Just installed the GOG version of Syndicate Wars on my PC and I'm running into all sorts of fairly major glitches and problems.

The game constantly freezes and pauses for a split second both on menus and during gameplay, the droning background sound on the menu screens causes MAJOR static, button presses during gameplay don't always register, such as when you're trying to scroll the map (because the game is frozen at that moment, as stated before), the mouse arrow is constantly glitching, disappearing/reappearing and lagging behind, and more. Even the sound on the intro seemed to be lagging a split-second behind.

What really pisses me off is that I previously had a fan-modded version of SW on my PC that ran PERFECTLY. No sound or graphical glitches whatsoever. However, I bought the GOG version right away to support them, uninstalled my working copy, installed the GOG version (that I PAID for), and now I have the same game I had before but running like crap. It's amateurish and really makes GOG look bad, especially considering the fine job they recently did on System Shock 2. I'm seriously considering uninstalling the GOG version and putting a version that actually works like it's supposed to back on my PC.

BTW, my PC is older, but it more than meets the system requirements...Win XP SP3, 2GB RAM, 2.80 GHz dual core CPU.

Sorry if I sound bitchy or like a jerk, but I'm just annoyed. I put my faith in GOG and it appears that they let me down. If anyone can help, I would appreciate it greatly.

*EDIT* Actually, I've been screwing around with the Graphic Mode Setup option (which I probably should have done BEFORE making this thread...sorry, GOG! lol) and I seem to have fixed most of my problems. I currently have the Graphic Mode set to "DDraw" and the sound and glitching/freezing issues seem to be fixed, although the game seems to be running WAY too fast now! The menu screens load at about double speed now (gameplay seems to be at normal speed from what I can tell, however)! Is there anything I can do to get this to slow down?

It is the settings and your machine that are causing these issues, and isn't really GOG's fault. GOG have a number of test machines on which they have to get the game working before they release it, but individual users may have machines that still need a little tweaking.

For Syndicate Wars, it is a DOS game and so needs emulating using DOSBox. However, for a DOS game, Syndicate Wars is quite demanding, so needs a powerful machine to run it at quite a high number of cycles. This does have side-effects, though.

Your initial experience of slow downs, pausing, bad sound, keys not registering. Those all seem to indicate not enough cycles were able to be used by your machine to emulate the game. (Note, using too many cycles in DOSBox also causes these issues as sometimes it is just too high for your CPU). First thing I would have done is experiment with the number of cycles, increasing and decreasing them to see if a sweet spot could be found, and if found writing that into the .conf file so that it works from that point on without tweaking.

As you managed to improve it by using different graphic modes (which is also feasible as different modes have different performance on different machines) we now come to your last issue, the menu speed. This is where the side-effect I mentioned comes into play. The main game (tactical view, the 3D gameplay zone) requires a lot of cycles, but the menu system doesn't. So, setting high cycles to run the game fine means that whenver you return to the menu it runs too fast. However, it is only fast animation, the speed of the menus doesn't prevent you from using them, so you'll just have to bear with that.

There is an alternative mentioned in these forums though. A Windows port. See this thread:
http://www.gog.com/forum/syndicate_series/who_here_bought_syndicate_wars/post7

Hope this helps.

If the port works for you, I recommend sticking with it.

The game itself is CPU-sensitive, can't blame GOG or DOSBox for that, they've done what they can. At least everything works, even if it's a little rough (whereas the port lacks joystick/networking and crashes if you try to access them.)

I think if GOG included multilingual support and vexillium made their installer work with it, that would help a lot. Unfortunately there isn't much demand for that to happen.

Thanks for the help...I appreciate it. I guess I see how the GOG version runs after a bit of playtime and decide if I want to stick with it or re-install the vexillium port.

However, as far as the vexillium port goes, I had it working to the point that gameplay was smooth and seamless and the menus animated at their normal speed. Overall, it just seemed superior to the GOG port (at least based on first impressions).

Korell- how do I adjust the number of cycles in DOSBox?

Okay, I just re-installed the vexillium port, and it's CLEARLY superior to the GOG release. People can argue that it's not GOG's fault, that they test the games on multiple machines, but for the many games they get right, games like Interstate '76 still get released that don't work on 90% of GOG users' PCs.

