Without having access to a machine that old I can only guess at what's wrong, unfortunately.

The only thing that comes to mind is the change to backbuffer handling I did in mS 4.6: the engine now uses a fake backbuffer to ensure pixel-perfect output, and your 7300 may not be able to do render-to-texture at all.  In that case Allegro is probably emulating it in software, hence the slowdown.  If that's indeed the case, then there's not much I can do--using Surfaces in miniSphere would be slow for you too, even under 4.5.

The vid card is actually in the 8500 series but even that is like 10 years old...

There must be some way to accomplish this.

Too much to think about right now...

For now, back to Sphere 1.5...

I know this topic started out with a GetVersion question... We got in to talking about the video display between the Sphere and miniSphere. Which would still be on topic about the different versions. I thought you might like to see just what miniSphere 4.8 does on my dev machine...

I assume it's not meant to be doing that?

With miniSphere 4.5, the graphics were very much like Sphere 1.5. Very smooth with no issues. With miniSphere 4.8 the graphics became very slow and choppy. @Fat Cerberus thought it might be because of my video card.

With miniSphere 4.5, the graphics were very much like Sphere 1.5. Very smooth with no issues. With miniSphere 4.8 the graphics became very slow and choppy. @Fat Cerberus thought it might be because of my video card.

I can't work out what's wrong in the picture you've posted. Not sure if you're showing a bug or something else.

The graphics are just choppy and slow and kept making a trail of "Link". Not a bug, just slow graphic rendering on my dev machine, I guess.

The graphics are just choppy and slow and kept making a trail of "Link". Not a bug, just slow graphic rendering on my dev machine, I guess.

Until you said that I thought it may have bean some kind of line of flames.

Yeah minisphere 4.8 needs a modern graphics card it just doesn't have the right hooks for old graphics cards.

Looking at the image, it's like an army of Links all following one another on their way to fight Gannon.

Yeah, not sure what's up with the trails, that's kind of weird.

It's not that I don't want to support older machines, it's just I don't have a 2000s-era desktop handy to actually test things on.

I can't find an actual production year for the desktop but from what I can gather, similar models were produced in 2010. If that is when this machine is from then I am developing on a 7 year old machine. Considering the machine I was using before this one was from 2003... Not the newest tech, I know. I try to stay updated but new hardware isn't really cheap.

Hm, 2010 is still new enough that I'd consider it a bug if miniSphere doesn't run acceptably on it.  I'll see what I can do going forward.

@Miscreant What kind of CPU is in that? I'm using a Dell laptop from 2011 which has a third gen i7 CPU, and Intel HD Graphics 4000 served miniSphere just fine.

Before this I had a laptop from 2010 with a second-gen i7, and that worked fine too. Maybe it doesn't now, I dunno.

@Miscreant What kind of CPU is in that? I'm using a Dell laptop from 2011 which has a third gen i7 CPU, and Intel HD Graphics 4000 served miniSphere just fine.

Before this I had a laptop from 2010 with a second-gen i7, and that worked fine too. Maybe it doesn't now, I dunno.

Give me a moment to gather the specs.

PROCESSOR / CHIPSET
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 / 2.33 GHz

Number of Cores
Quad-Core
64-bit Computing
Yes
Data Bus Speed
1333 MHz

Chipset Type
NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / nForce 630i
Processor Socket
LGA775 Socket

CACHE MEMORY
Installed Size
L2 cache - 4 MB
Cache Per Processor
4 MB
Type
L2 cache
Per Processor Size
4 MB
Installed Size
4 MB

RAM
Installed Size
4 GB / 4 GB (max)
Memory Speed
800 MHz
Memory Specification Compliance
PC2-6400
Features
unbuffered
Configuration Features
2 x 2 GB
Technology
DDR2 SDRAM
Installed Size
4 GB
Data Integrity Check
non-ECC
Rated Memory Speed
800 MHz

MEMORY
Max Supported Size
4 GB

PROCESSOR
Installed Qty
1
Max Supported Qty
1
Type
Core 2 Quad
Processor Number
Q8200
Manufacturer
Intel
Clock Speed
2.33 GHz

GRAPHICS CONTROLLER
Graphics Processor
NVIDIA GeForce 7100
Video Interfaces
HDMI, VGA

My dev machine... I put an nVidia GeForce 8400 ge PCIe graphics card into it which disabled the integrated video.