I've been playing ZZT on my Mac, in the latest version of DOSBox (0.70). It started off running well, but after a few minutes ZZT became excessively slow in two particular areas: message boxes and board transitions. This was not engine-related - I was even getting these slowdowns in Town of ZZT.
Opening the welcome message on the first board took about 5 seconds - during this time, the message box was being slowly drawn to the screen. Once it was open, scrolling down one line took about 2 seconds. Moving from board to board also took about five seconds. During these 5 seconds, the transition animation that's usually just a flash played in slow motion - the tiles turned dark purple in random order, then randomly cleared to reveal the next board. Everything else ran at about normal speed, and other Dos games ran just fine.
I could not duplicate these problems on the earlier version of DOSBox I was using before (0.65), so I'm guessing that this is a new problem. What I'm wondering is whether this bug is Mac-specific, or if all builds have this problem?
Problems with ZZT under DOSBox
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Quantum P.
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Dr. Dos
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You need a faster computer to handle zzt.
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Apologies for the old post you may have just read.
Follow Worlds of ZZT on Twitter
Apologies for the old post you may have just read.
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Quantum P.
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Intel. But I don't think the machine's speed is an issue here. Let me describe the problem again:
* I start up DOSBox 0.65, the old version. I run ZZT and load Town of ZZT.
* I touch the scroll in the center square. The message box animation is smooth and takes about a second. Scrolling inside is smooth and instantaneous.
* I run south and start shooting up centipedes. Everything is smooth, and overall, it feels like I'm playing ZZT on a real Dos machine. Don't think the problem is that my computer is too slow.
* I play for a couple minutes. All the blue doors are now unlocked.
* I run back north to the town square. The board transition takes a split-second.
* I touch the scroll in the center square. The message box opens and scrolls smoothly, as before.
*I quit the game and then quit DOSBox.
That was the first test. Overall, I was getting great performance out of version 0.65. Now, for round two:
* I start up DOSBox 0.70, the newest version. I run ZZT and load Town of ZZT.
* I touch the scroll in the center square. The message box opens and scrolls smoothly, with no noticeable delay.
* I run south to shoot centipedes again. Everything is smooth, with no noticeable delays.
* I play for a couple minutes. All the blue doors are now unlocked.
* I run back north to the town square. However, the transition between boards has changed from being instantaneous to taking 5 seconds. During these 5 seconds, the board is gradually covered in dark purple and then gradually uncovered to reveal the next board.
* I touch the scroll in the center square. The message box animation takes about 5 seconds, and the little chime that plays finishes a good couple of seconds before the message box is fully displayed.
* I hit the down arrow key once. It takes about a second for ZZT to redraw the message box text, shifted one line down.
* I close the message box. It closes a couple seconds faster than it opens, but only because ZZT doesn't have to fill the message box with text, line by painstaking line.
* I quit the game. It takes the sidebar a second to redraw itself, and the transition to title screen takes 5 seconds.
* I quit ZZT, and the program quits immediately after I hit "y".
* I restart ZZT, and the same problems crop up immediately. The welcome message at the very beginning ("The Original ZZT") takes about 5 seconds to display, another few to close, and another 5 seconds to transition to the Town of ZZT title screen.
And now, for round 3:
* I restart DOSBox, version 0.70. I let it sit for a few minutes, without doing anything.
* After a few minutes, I check back on DOSBox. I run ZZT and find that the slowdown problems detailed previously occur immediately. The problem appears to be time-related.
* I quit ZZT and play a couple of other, more modern Dos games (Wolfenstein 3D, Worms+). No problems at all.
* I run ZZT again. The same problems appear immediately.
* I restart DOSBox, version 0.70.
* For a few minutes, I play the other Dos games I have. No problems.
* I quit those games and run ZZT. Slow.
Long story short, ZZT runs fine in 0.65. In 0.70, it runs fine at first, but it gets slow after a couple of minutes. Only ZZT is affected - other Dos games run fine. The only way to get rid of the slowdown is to restart DOSBox. The slowness seems to be related to the amount of time DOSBox has been open.
Could one of you guys with a Windows machine please download the latest version of DOSBox and play ZZT for a few minutes? I'd like to know whether or not this is a problem on other platforms.
* I start up DOSBox 0.65, the old version. I run ZZT and load Town of ZZT.
* I touch the scroll in the center square. The message box animation is smooth and takes about a second. Scrolling inside is smooth and instantaneous.
* I run south and start shooting up centipedes. Everything is smooth, and overall, it feels like I'm playing ZZT on a real Dos machine. Don't think the problem is that my computer is too slow.
* I play for a couple minutes. All the blue doors are now unlocked.
* I run back north to the town square. The board transition takes a split-second.
* I touch the scroll in the center square. The message box opens and scrolls smoothly, as before.
*I quit the game and then quit DOSBox.
That was the first test. Overall, I was getting great performance out of version 0.65. Now, for round two:
* I start up DOSBox 0.70, the newest version. I run ZZT and load Town of ZZT.
* I touch the scroll in the center square. The message box opens and scrolls smoothly, with no noticeable delay.
* I run south to shoot centipedes again. Everything is smooth, with no noticeable delays.
* I play for a couple minutes. All the blue doors are now unlocked.
* I run back north to the town square. However, the transition between boards has changed from being instantaneous to taking 5 seconds. During these 5 seconds, the board is gradually covered in dark purple and then gradually uncovered to reveal the next board.
* I touch the scroll in the center square. The message box animation takes about 5 seconds, and the little chime that plays finishes a good couple of seconds before the message box is fully displayed.
* I hit the down arrow key once. It takes about a second for ZZT to redraw the message box text, shifted one line down.
* I close the message box. It closes a couple seconds faster than it opens, but only because ZZT doesn't have to fill the message box with text, line by painstaking line.
* I quit the game. It takes the sidebar a second to redraw itself, and the transition to title screen takes 5 seconds.
* I quit ZZT, and the program quits immediately after I hit "y".
* I restart ZZT, and the same problems crop up immediately. The welcome message at the very beginning ("The Original ZZT") takes about 5 seconds to display, another few to close, and another 5 seconds to transition to the Town of ZZT title screen.
And now, for round 3:
* I restart DOSBox, version 0.70. I let it sit for a few minutes, without doing anything.
* After a few minutes, I check back on DOSBox. I run ZZT and find that the slowdown problems detailed previously occur immediately. The problem appears to be time-related.
* I quit ZZT and play a couple of other, more modern Dos games (Wolfenstein 3D, Worms+). No problems at all.
* I run ZZT again. The same problems appear immediately.
* I restart DOSBox, version 0.70.
* For a few minutes, I play the other Dos games I have. No problems.
* I quit those games and run ZZT. Slow.
Long story short, ZZT runs fine in 0.65. In 0.70, it runs fine at first, but it gets slow after a couple of minutes. Only ZZT is affected - other Dos games run fine. The only way to get rid of the slowdown is to restart DOSBox. The slowness seems to be related to the amount of time DOSBox has been open.
Could one of you guys with a Windows machine please download the latest version of DOSBox and play ZZT for a few minutes? I'd like to know whether or not this is a problem on other platforms.
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gingermuffins
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thematrixeatsyou
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