Anyway, even once I messed with the Graphical Option in the GOG release, it's still not working at 100%. The menus animate WAY too fast, there are still various sound glitches, the "LOGIN" screen still blacks out and reloads every 5 seconds, the sound lags a split-second behind in the intro video (which is annoying, since it's awesome), and here's a major gameplay issue I've just discovered: there's no way to bring up the PAUSE MENU during gameplay that I'm aware of. Hitting the Esc key does nothing, which sucks, because it would be nice to have an easy way to quit a game while you're playing it. Unless pause is now mapped to another key for some bizarre reason, this is a big deal.

Meanwhile, the vexillium port works PERFECTLY with NONE of those issues affecting the GOG release, and this is right after a fresh install without any tinkering. The menus animate normally, gameplay is nice and fast, hitting Esc brings up the Pause Menu, the sound in the intro is perfectly synced up, etc.

The vexillium port works great. I guess GOG got my money for nothing. At least it was only $5.99...GOG does enough good work that I don't feel too bad dropping dough on the occasional glitchy game...releasing an awesome version of System Shock 2 alone is reason enough. However, if the great vexillium port didn't exist, I'd be a lot angrier than I am now. :) Sure I can blame GOG. The vexillium guys threw together a free port years ago that works perfectly. GOG made one years later that isn't as good. My PC's specs run circles around GOG's listed requirements for this game...stress on the CPU is a non-factor here, especially considering the fact that the vexillium port runs flawlessly for me.

I wish some other people who have actually purchased and played the GOG version could pop in and give their two cents' worth here. It seems that 100% of the reviews for SW here on GOG are just from people who played SW on DOS back in the day and are just gushing about how awesome it was back then. I want to hear if anyone else has dropped money on the GOG version and if they're as disappointed as I am. That's nice, but I'm afraid that I don't care about either of those options.

I bought GOG version if you asking.

P is for Pause Menu. I don't have too much comparision to DOS version (demo back in the days) but menu icons animate fine, I like them in a way they are at current speed. There are several factors and quirks (or them missing) from port that makes playthrough with Windows port just fake, it's not the same experience like DOS or DOSbox one but I can't exactly explain what it is, it's just feels different so I will stick with vanilla. It doesn't matter if you have better CPU than recommended one because game is still affected by many patterns of CPU in unique way in emulation DOS process in DOSbox more than you think, so it doesn't compare but still counts. Also from what you got these strange numbers, 90%? most likely 10% of weird budget configurations so there's no one you can blame with GOG being last if any or, because you have problems everyone have problems and others lying or calling nostalgia from DOS ages.

Um...okay.

BTW, the vexillium port doesn't change anything about Syndicate Wars other than allowing you to play the game on Windows without the use of DOSBox. It's the same exact game otherwise.

DOSBox can be tricky...I guess that's why I'm running into issues with the GOG version that I'm not getting with the vexillium port. Without the added stress of having to run DOSBox (which by itself eats a lot of horsepower, if I'm correct), the vexillium port can just do it's thing. Hell, GOG should have just used that for the port instead of DOSBox (probably couldn't do it legally, however). It would have been more stable.

Again, not the huge deal I was making it out to be...it was only $5.99. And hey, I have the manual now! That's cool.

With all respect to creators of vexillium Windows executable there's a difference between original game and reverse engineered imitation, probably not for you, that's fine as long as you get fun with it. ;-)

The only that can be called sourceport is PSX version.

As per the other thread, the vexillium port runs significantly too fast. I can only assume people are saying it's "perfect" because they've never played the original, or haven't played it for so long they've forgotten what it's supposed to be like.

Hello! Thanks for the reply, and I apologize if I'm a been a tad testy in this thread. I'll be happy to provide you with whatever info you need if it might result in my issues being addressed with a patch or update of some sort. I'll contact the support department ASAP.

I've played the original...the vexillium port's speed is fine. I think there's a tiny little boost in speed in the gameplay, but it's nothing even remotely major. More importantly, vexillium is glitch-free.

Please explain how it is a "reverse engineered imitation." The vexillium executable installed Syndicate Wars onto my PC using the files it was pulling directly from my legit, purchased Syndicate Wars disc that was in the CD drive. It's not like the executable comes with the game itself attached.

How? It's not the matter of original game resources but how game is rendered and plays. As for reverse engineering part, vexillium port is reconstruction of DOS game through disassembling, debugging, decompilling and use of different code replacements as maybe you don't known no open or closed source to made that port from original game was used for this. Reverse engineering is when you don't have original source code but trying to recreate something. It's close imitated/emulated effect of original but not the same.