29.6.06

Turning off SMP on a single app or game

Legacy games running BootCamp on a MacBook Pro (or any dual core processor) can sometimes crash, because they don't support multiprocessing. Two that I know of -
- System Shock 2
- Deus Ex 2

Neither of those games are getting multiprocessor updates anytime soon.

Deus Ex 2, for example, will sputter and sound-loop on the title screen. I've seen some crappy workarounds, but here's one that works.
1) Get a copy of imagecfg.exe . This tool lives in one of the Windows resource kits. There are places you can get it on its own, Google away.

2) Make a backup of your main game executable. I.e. I made a copy of DX2Main.exe that was called DX2Main.exe.backup

3) run imagecfg -u c:\Your game path\your game.exe
This sets the executable to have an 'affinity' with CPU 0, that is, it will run on one core.

And that's it, your game will run without you having to alt-tab, view processes, and set the CPU affinity every time the game runs (it was getting very old on DX2), or any other mullarkey.

Hope this helps any fellow retrogamers out there.
Now as for getting Shock 2 running on XP at all.. lets say there's a FAQ. A long one over at http://www.ttlg.com/forums/.

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