Ram... The Low-res
versions run smooth as ice (as a comparison to the demo...)
I run it in 640x400 instead of 640x480, and it tends to drop frames instead
of going slow. But even with missing frames, the action is great, and the game
is wonderful. The CD is a definite improvement over the floppy, and I thought
the floppy was wonderful. The Data Log are well acted, and Shodan is a trip...
--
Murphy's Flu Philosophy: Just because your doctor has a name for it
doesn't mean he knows what it is.
Harvey Bernstein
Chris Szurgot <szu...@infi.net> wrote:
>In article <D1qz0...@ritz.mordor.com>,
>palo...@ritz.mordor.com (Michael Palomino) wrote:
>> Hiya,
>> Anyone out there with a 486 DX 50 and a double speed CDROM (and a VLB
>> card card too) have System Shock CD? How does it run? I played the demo
>> but with the thought of 640x480x256 it gets me nervous how it'll bog down
>> my machine =) Will I need a Cray II to run this thing? Thanks in advance
>
First impression is the game is very close to unplayable at 640x480x256.
A little more acceptable at 320x400x256 or 640x400x256, but still not as
free-scrolling as Doom. Game plays fastest but looks worst at 320x200
(the disk resolution, I think). No surprise, here. I'm gonna try
increasing buffers to 99 to see if that helps (made a big difference in
WC III).
On the plus side, the CD-ROM features improved sound, and the voice
acting on the logs and email really brings the game to life (some of the
logs have gunshots and screaming in the background).
If anyone has any suggestions on how to increase the fram rate on a 486
DX2/50 w. 8mg RAM, I'd love to hear from you.
tgb
John Rising
: A little more acceptable at 320x400x256 or 640x400x256, but still not as
: free-scrolling as Doom. Game plays fastest but looks worst at 320x200
: (the disk resolution, I think). No surprise, here. I'm gonna try
: increasing buffers to 99 to see if that helps (made a big difference in
: WC III).
: On the plus side, the CD-ROM features improved sound, and the voice
: acting on the logs and email really brings the game to life (some of the
: logs have gunshots and screaming in the background).
: If anyone has any suggestions on how to increase the fram rate on a 486
: DX2/50 w. 8mg RAM, I'd love to hear from you.
I have the same system as above. You can control both video display and
detail. I agree that with the SVGA display you will lose some frames in
the full screen mode. Fewer frames are lost with the normal size screen.
By changing the detail level you can adjust speed as well. My question
is: If I increase my video RAM from 1 to 2 MB will that improve video
speed in games like this? Will increasing Ram from 8 to 16 MB make a
difference? And, has anyone else had problems with the game freezing
every now and then? I have to load a vesa driver before starting the game
to get the SVGA.
Since the CD version costs the same as the disk version and allows so
many modifications to suit your system I recommend it over the disk
version.
Thanks!
per...@usa.net
CLEMMONS, LAURA L
> In article <D1qz0...@ritz.mordor.com>,
> palo...@ritz.mordor.com (Michael Palomino) wrote:
>> Hiya,
>> Anyone out there with a 486 DX 50 and a double speed CDROM (and a VLB
>> card card too) have System Shock CD? How does it run? I played the demo
>> but with the thought of 640x480x256 it gets me nervous how it'll bog down
>> my machine =) Will I need a Cray II to run this thing? Thanks in advance
>
> Well, I'm running it on P90 with PCI SVGA and 8 meg of Ram... The Low-res
> versions run smooth as ice (as a comparison to the demo...)
> I run it in 640x400 instead of 640x480, and it tends to drop frames instead
> of going slow. But even with missing frames, the action is great, and the game
> is wonderful. The CD is a definite improvement over the floppy, and I thought
> the floppy was wonderful. The Data Log are well acted, and Shodan is a trip...
>
but still very playable and enjoyable. It wasn't jerking so bad that
you couldn't aim your needle guns and stuff.
Laura
x93...@wmich.edu
Harvey Bernstein writes...
>> Hiya,
>> Anyone out there with a 486 DX 50 and a double speed CDROM (and a VLB
>> card card too) have System Shock CD? How does it run? I played the demo
>> but with the thought of 640x480x256 it gets me nervous how it'll bog down
>> my machine =) Will I need a Cray II to run this thing? Thanks in advance
>
> That's exactly what I have (8 mg RAM, btw), and just got SS-CD today.
> First impression is the game is very close to unplayable at 640x480x256.
> A little more acceptable at 320x400x256 or 640x400x256, but still not as
> free-scrolling as Doom. Game plays fastest but looks worst at 320x200
> (the disk resolution, I think). No surprise, here. I'm gonna try
> increasing buffers to 99 to see if that helps (made a big difference
> in WC III).
