VOGONS


First post, by Malik

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As an avid Wing Commander fan, I can confirm that I have attained the perfect Wing Commander playing speed in a 486 DX2-66.

My setup is posted here.

Summary of setup :

intel 486 DX2-66 running at stock speed,
All shadow ram enabled,
Turbo is ON,
Internal Cache DISABLED
EDIT : External Cache ENABLED

Used ICD.EXE to disable the internal cache.

That's it. No other slowdown utilities. No 386s.

It's smooth from the ORIGIN Trailer opening screen, the classic 3D intro, the screen scroll at the briefing room during hand raise by the colonel, the running to ship sequence, the dogfights, the landing, everything!!!!

I reinstalled from the floppy disks last night, (the 3 high dens disks still work after all these years!), played the 1st mission till landing back at Tiger's Claw. I can say it's smoother than it was in my 286, 20 years ago!

I'm happy that the i486 DX2-66 can do this.

I've uploaded both the ice.exe and icd.exe in the icdice.zip file below for your convenience.
Downloaded from http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/cripple

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  • Filename
    icdice.zip
    File size
    1.16 KiB
    Downloads
    696 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 1 of 6, by Great Hierophant

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What was the size of your external cache? 128/256/512K?

Great news though, and probably very helpful for other games with speed issues.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 2 of 6, by rfnagel

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Heh, I remember back in the day using ICE and ICD on my 486 to do the same; get WC1 running on my 486DX-100. Worked like a champ 😀

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 5 of 6, by ux-3

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I have posted this before, but I had success with a P3 in the range of 500-800 MHz, with int. cache disabled.

HOWEVER: I have a CD version of the game. It is quite possible that a first speed update is already implemented.

Edit:

Amigaz wrote:

hmm...gotta try this (when I'm not working my ass off)

😀

For a change, I am enjoying the alps.

Reply 6 of 6, by digitaldoofus

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I have purchased a 386 rig that I've been upgrading and grooming to run WC1 at a perfect speed. And *now* you tell me I could've run it perfectly on my 486DX2/66...doh! 😵

Oh well, maybe my 386 will run it almost as well, when I finish upgrading it. It's started life as a 386SX at 25mhz, with only 3meg RAM. I'm upgrading the RAM to 9meg, and a couple other little upgrades.

Once you try retrogaming, you'll never go back...