The problem is that all 386 systems use ISA graphics cards. ISA is slow, it supports max. 16-bit data transfer width at 8 MHz, some ISA graphics cards achieve transfer speed only 1–2 MB/s.
A 320×200x8 screen contains 62.5 KB of data per frame. At 30 FPS, approximately 1.83 MB of data must be transferred every second. At 386 there is a very little time left for per-frame calculations. This is why 32-bit DOS/4GW games cannot run at full screen with an acceptable frame rate on a 386.
By comparison, VLB and PCI graphics cards can be 10–20 times faster at data transfers.
I use C for programming (no object-oriented programming or fancy data structures). I develop the game on Linux (I simply prefer using Linux). I do not use any special libraries. For the Linux version, I compile the program with GCC. For the DOS version, I use Openwatcom (open-watcom.owcc-dos4g).
If the Linux version works correctly, I compile it for DOS as well. Debugging and finding memory errors in a DOS executable are much more difficult.
