SHP Forums

After I installed Phantasmagoria through the DVD installer, I noticed that all the videos don't play smooth. But I found a solution which works very good for me and I like to share it with you...

1. Go to C:\sierra\Phantasmagoria\

2. There you find a file named dosbox.conf

3. Open it with Editor

4. Change the value cycles under [cpu] from 10000 to 30000

5. Save the file.

Now the videos play very smooth

Just so you know, you can change the DOSBox Cycles DURING play too, to see what works best. (The best cycles performance, if I am not mistaken, will depend vastly on the computer you're playing on - higher end ones, will have to slow it down even more, for example).

There is a reason that I have the cycles set to 10000. It is because much above this the various speed bugs become exposed. For me, the videos play smoothly, but my machine has some horse power behind it. Older PCs or many portables may have more problems. One thing that you should know is that if you do need to raise cycles, do not go over 20000 with normal core. Set the core to dynamic if you need to go over. Given the the reason that I have the cycles set as low as I have it, it may be best to raise cycles by the hot keys as Tawm suggested, but lower it when the cutscene is through playing. If you do not want to bother with this, be sure to save on a regular basis, preserving your all of your earlier saves. That way if the game crashes, you can restore to the previous room before the crash and lower the cycles before entering the buggy scene.