Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

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DamTheGreat
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Joined: Sun 01 May, 2022 6:21 pm

Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by DamTheGreat »

Hello,

I love Return to Castle Wolfenstein, so I decided to check out an obscure game called Mortyr, which is similar but less good. I couldn't get it to run on my modern PC, so I decided to play it with PCem. It works fine, but there is some lag when there are a lot of enemies on screen. I wonder if it is due to my settings or if the game is too finicky for PCem.

To setup my PCem, I used the pre-made package for Windows98SE available on archive.org.

My settings:
Machine: Socket 7 Shuttle HOT-557
CPU: Mobile Pentium 300 MMX with 64MB of RAM
GPU: Diamons Stealth 3d 2000 S3 Virge with Voodoo 2 and fast VLB/PCI speed
2GB HDD
CD Speed x24

These settings seem like they should be fine for that game, but there's still that lag. If I need to tell you another setting, I'll be glad to oblige, just tell me what is needed. I don't expect to get an answer since this is a really obscure game and probably very few people on here know it, bu thanks in advance in case someone is able to help.

Regards,

Damien
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unreal9010
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Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by unreal9010 »

What's your host CPU? Is PCem running at 100% the whole time while playing the game? As far as I know Mortyr shouldn't be too difficult for this configuration to handle. I ran the demo version on my Celeron 300-A and Voodoo 3 2000 back in the day and don't recall getting any performance issues.
DamTheGreat
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Joined: Sun 01 May, 2022 6:21 pm

Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by DamTheGreat »

unreal9010 wrote: Mon 02 May, 2022 8:03 am What's your host CPU? Is PCem running at 100% the whole time while playing the game? As far as I know Mortyr shouldn't be too difficult for this configuration to handle. I ran the demo version on my Celeron 300-A and Voodoo 3 2000 back in the day and don't recall getting any performance issues.
Host CPU is Intel Core i7-9700 @ 3 GHz. Device Manager lists eight of them. And PCem is at 100% even during the laggy parts. But I've played more of the game, it is perfectly playable, after a while the lag becomes unnoticeable, so I guess this isn't really an issue. If you know the game, the lag happened a bit at the part after you emerge from the water and climb the stairs and there's three enemies in the hallway, but after that it seems to be gone.
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unreal9010
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Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by unreal9010 »

Try it with Pentium II 300 and see if the lag is still present. The game is known to be buggy and suffer from performance-related issues.
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unreal9010
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Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by unreal9010 »

I tried an internet demo dated July 20 1999 that was on an old magazine coverdisc. I ran it on an emulated Pentium II 333, 64 MB RAM and Voodoo2. I didn't notice any lag. Pentium MMX 300 could be the culprit in your case.
DamTheGreat
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Joined: Sun 01 May, 2022 6:21 pm

Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by DamTheGreat »

unreal9010 wrote: Mon 02 May, 2022 1:51 pm I tried an internet demo dated July 20 1999 that was on an old magazine coverdisc. I ran it on an emulated Pentium II 333, 64 MB RAM and Voodoo2. I didn't notice any lag. Pentium MMX 300 could be the culprit in your case.
It might not be a problem with the game, as even with the Pentium II 333, I noticed that the bootup sound is choppy, so it might be an issue with PCem itself.
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unreal9010
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Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by unreal9010 »

I get no choppy bootup sound. Of course my host CPU is 12900KF. Are you sure that PCem is running at 100% the whole time? I've played through the entire first level of this early demo that I have and didn't notice any lag. The frame rate may not be consistent but neither it was back in the day as far as I remember.
DamTheGreat
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Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by DamTheGreat »

unreal9010 wrote: Mon 02 May, 2022 2:58 pm I get no choppy bootup sound. Of course my host CPU is 12900KF. Are you sure that PCem is running at 100% the whole time? I've played through the entire first level of this early demo that I have and didn't notice any lag. The frame rate may not be consistent but neither it was back in the day as far as I remember.
Yeah that's it! My host CPU isn't powerful enough as PCem dips down to 90% percent sometimes. I guess I'll just have to deal with it then...
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unreal9010
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Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by unreal9010 »

I'd go with Pentium II 266 in your case. This processor is still powerful enough to handle that game, especially if you pair it with Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 or Voodoo Banshee.
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leilei
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Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by leilei »

DamTheGreat wrote: Mon 02 May, 2022 8:45 am i7-9700 @ 3 GHz.
I'd dial the guest down to 166-200MHz. Voodoo2 threads can also matter, and i'd stick to 2 for this. (Maybe turn the screen filter off to help. :'( ) Either that, or get the host past 4ghz.
tk421
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Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by tk421 »

May I ask which screen resolution you are using in PCem? If you are using 1024x768 you might get better performance by reducing your win98 and PCem game resolution down to 640x480. This always works for me.

Your game might work better with the Voodoo 3 instead of the Voodoo 2. leilei's advice here is really good. Two render threads for the voodoo card and reducing the emulated CPU down to 200 Mhz is a great idea. Often enough for the emulated CPU, that is the solution. The mobile pentium mmx CPUs seem to give better performance for some games instead of the normal Pentium MMX CPUs.

Based on what I have read on the internet, your i7 9700 should have an all-core turbo speed of 4.4 Ghz. You should get better PCem performance than I get with my 9750h, which has an all-core turbo speed of 4 Ghz.

PCem performance is frequently task-dependent, so I hope your game works well.
DamTheGreat
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun 01 May, 2022 6:21 pm

Re: Lag while playing a game (Mortyr)

Post by DamTheGreat »

tk421 wrote: Mon 02 May, 2022 9:05 pm May I ask which screen resolution you are using in PCem? If you are using 1024x768 you might get better performance by reducing your win98 and PCem game resolution down to 640x480. This always works for me.

Your game might work better with the Voodoo 3 instead of the Voodoo 2. leilei's advice here is really good. Two render threads for the voodoo card and reducing the emulated CPU down to 200 Mhz is a great idea. Often enough for the emulated CPU, that is the solution. The mobile pentium mmx CPUs seem to give better performance for some games instead of the normal Pentium MMX CPUs.

Based on what I have read on the internet, your i7 9700 should have an all-core turbo speed of 4.4 Ghz. You should get better PCem performance than I get with my 9750h, which has an all-core turbo speed of 4 Ghz.

PCem performance is frequently task-dependent, so I hope your game works well.
I set the resolution to 640x480. Also, I probably should end all extraneous tasks when playing, that would probably help. I checked my MSI utility and the cores do seem to run at 4.4 GHz. I'll use a Mobile 200 guest CPU then.
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