I've played this game for several years now, but I've to find anyone who could answer this question:

Is it possible to get Ground Control + its expansion running at 30 to 60 FPS without sliding down all the graphics doodads and such? I bought a new PC recently and I'm a little flummoxed that I've seen no performance increase thus far.


Here are my system specs:

Windows 8 (64-bit)
Intel Core i5-3570K @ 3.4GHz
8 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti

How odd. Maybe it's a Windows 8 thing. No problems on my end. Windows 7 64 bit and latest drivers installed.

The direct3D calls are not done in an optimal way. In the past most drivers did cope with it, but modern drivers don't seem to anymore.

I discovered that in running GC1 with wine as there's https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33814 that is about it.

I sent a patch to wine, but also created a user space ddraw.dll that you can just drop in your gc.exe directory.

You'll notice that it works if you have a red/yellow/green histogram on the top of your screen in the menus.

Here is the link
https://github.com/steveschnepp/d3d7batch

First turn off Vsync (in system and game) and any *sync or monitor OSD/driver menus settings any enhanced features. Disable FPS limiter in video driver if you did. For Nvidia better use NV Inspector 3rd party tool. In general RivaTuner RTSS tool. Look to PCGW wiki article about Frames per Second. Any *syncs outdated. Manual FPS limiters instead. In-game limiters/sync turn off too.

.....
Its a bug-o-feature of mobile-backported Win8+ and modern nvidia drivers. Even d3d9 kinda broken there. Even DX10 games (although not for d3d reasons).

First make sure disable fullscreen optimisation are enabled for exe properties. GOG usually set that within install process. Its still should be on by default even with 3rd party wrappers/fixes/-mods. Sometimes off. Any else should be disabled.

And yes. There is some else. GOG version come with sdb-package installed compatibilities (created by Ms ACT compatibility tool). Sometimes its appear separately in OS Installed apps list. Or manually remove (sdb file in game folder keep, but remove in some of Windows (WINDIR) system sub-folder, one of first one inside there (?)).

Inside those WINDIR sdb there is description what need to be removed from Win REGEDIT. Or do search in Registry for game exe name.

After that if issue exist in game as is, with GOG presets and fullscreen optimisation disabling (or after removing all of them) - that mean you need wrapper.
GOG DX Wrapper didnt released separately, limited available with few releases, most recent for most recent win10/11 game updates. Heroes 4, Blood Omen 1, Soul Reaver 1 most recent (this one rollback'ed so look on 3rd party websites for it). Maybe something else.

There is WineD3D wrapper. And its half-official port(fork?) for Windows.

Narzoul's Ddraw Compat wrapper version 3.0.1 and 4.0.1 (two very differ). There is actually dozens of differ wrappers called Ddraw Compat, d3dwrapper unrelated to each others. And dozens forks of them - related. Narzoul's 3.0.1 are first to try as one of not having settings, just single DLL file to drop to game folder.

any else with settings - there is more advanced tools. DxWnd (allow wrap even AudioCD and its volume level as old Windows do) and degevoodoo.

there is separate kind of wrappers - to switch from one render to o another. d3d8tto9 and variattions, DXVK.

My suggestion first look at PCGW. But keep in mind its Wiki, not accurate. Go to game article first. Then looks to Troubleshoot section and wrappers categories. Wine article for link to WineD3D wrapper.
Then if you dont have GOG Wrapper - try Narzoul or WineD3D first. Skip advanced ones to check them later.
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So what about Wine fix? Its always been Windows 8 and later issue, in the first place. WineD3D is one of solutions. Here is some of the wrappers but not described which one:
http://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Ground_Control

Steve, does that ddraw.dll work without Wine, too? Like, if I put it in the game's Steam folder in Windows 10?

Edit: I just tried it out, the stuttering is almost gone, the game runs like a charm. Thank you so much! :-)