Commander Keen. Great game, but with performance issues since I transitioned from Windows 7 to 8: Sluggish motion, stuttering sound…

Solution:

  1. Open the Dosbox .conf files for the game with a text editor. When you bought Keen on Steam the path reads as follows for the fourth game in the series: ...\Steam\SteamApps\common\Commander Keen\base4\keen4.conf
  2. Change the entry output in section sdl to openglnb

I havn’t had any luck with ddraw as output renderer, but with openglnb everything is running smooth.

This is how the sdl section in the .conf should look like after the change:

[sdl]

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=true
fullresolution=800x600
windowresolution=original
output=openglnb
autolock=true
sensitivity=500
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
usescancodes=false

You will have to to this for every Keen game separately.

cc-by Jonas Schöley