Emulation vs. running them natively.

I was hoping this wasn't the case. Makes me wish I had kept my old parts now doh.

Yeah that's why I went and grabbed a few older machines again now. The RTS game I used to play when I was younger doesn't work so well under DOSbox, it's extremely choppy and laggy (Earth 2140). Besides it's much more fun to actually have the real deal. 🤣

I would blame SDL more than anything, but then again blaming SDL for anything is considered blasphemy, having been cyberbullied about it before. Gotta love "standards"

Maybe it has been because the detailless blame 😉
SDL has many shortcomings especially SDL 1.2x but if you want a crossplatform app there is not much one can do except go for the even heavier solutions that are not really tailored for gaming (QT, GTK...).
Supposedly SDL2 makes many things better but who knows without properly porting and a lot of testing...

Edit: biggest shortcoming of SDL 1.2x is that there is no more development, only important fixes get applied and that only to the code repository, a new release will never be...

Doomsday is moving to QT...also if memory serves, BSnes also used QT...until Byuu decided to go against every modern programming principle and reinvent the wheel for everything...