Warlords III: Darklords Rising

What works

Launched the application, no need to use the -WINCURSOR or /WINCURSOR flags for gameplay. (In fact, it marginally increased performance) The menu system works. The map setup selections work. The Scenarios and Campaign selections work. Starting a random game works. I found a way to cycle through turns as this has been the primary show stopper for this game on Wine. ALT-SPACE will bring up the customary windows "move, resize, restore, minimize, etc..." dialog. If you hit ALT-Space then hit ESC to close the menu, it will cycle the turn. You have to do this at the end of each turn, though, even with computer players. I used the following specifically with this game to improve performance: DirectDrawRenderer = gdi RenderTargetLockMode = readtex Fair warning, this game is _ very slow_.

What does not

Automatic turn handling. (Use ALT-Space and ESC method mentioned in What Works.) Super super slow processing. And I mean ridiculous! Refreshing the screen is incredibly slow. If any changes occur on the screen it takes a while for it to recognize and redraw those changes. Doing Turns, on Windows, take about 5 to 10 seconds each. In Wine, it is about 30 seconds to 1 minute to complete each turn. I would love to see where the slowdown is occuring... this game is a good game that deserves at least a little attention.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Multiplayer and any of the other autorun options besides Single Player.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Simply said, it's now playable, but barely. I would still consider this more of a Garbage than a Bronze rating because of how slow the game is... An update for the game that brings it to 1.02 will NOT RUN. As it will not run in Windows either with DX9c. Use ALT-Space then ESC to advance turns. Good luck!

The game does not run correctly on SMP PCs (more than one CPU core or HyperThreading enabled); HyperThreading can be disabled in the BIOS setup.