What games are you trying to run? 😁

B17 Flying Fortress, Aces Of The Pacific, Carrier Command, and Shadow President.

what is your dosbox version and where have you got it from?
what are your PC specifications?

post content of "DOSBox Status Window" (in Windows: right click on its title bar -> edit)
enclose your dosbox's config file

and read the manual

Disabling joystick will probably fix the mouse.

Well, strangely the joystick does it too...in the exact same way as the mouse, and I tried that, mouse still does it. As for what robertmo asked..

It's version 0.73, and to install it I used the Linux terminal command sudo apt-get install dosbox, my PC specs are CPU: AMD Athlon 1.2Ghz Video: Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 Sound: I'm not Really sure, it's a sound card my brother sent me he said it was just an old Soundblaster, one command says it's an Esoniq, another says it's a Sigmatel, I don't know the difference...or how to specifically find out since it doesn't say on the card itself. RAM: 512MB.

As for the DOSBOX status window, when I start it:

1DOSBox version 0.73
2Copyright 2002-2009 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.
3---
4CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file /home/tyler/.dosbox/dosbox-0.73.conf
5MIDI:Can't find device:coremidi, finding default handler.
6ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0) nor (17:0)
7MIDI:Opened device:oss
8Using joystick Logitech Logitech Attack 3 with 3 axes, 11 buttons and 0 hat(s)

And with the game running..

1DOSBox version 0.73
2Copyright 2002-2009 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.
3---
4CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file /home/tyler/.dosbox/dosbox-0.73.conf
5MIDI:Can't find device:coremidi, finding default handler.
6ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0) nor (17:0)
7MIDI:Opened device:oss
8Using joystick Logitech Logitech Attack 3 with 3 axes, 11 buttons and 0 hat(s)
9CPU:3500 cycles
10CPU:4000 cycles
11CPU:4500 cycles
12CPU:5000 cycles
13CPU:4166 cycles
14CPU:3471 cycles

Just says the cycles changed when I changed them, no errors or anything it looks like...and as for the manual, it doesn't seem to have any fixes or anything for the problems in it for Linux, just Windows...

Is there a way to upgrade to 0.74 in your situation?

Okay, I uninstalled .73 and downloaded the source from the main site for .74, it compiled and install perfectly...however, now I can only get the cycles up to about 4155 without it doing that again...it lags a hell of a lot less up around 20000 but thats when the mouse and joystick are unuseable...

Have you tried to disable the joystick in the config file now or not?

Yes...it stopped causing the cursor to drift away, however in this version I found an option under Joystick

timed: enable timed intervals for axis. Experiment with this option, if your joystick drifts (away).

I set it to false, and now it doesn't drift away anymore! Although now I have another issue...when I turn the CPU up so the game doesn't lag, the audio stutters EXTREMELY badly...

Did you test any other apps using SDL for their sound output? Maybe it's just some OSS emulation not working, and I think OSS should really be avoided, so you could try running with the environment variable
SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa
(and make sure a version of SDL with alsa support is installed, on a debian system this would be either libsdl1.2debian-all or libsdl1.2debian-alsa)

Another random hint: If you are using some kind of frequency scaling, turn it off. It interferes badly with a lot of older games, even e.g. UT2k4, and of course with dosbox, too.

AMD Athlon 1.2Ghz Video: Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 Sound: I'm not Really sure

Well these PC specs resemble a pocket calculator by today's standards. Please try some "plain" DOS games, not those relatively demanding 3D titles you've mentioned. Have a look at your CPU usage while running the games. My guess is that DOSBox has problems maintaining emulation speed on your system and hence audio starts to stutter. As Zirias said you should also try running native Linux games and/or emulators and see how they behave.

Wine works perfectly...except not wanting to run everything, but thats not really an issue thats just Wine being Wine, the sound works perfectly in everything else...I switched it from OSS to ALSA and it's much better, as for frequency scaling...what is that and how do I turn it off?

core=dynamic

http://www.dosbox.com/DOSBoxManual.html#SpeedHelp

Shrink you Linux partition and install Windows 98 SE.

Well I have another 20GB hard drive...I just don't use it, I could put W98 on that...but why W98 and not DOS or W95?

iRelyt wrote:

as for frequency scaling...what is that and how do I turn it off?

I overlooked your system specs -- I don't think your CPU supports this (dynamic adaption of the CPU speed to the system load)...

So forget that, I think your system is really a LITTLE weak. I'm running a AMD64 x2 6000+ and it seems "just enough" for playing Screamer 2 in Dosbox...

Alright...I can't afford a faster computer, and I do have another one, but it's even slower...700Mhz and an old ATI Raedon 7000 for video...I considered running them side by side and just switching between monitors, with the actual DOS running on the older one, but I've never gotten DOS to work, nor FreeDos..

Well it's important to understand that DOSBox is very CPU intensive. For instance, I used to have a P4/2.6 Ghz with the fastest Radeon still available for AGP. The machine played mordern-ish games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or CoD2 quite well, but wasn't able to run SVGA games smoothly in DOSBox (bar a few examples). The CPU was too weak. For your system(s), installing Win9x/DOS natively may be the better alternative for playing old DOS games.

Or you could try using dosemu instead, as it doesn't emulate the CPU but virtualizes the existing one, it may be fast enough on your system. But, be warned, it's much harder to setup than dosbox and you need a "real" DOS to use it 😀