[Arcanacra]

Hey there.
I’ve been trying to get Extreme Assault (some standard, if not mediocre, arcadey helicopter/tank simulatorey game) to work with Magic Dosbox. I actually managed to pull “use folder as CD image to run the installer, install the game, and run it” kind of thing, but unfortunately game works VERY choppy. Game features some 3D graphics (albeit with really low res textures for it’s time), and I get relatively stable framerates only when I come close and look straight at the walls. I remember having similiar problem with PC version of Dosbox, and I remember I kinda solved the problem in some way, but I don’t remember how did I do that. I tried replicating config files, but unfortunately that doesn’t solve the problem. I’ve been tweaking expert settings now and then, but still framerate causes the game to be rather unplayable. Lowering resolution/details didn’t help too. I’m afraid it might be also caused by phone being my phone (LG X Power), I’d have to check other phones, if it gets better. Anybody would have some ideas, before I resort to that?

On the other note: I managed to open IPX multiplayer, with Magic Dosbox game being host, and PC’s Dosbox game connecting to the game, and it actually worked. That might lead to some multi-platform multiplayer, which is pretty neat!

[admin]

Hello,

I just played with this game settings. You are right, game is heavy on emulation. I own Honor 5c and at default settings it was very choppy. Honor 5c has better processor for emulators, nothing awesome, but good. First I only lowered game details, but it was not enough. Then I disabled sound and it was better. Here is what you can try :

1. in setsound disable midi and sound.
2. disable sound blaster in game profile
3. set custom performance instead automatic

Now start game and in general settings pick option “cycles/power”. Increase cycles to 40 000 or so. Try tune cycles. Then you can try enable sound (I recommend Change sound blaster 16 to Sound Blaster 2 in game profile + set frequency to 16000)

I checked your phone and it seems to be slow for emulation. If I can recommend, search for phone without snapdragon processor. Snapdragon cpus are not recommended for any kind of emulator. Good is shield tablet, or my brother now bought Honor 8 and it provides very good performance (twice better then my Honor 5c).

Try setup everything without expert settings, these options are more optimized. Or if you want use expert settings then I recommend press button “Get” on right side of main program. It generates dosbox config to clipboard and you can paste it to expert settings

Best regards,
Tony

[Arcanacra]

Thanks for reply, really appreciate it!
I tried it your way, and it indeed works much more bearable, still bit slow, but it’s much closer to 100% playable state than I would ever get it myself, I guess. Thanks a lot for help!

Speaking of phone, it’s pretty average, but it is capable of running rather decent-looking games on medium/low settings.
I can run PSX games with no problem (Retroarch), and it runs Dreamcast games with quite nice ~55 frames per second (Reicast). DOS and DOSBOX are quite specific though, and it’s kinda tough to emulate that stuff. I’m amazed that IPX connection worked through and I was still able to set up a multiplayer session with various platforms (PC and Android). I don’t see that degree of compatibility often, nowadays!

Though, I went out of my way to get Android emulator on PC, and tried using Dosbox with the game working, and indeed, performance was a lot better on here, even with bigger resolution and more details on, so the phone is most likely the main culprit of choppy gameplay :p

I might get some proper hardware for the job, but that’s gonna be rather far future. For now I’m gonna tone down my ambitions (to be brutally honest, I’ve been trying to set it up partially just for the sake of setting it up, I just enjoy tweaking around games).

Thanks for the help, again!

[Author]

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