Hmm, I've been playing it for quite a bit within the 2 days I've had it
on a DX2/66, 8MB, VLB graphics, at 640x480x256 with minimum detail. I
found the 320x200 and 320x400 unplayable (too fast!). Somehow my card
won't allow the 640x400. At minimum detail 640x480, I found the right
speed for my liking, not jerky, but definitely not Doom speed.
Argghhh, why even compare System Shock to Doom? It doesn't need to be
fast action at all. Just explore around at a nice pace, not being
all crazed and frenzied killing everything like Doom. After playing
System Shock, makes me want to ridicule Doom and its many imitators.
Totally no comparison whatsoever, System Shock beats those a zillion
times. And also bear in mind, Doom isn't SVGA. The SVGA System Shock
even with minimum detail is superb to my eyes!
> On the plus side, the CD-ROM features improved sound, and the voice
> acting on the logs and email really brings the game to life (some of
> the logs have gunshots and screaming in the background).
And improved graphics! I look at the 320x200 and 320x400, and am
thankful I waited for the CD version.
> If anyone has any suggestions on how to increase the fram rate on a
> 486 DX2/50 w. 8mg RAM, I'd love to hear from you.
Why improve the frame rate? There is no need to treat System Shock
like Doom (which IMO, is insulting System Shock terribly). I play
WCIII, I want a slight faster frame rate that what my system provided,
I play System Shock, I got the perfect speed. IMO, forget Doom and
its clones, and get System Shock CD. Then again, I'm not the type
who goes about in a crazed killing frenzy, I like to take it slow
with some thought.
Adrian Chew :-)
x93b...@wmich.edu
>
> Harvey Bernstein writes...
>
>>> Hiya,
>>> Anyone out there with a 486 DX 50 and a double speed CDROM (and a VLB
>>> card card too) have System Shock CD? How does it run? I played the demo
>>> but with the thought of 640x480x256 it gets me nervous how it'll bog down
>>> my machine =) Will I need a Cray II to run this thing? Thanks in advance
>>
>> That's exactly what I have (8 mg RAM, btw), and just got SS-CD today.
>> First impression is the game is very close to unplayable at 640x480x256.
>> A little more acceptable at 320x400x256 or 640x400x256, but still not as
>> free-scrolling as Doom. Game plays fastest but looks worst at 320x200
>> (the disk resolution, I think). No surprise, here. I'm gonna try
>> increasing buffers to 99 to see if that helps (made a big difference
>> in WC III).
>
> Hmm, I've been playing it for quite a bit within the 2 days I've had it
> on a DX2/66, 8MB, VLB graphics, at 640x480x256 with minimum detail. I
> found the 320x200 and 320x400 unplayable (too fast!). Somehow my card
> won't allow the 640x400. At minimum detail 640x480, I found the right
> speed for my liking, not jerky, but definitely not Doom speed.
I have a question for you. I have a DX4/100 and playing on 640x480
my game runs choppy. Not too choppy but CHOPPY. Enough to annoy a person
into returning the game. My question to you is what exactly is your
config.sys boot for that game. Are you running QEMM? It seems whenever I go
to run QEMM my game will drop out and give me a error code. Well hope you
have an answer. Thanks.
Greg Basso
x93b...@wmich.edu
x93...@wmich.edu
> In article <1995Jan4.021418.25875@wmichgw>, x93...@wmich.edu writes:
>
>> Hmm, I've been playing it for quite a bit within the 2 days I've had it
>> on a DX2/66, 8MB, VLB graphics, at 640x480x256 with minimum detail. I
>> found the 320x200 and 320x400 unplayable (too fast!). Somehow my card
>> won't allow the 640x400. At minimum detail 640x480, I found the right
>> speed for my liking, not jerky, but definitely not Doom speed.
>
>
> I have a question for you. I have a DX4/100 and playing on 640x480
> my game runs choppy. Not too choppy but CHOPPY. Enough to annoy a person
> into returning the game. My question to you is what exactly is your
> config.sys boot for that game. Are you running QEMM? It seems whenever I go
> to run QEMM my game will drop out and give me a error code. Well hope you
> have an answer. Thanks.
Note this... I run 640x480x256 with *minimum* detail, as I found it
choppy at max. The speed at this is what I found as perfect for mouse
control (not Doom speed... I hated it at 320x200 as I was going at
what I felt like Mach2). Also, I was running it with the control view
(not full screen of surroundings). I loved the graphics at SVGA, and
minimum detail isn't much loss at all (compared to WCIII from high to
medium, this is much less of a loss).
No QEMM for me... seems to create more problems than it solves. I
load SS CD with my default config, with himem.sys and emm386.exe.
Adrian Chew :-)