I have the same issue and there are actually a lot of people mentioning this problem.

I found that if I chose the option "use my preferences to improve: Performance" in NVIDIA Control Panel, I had fewer slowdowns.

(I adjusted the sound frequency to minimum in sound settings and i turned the game to use 1 core. But i don't launch game with compatibility.)

Before I had a slowdown of 4 seconds, now it's 2 seconds (or less) ... The game is less frustrating.

Maybe we should try to change the options for the graphics card for a game that works better.

PS : Sorry for my english, but i used a translator ...

PPS : Computer : windows 7 64 bits
nvidia gt320M
intel pentium T4500

I'm running Windows 7 Professional x32.

When I start the game and the first level begins, everything start to lag. The background is just brown and when people in the game start moving they get like a blurry long tail and you can't see the mouse or do anything.

My brother installed the same game, same version/torrent, on his computer (win 7 x64 tho) and it works just fine. I have hard to believe that my graphic card is so bad it can't even play a simple game from 2001.

Any suggestion what i could do to fix this problem?

Same problem here - tried everything the OP also tried but the game is practically unplayable due to stuttering and lagging... :/

The problems are related to how Win 7 (and from what I've read, XP and Vista) handle DirectDraw. There's been plenty of suggestions to use "ForceDirectDrawEmulation" in various tools, but this messes up the graphics terribly, causing all the sprites to leave trails and disabling the background. After a fair bit of Googling, I've finally come across ddwrapper:

http://bitpatch.com/ddwrapper.html

Which provides the option but (somehow!) avoids the graphics corruption that everything else ends up giving - the mouse sprite still behaves badly in the menus, but the game works without issues (so far...).

To use it, download the .zip and extract "aqrit.cfg" and "ddraw.dll" to <install directory>/Game (where game.exe is, not desperados.exe - the latter is just the launch screen). You then want to enable DDraw Emulation (ForceDirectDrawEmulation = 1 in aqrit.cfg). Then play the game (either through desperados.exe or game.exe).

As the instructions on ddwrapper say, do NOT replace your system's ddraw.dll (in System32) - you will break both ddwrapper and every program that requires ddraw.dll.

At least for now, ddwrapper seems to solve the crash problems I was having with the game (including the "motorboating" sound issue). It seems to me that DirectDraw must have been the underlying issue after all: without ddwrapper the game was basically crashable by pressing ESC repeatedly (to bring up and dismiss the menu), which was laggy to appear and caused sound disruption, eventually leading to the "motorboating" sound crash where the game freezes and a background noise like a motor engine plays. But now that's not possible as far as I can see, and the game generally seems more responsive, so I guess some underlying issue has been resolved.

Thanks for that, I never would have found it myself! Hopefully it keeps working...

Unfortunately, the exact same problem has now returned on higher levels, where the game freezes and a "motorboat engine" background noise plays, with huge lag on the computer making the application very hard to kill. This happens even after I've converted all the WAV files to an uncompressed format. Very frustrating!

It's possibly a problem in fmod.dll, which is the sound library which the game uses. Using a newer version of the library might help... but I don't have such a DLL. Apparently it's a commonly used library though that has been used in many games. I tried switching in fmod.dll from Robin Hood (also from GOG), but it seems like that's too new (the version number is only slight higher, but it seems that the interface changed or something - since Desperados cannot find certain functions that it needs).

Does anybody have any other suggestions, which do not involve significantly disabling music/sound/etc? Has anybody tried running the game in a virtual machine (Bochs, QEMU, etc.) with any success? What about Win98 in a virtual machine, is that possibly better than WInXP?

I just wanted to say thanks a lot Danny252 for figuring out a solution to this problem.
After I bought my new computer Desperadoes was one of those games I had a lot of problems with running properly. I've been dying to try and find a solution to make this game run smoothly the last couple of years.

This thread should really get a sticky for being extremely helpful for getting the game to work properly for those who have these problems.

I would give you a hug if I could - that completely fixed my problem described here:
http://www.gog.com/forum/desperados_series/displaying_enemy_field_of_vision_lowers_fps
Thank you, thank you so much!

I have the very same slow performance problem on Vista 32 and I tried Danny's method, but the game is not even launching after I copy the files into the Desperados / Game Directory. Does anyone has any idea how to solve the ultra slow performance problem on Vista 32?

That's the bit that makes the game playable for me, thank you! While it's not perfect, it's fun now!

I have win8 64, it did not work for me.... :(
if only microsoft would have opengl as standard through the years...

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Sorry for my english
Here is the solution in two steps:

1) Please make sure that you use "Run as Administrator" to install and to start the game (right click on the shortcut or setup file and select "Run as Administrator").

2) Please extract the contents of the attached ddwrapper.zip archive to the game's "Game" directory (default: C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Desperados Wanted Dead or Alive\Game) and try to play it again.

Here is the contents, please download and follow the step number 2:
http://rapidshare.com/files/4157325425/Desperados%20Win%207%20Support.zip


!!!!!!!!!!These files are different than those from Danny252, please use these files, not the ones from Danny252!!!!!!!!!!!

If the link does not work, please contact me at: kansurseal@centrum.sk
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Thank you. I m using Win 8 64 Bit. It worked for me in 800 x 600 resolution.