Richard 'S' writes...

"Technology Curse" is one of the most special features of Origin games other than great graphics and music. Each time Origin releases a new game, the system requirement (e.g. faster CPU) will increase in order to have optimal performance (i.e. reasonable speed) of the game. This is very annoying since most gamers cannot upgrade their computers frequently (except those who are very rich!).

Instead of just making a lot of complaints, I would like to suggest a few ways for better improvements of the future Origin games:

1. STORE SAVEGAMES IN RAM DISK

Nowadays, a lot of 386/486 computers have more than 4 MB RAM (e.g. 8 or 16 MB RAM). Since most Origin games are too large to be copied to the RAM disk to be played, disk cache is always used to speed up the game if the computer has sufficient RAM.

For action-based game (like Pacific Strike, Privateer, Strike Commander and Wing Commander II), the method of using disk cache surely helps a lot. But for larger size of savegame files of adventure games (like Ultima VII Part One & Two, Ultima VIII), this method does not help too much.

For computer with sufficient RAM, if one can use RAM disk (say, 2 MB or more) to store the savegames, the overall speed of the whole game will surely increase a lot since it is faster to use RAM disk instead of disk cache as savegames will often be overwritten during the game proceeds. Of course, the game must have sufficient stability such that the savegames can be copied back to the hard drive once quit to DOS. Otherwise the crashes or hangs of the computer will lose the savegames stored in the RAM disk.

So, if Origin can let the savegames be stored in RAM disk, the overall speed of adventure games will increase a lot without the need to upgrade a faster CPU for the computer.

2. USE MATH CO-PROCESSOR

Most recent Origin games need the computer class of 486DX CPU in order to have reasonable (NOT optimal) performance of the game. Since each CPU chip in the class of INTEL 486DX has a built-in math co-processor, Origin can fully utilize the power of 486DX CPU by using instructions of the math co-processor in the coding of games. Such will surely increase the game speed as the complexity of Origin games requires a lot of mathematical calculations or computations.

3. CODE IN 100% ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE

If the code of a whole game is written in a 100% Assembly language, the overall speed of the game will be much faster other than just requiring a more powerful CPU. Also, the size of the whole game can be smaller since "eating up" a lot of free space from hard drive is another special feature of Origin games.

Difficulty may exist for having coding in such ways, but as the saying goes: "no pain, no gain". It is well-known that the efficiency and playability of Origin games are descending (e.g. Ultima VIII and Pacific Strike) and Origin must do something about it.

Well, that is it. Thank you for your kindly attention.

Yours sincerely,
Richard S.

Richard, a very timely, intelligent and well thought out letter. I have nothing to add to this other than good job. I think you might find some resistance to the idea of saving games to RAMdisks, but the idea is technically worthy. Thanks for reading.