Game:

Dungeon Keeper (1997)

Duration: 0:00

148 views

8

REAL HARDWARE CAPTURE IN 8:5/16:10 ASPECT RATIO.

In fun contrast to the previous video captured from a mid-1994 PC, I thought it would be interesting to see how Dungeon Keeper (Bullfrog Productions, early July 1997) fared on something considerably more top-of-the-line during the time it first came out on store shelves. The Pentium II 266 MHz processor had only just started existing during this time which why I personally think it's perhaps a bit overkill for a game more or less based on a 3D renderer from late 1994 (with some embellishments since). However, Dungeon Keeper is an RTS at its core and they CAN get busy with lots of on-screen units, so let's see how this Pentium II handles everything!

In summary, it doesn't struggle at all. In fact, you could argue it runs WAY too fast in most instances and that's with SVGA (640x400) enabled! You can also tell that the level selection screen scrolls far too quickly even when just nudging the edge of the screen with the cursor. Did Bullfrog not cap the maximum game speed during all those years starting with Magic Carpet (which is the game engine DK fundamentally uses)? That's not to say that it never struggles but I see it as more of a restraint of excess speed rather than a net performance deficit when slow-down does eventually occur. Let's just say that you won't be waiting very long for those crowded battles to reach a conclusion!

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Operating system used: Microsoft Windows 98
Drivers used for Matrox Millennium II: ???
Drivers used for Sound Blaster AWE32: the ones provided on the Dungeon Keeper CD-ROM.

This footage and audio was captured from the following computer:
Gateway 2000 G6-266 case (manufactured on June 16th 1997 according to case label)
Intel 440FX motherboard (manufactured May 14th 1997 according to sticker)
Intel Pentium II 266 Mhz processor (S-Spec SL265, manufactured week 16 1997)
Matrox Millennium II PCI video card (board manufactured week 17 1997; early variant with "Matrox MGA 64-bit graphics" sticker on the MGA-2164W integrated circuit/chip)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32 (CT3900) sound card (board manufactured week 15 1995)
128 MBs of EDO DRAM; 4x32MB DIMMs (168-pin), 60ns (manufactured week 14 1997 according to stickers)

The capturing was done with VCS (which can be found on the Internet Archive) and OBS Studio using a Datapath VisionRGB-E1S PCI-Express capture card. A VGA-to-DVI cable is connected between the source computer and the Datapath capture card to enable video capturing. Audio capture was done by feeding a 3.5mm stereo jack cable from the sound card of the vintage computer to the capture system’s on-board line in connector. Resizing/upscaling of the raw original 640x400 capture to 3200x2400 was done using VirtualDub2.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Digging around
1:01 — Building
1:18 — Dungeon viewing
2:20 — Fighting intruders
3:17 — Demon Spawn combat
4:35 — Warlock combat
5:56 — Dungeon progress
6:34 — Big battle
7:30 — Destroying the Dungeon Heart
8:24 — Resolution comparison

#dungeonkeeper #windows95 #pentium #awe32 #matrox #millennium2 #mga #2164W #soundblaster #bullfrogproductions #petermolyneux #glenncorpes #datapath #upscaling #visionrgb #e1s #640x400 #320x200 #periodcorrect