Crush! Deluxe runs too fast
 

Not sure how often it is that "running too fast" is a problem...

In all the matches that I've played, whether or not they involve any human-controlled teams, all moves are played too quickly for me to see anything other than their results. This is distinct from setting game simulation to "abstract", as that only shows results for each turn, whereas I've set it to "detailed" and I can see things like the use of vortex armour or ball bins at normal speed. Sound and the Megamedia opening animation are okay.

I'm running this in Virtual PC, Windows 98. RAM is set to 64 MB. Toggling hardware-assisted virtualisation on and off has no apparent effect, though I'm not sure it should.

Run something in the background in VPC to keep W98 a bit busy, music or something... But chances are your game will become a bit jerky,trial and error......

Or use one of the older CPU killer progs that run in W98. Most of them can be set to use a % of the CPU.

[Edit]
One of many:
http://www.downloadatoz.com/utility_...ory/cpukiller/

For good understanding:
Run it IN VPC.

Is this game originally for Windows? According to MobyGames it is, although it's uncommon for a Windows game to show this problem. If it were for DOS of course you should run it in DOSBox and the solution would be reducing the cycles.

If this game's for Windows, the problem is inside your virtual machine, so indeed the best or only solution would be using a "cpu killer" program INSIDE your virtual machine.

It won't run in DOSBox. I thought there might be a problem with the game itself because not everything is accelerated. Using CPU killers makes things choppy, as expected.

First time I've ever heard of a Win98 game which runs too fast.

Are you sure it is not a Windows 3.11 game in disguise? In such case you could run Win 3.11 with DOSBox and then cycle as you want.

First time I've heard of that too. :oh:

Can't find the manual, so I'm left with the game's troubleshooting .txt: "Crush! uses DirectX for sound and therefore is compatible with any Windows 95, or DirectX compatible sound card." Only place that the name of an OS appears. It was released in 1997 and installs DirectX 3.0 if no newer version is present, if that helps to place the game.

Definitely a Win95 game, then.

I'd try Bochs now, but I can't make heads or tails of the documentation. :wacko:

Just for chuckles, I installed Crush! Deluxe in Windows 98SE in Virtualbox (which does not like Win9x guests at all) and that gives quite a smooth slowdown. It only works for that purpose if hardware virtualisation (specifically VT-x/AMD-v) is disabled. Disabling hardware virtualisation doesn't seem to work for Virtual PC though, but then it doesn't say what exactly is being disabled.

Sound like hardware or driver issue to me.

Or maybe it's not enough of a performance hit for Virtual PC. Should I be looking at host or guest drivers?

What I meant by my last post is that there ought to be some kind of hardware or software related issue which require a specific version of something to work right.

If it tries to install DirectX 3.0 then I strongly suggest that you try running the game with it instead of your most up to date DirectX and graphic card drivers. And by that, I of course mean in one of those VirtualBox which was mentioned before, not in your actual rig.

A lot of old dependancies got rid of with "modern" version of drivers. It would not surprise me in the least that the new drivers or DirectX versions simply do not act or react as they did back then.

The only other explanation that I could think of would be a "Xcom" effect in which the game call up another .exe program when you enter combat. Very old programs used to do that in DOS... And if it is the case then the program which runs too fast must be an old DOS version or alike this process. I would not know how to solve that problem though, as you would basically have two or even several specific speed requirements as the programs call each other out. It has always been a bi*** in DOSBox to run Xcom because the cycles for the world map doesn't match the cycles of the tactical phase... I've never found a good solution to that short of playing manually with the cycles every time. And since you are stuck with a Windows program, you don't even have that luxury.

I see. I think I tried installing DirectX 3.0 in Virtual PC once, but the downgrade didn't stick.

For more lolz, I installed the game on my host (Windows 7, 64 bit). Apart from the expected colour corruption (can't use compatibility mode, but 90% non-corruption can be achieved with a batch file), it actually experiences a reverse problem - the parts that are accelerated in a virtual machine (player movement) are normal, and the use of ball bins is accelerated. (To elaborate, ball bins seemingly only involve a die roll and not decision-making on the AI's part.) Quite a beauty, this game. :ouch: At this point I think I'm going to have to pick my poison.

At least we know that this is not a 16 bit program (aka Windows 3.x).

64 bits versions of Windows cannot run those.

True, I've read that a few times on here. So no DOSBox. :(

And I wanted to keep all my old games on one virtual machine... :unsure: Ah well, no one said that this was an exact science. :p

You could try to lower the RAM in VPC (VPC restart needed) to the bare minimum for W98, some 16MB (or even 8MB), will oblige to run progs in virtual HD swap file, but honestly, I don't expect much of it, as modern HDs are faster then the old system mem from those days....
However, can't hurt to try.

True. But that barely slows it down. So then back to CPU throttles - smoothest one I've used so far is CPU Grabber. I'll stick with that unless there are other ideas. :) For all of the programs I've used only loads upwards of 90% have any visible effect. :wacko:

Found a handy list of throttle programs here: http://www.reocities.com/kulhain/