any other background process in windows running? An anti virus program or personal firewall?

Are you using cvs? If so i'd advise you to try disabling smart-update and try again.

The problem still persists! I have closed my antivirus software/firewall and just about every non-system process I can think of. I have even formatted my hard drive and reinstalled windows XP...

In addition to the noticeably slower gameplay, the screen flashes are more clumsy. Say I pick up an ammo clip - instead of the screen suddenly flashing white, it slowly drifts down the screen, taking a full second. The same for being shot - instead of the screen temporarily bleeding red, this slow layer of transparent red moves its way down the screen. Extremely annoying.

What the heck could this be? It was working 100% correctly a mere two days ago - BEFORE I reinstalled Windows!!!

videocard drivers ?

Try normal, full, and dynamic core settings in DOSBox. Try a recent CVS build. Try different output= settings in DOSBox.

My videocard drivers are fully up to date, installed freshly yesterday. Every other modern game plays fine. I have tried several different versions of DOSBox behind 0.63 and each of them have the same problem.

I have fiddled around with the memory and priorirty settings of the config file, but to no avail can I get the game to speed up again.

How exactly would I edit the core settings?

Thanks for all the help so far.

CVS versions are actually newer than DOSBox 0.63. Check the development forum for more info.

Look in the dosbox.conf for info on the core= and output= settings.

Also, it may be worth running a virus and spyware scan if you haven't lately...

@guest:

Did you read this thread? DosBox is unbelievably choppy throughout the game

It contains a few suggestions, that you might wanna try...

Good luck, regards,

Ronald