ok, still works pretty well for me. from what you wrote, I imagine your problem is directing the cheatengine to the wrong process, in this case probably the 9dragons updater/launcher.
try launching the game, then start cheatengine, and target the NINEDRAGONS.EXE process. that should fix you up.
This speedhack is around for quite a while, and never heard of it failing because of too low specs (wich yours are not ). Can imagine you would run into some issues with a 386
Still, the animations would be a bit messed up, but the real combat and related processes work on a different bases and should still be sped up.
still, my guess is you got the wrong process, and you will be fine now

keep me updated