Wing Commander II DOS Questions (Resolution & Speed)

[Shaun]

Hey all!

Built an old gaming rig for DOS games (PIII 450 running DOS 6.22 and probably eventually Win98SE). Got WC2 working, but I have a couple issues I'm working to sort out! Any help appreciated!

1.) I notice things look great up until I get in the cockpit, but then everything is vertically "scrunched" just a bit. IE, instead of a perfectly round crosshair (or radar screen, or planet), things are slightly elongated up and down. This is on a 4:3 monitor and cutscenes, etc., look correct. Is this normal? I even tried the GOG version on my main PC (16:9 monitor in this case set to display proper aspect ratio) and it does the same thing. I notice some screenshots I see look "correct" (perfectly round circles) while others (including the ones in the Playguide PDF) show this same elongation, so I'm confused.

2.) Cutscenes, etc., play too fast, so I'm looking for something in DOS that will SMOOTHLY slow things down. I've tried MoSlow and while it works, it doesn't work smoothly. Any recommendations for something that might work better? (My BIOS doesn't have any cache disabling options, unfortunately). I suppose if worse comes to worse I can run DOSbox under Windows 98, but I'd like to play natively in DOS if possible.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[Shaun]

So I'm slowly discovering a few things and figured I'd post for reference if anyone's having similar questions, etc., and this might help:

1.) Finally found my slowdown utility of choice I think. SlowDOS seems to work well, smoothly, and be plenty adjustable (0-99 in .10 ms increments). Mo'Slow ended up too jerky for me, and Throttle (from the same maker as SlowDOS) oddly liked to interfere with my mouse/joystick. SlowDOS is older but works like a champ!

It's a bit tricky to find so here's a link (SlowDOS is at the very bottom): http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS

2.) Several WC2 videos appear to show the same minor "scrunching" (as I mentioned does the game manual), so I'm thinking at this point it's normal, though I still can't explain the screenshots and videos I've seen where things do look totally round. Maybe it has to do with difference between CGA and VGA, though I'm not sure that makes sense. I really don't know - would love to know the answer.

3.) Having a few minor sound issues (a light crackle, especially when a lot is going on and sometimes in music), but I have a Sound Blaster 16 ISA PnP in there now, and I think I'm gonna try getting my hands on an even older ISA card that's fully Pro/SB Original compatible and see if it goes away. (Even if it doesn't, it's minor enough the game would still be highly enjoyable). Oddly, I experience this same crackle on my DOSbox copy (on my main rig) as well.

We're getting there. =)