Running games on PCs with less than minimum specs(paging CoT)

[lord of the mark]

inspired by Child of Thor who played EU2 on a system it wasnt supposed to run on, i installed my new copy on my P2, 266Mhz, 48MB Ram, dinosaur. And you know what - it runs, and im having fun. Its choppy, slows down at odd times for unclear reasons, and takes a very long time to load things - i presume cause it wants a faster CD drive than ive got. I presume the RAM is stretched too. Dont know if it will get worse or better as i continue into the game. But its plenty fun now - so thanks CoT.

[Kassiopeia]

I suspect it's the RAM or the processor rather than the CD drive. A 2x or 4x speed drive is often more than enough for older games, and for newer games too. The game would have to be loading things from the CD all the time for the drive speed to have any noticeable effect.

[DrSpike]

Can't you do a full install?

[lord of the mark]

I did a normal install, I suppose i could try a full one.

[Nikolai]

In all Paradox games, it's basically memory, memory, memory before anything else.

[snoopy369]

Also try adjusting the CD drive's settings - in Win98 and before I believe there was a cache setting or similar that when adjusted can help sometimes ...

[Asmodean]

I remember running Caesar 3 on a Pentium 1 - 75 MHz with only 24 megs of RAM.

Asmodean

[Nikolai]

That can't have been very successful...

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I did a normal install, I suppose i could try a full one.

You should always if you have room.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Nikolai
That can't have been very successful...

Let's just say it was.....slow

Asmodean

[Solver]

I ran CtP on a machine with under minimum system requirements, as well as SMAC back in 1999. Drove me insane. I still enjoyed both a lot. I'm glad, though, that my machine exceeds the minimum system requirements for any game currently on the market.

[hexagonian]

I'd echo the RAM statement...

I was running EU2/Emperor/civ3 on a system that was below processor specs, but I had above-spec RAM. All were slow, but very playable.

And on my new system, I upgraded to 1GB RAM and noticed a lot better performance on MTW.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike


You should always if you have room.

Ok. I'll try that.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
I suspect it's the RAM or the processor rather than the CD drive. A 2x or 4x speed drive is often more than enough for older games, and for newer games too. The game would have to be loading things from the CD all the time for the drive speed to have any noticeable effect.

yup, ive got 48 meg and the min spec is 64. Dont ask.

[child of Thor]

Yeah LotM - i might be sputtering along with puny Mhz etc, but i always do a full install(like you my P166's cd-rom is a pretty slow one, 24x i think?). The opening animation has never run smoothly though on that system.
And the further into the game you go the slower it gets, but its not crashed out on me yet - no sarcastic warning pop-up 'Get more memmory or i'll kill this crap pc' etc.

Still now i've got a PIII 566, 128MB ram(i upgraded from the 64) and 32MB geforce2MX400 - so i'm running all the Paradox games upto Crusader Kings at present(well at least 4 paradox games). This new PC is now maxed out i think(128MB is its max memmory.....HP...on-board....grumble).

But when i want to play a bit of Xcom, or Elite3, or Cosmology of Kyoto, or Monkey Island, Xwing etc - then i'm back on my sweet fun P166 48mb.

Old games are often better than new games, therefore this leads me to believe(maybe wrongly?) that Old Pc's are better too

PS. LotM, i think i could love your PII 266 - i'll send it vibes of goodness to keep it in great game playing shape for you