DOS Games Discussion

So just the opposite of the usual problem. Usually people say it runs to slow based on my research. Mine runs to fast. Game speed is set to normal but the people move way faster then they should. So I tried decreasing CPU Cycles, problem is, once it got down to a certain percentage, say 10 or 20% the game just lagged rather then running normal speed. I tried CTRL F7 and F8 to play with the frame rate but that didnt seem to work either.

Now I know DosBox needs all the CPU it can get but seeing as I have a Core i7 860, I dont see that being a problem even with apps running. I can understand apps causing lag, but not how it can cause the game to run to fast. Usually other apps running causes lag, not overclock effect(for lack of a better term).

Also, sometimes the sound is fine. Other times the sound is distorted as if it came out of a blown speaker.

# Motherboard - MSI P55-GD65
# Processor type and speed - Core i7 860
# Amount and type of RAM G.Skill Ripjaws 2x2GB
# Video board w/ RAM amount and type - 4890 Vapor-X 1 GB VRAM GDDR5
# Sound board - Realtek onboard.
# Operating system - Win 7 x64
# Game name (and version, if applicable) - Theme Hospital
# Description of problem (be detailed: saying "it's jerky" doesn't help, saying "the player sprites seem to be jerky when I'm pressing any of the arrow keys" does) - See Above.
# Reproducibility of problem (always, only once, always but only on a specific level, etc.) - Speed - Always/Sounds - Sometimes.
# Sound mode used
# Video mode (Software, OpenGL, Direct3D, or Glide, and resolution) Tried surface and ddraw so far
# Version of emulator (for VDMSound, probably 2.0.4 or 2.1.0; for DOSBox, 0.58+) DosBox 0.74
# Steps already attempted to solve the problem (please say you've read the README if you haven't, and READ IT IF YOU HAVEN'T!)- Tried ddraw rather then software, otherwise nothing. Havent found an instance where a game runs to fast and changing the CPU Cycles hasnt worked.

There are several things you can try as described in the manuals and dosbox conf:

Change core= under [CPU] header in dosboxconf
Possible values: auto, dynamic, normal, simple

Also cputype= under [CPU]
Possible values: auto, 386, 386_slow, 486_slow, pentium_slow, 386_prefetch.

However: this can be done on the fly on the prompt for testing purposes till you find the right setting for a specific game.
A game specific dosbox conf can be created and used for that specific game (This is explained in the dosbox manual).

Better set cycles to a fixed value in stead of %, this is done in dosbox config.
Eventually you can first try 'auto' with maybe a max value, the value is found by error&trial ...

Sound: should be perfect for Theme hospital, what are the choices you made when setting up the game?


'Frameskip' is usually to avoid and meant to be used on slow PCs that choke on a game.