Fixing Framerate Drop in Exceed Gun Bullet Children

Lately, I reinstalled an old game I acquired a few years ago called eXceed - Gun Bullet Children which by the way, I do not recommend getting. I was greeted with a familiar sub-20 fps, low resolution and forced full screen. While I don't have a solution to the full screen issue (the game is so low res, it is better off played in windowed mode but unfortunately, there's no setting for that in the unmodified base game unlike its sequels). I was able to ail the framerate issue follow Shadow-san's guide.

This screenshot was shot post modification. Notice the framerate at the top left hand corner of the picture although this was the only screenshot I could grab during the session since F12 does not work, it doesn't really do how smooth the gameplay actually was after the modification. The framrate rose to a lofty 50 fps after the enemies started swarming in but was hit by mild lag. Makes me wonder how accurate that fps gauge really is.

After installing the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (the links can be found on the guide), my average framerate rose from 15 to just a little over 50. Not so much a miracle as it is the developer's poorly done job to optimize the game for newer machine.

Here's something cute I noticed on the game's store page. Notice the top left hand corner of the screen captures. About half of them are under 30 fps. It's not a very demanding game. Again, I wouldn't recommend buying it. Even after I made the modification to the game, I only played for about 20 minutes and managed to get to the stage 3 boss before I idled it to collect the card drops.

It's always frustrating when steam releases half-baked games, although this isn't the first time its occurred.