On my system, it doesn't freeze, but there is a bug there. The program shows the title screen and then switches to a corrupted display. Closer investigation shows that this is due to a bug in the handling of INT 0x10/AH=0x10/AL=0x1A.

The implementation for this (INT10_GetDACPage in vga_pal.cpp) does the following:

1	IO_Write(VGAREG_ACTL_ADDRESS,0x10);
2	Bit8u reg10=IO_Read(VGAREG_ACTL_READ_DATA);
3	...
4	IO_Write(VGAREG_ACTL_ADDRESS,0x14);
5	*page=IO_Read(VGAREG_ACTL_READ_DATA);

The IO_Reads however, do not clear the register index (a change made in version 1.17 of vga_attr.cpp on june 22nd: "disable flipflop to index reset on reading port 0x3c1. Patch 1214516"). A proper fix would probably be to write the value that was read back to the port. Patch is attached and submitted to SourceForge.

This might not be the problem you're seeing, but it enables me to run HD just fine.

Hmm I wonder if more calls from that file are affected by it

Yes, there are. A simple search for all reads from the data port shows:
INT10_GetSinglePaletteRegister
INT10_GetOverscanBorderColor
INT10_SelectDACPage (writes a new address, which is interpreted as data)

INT10_ToggleBlinkingBit is not affected, since it reads VGAREG_ACTL_RESET immediately afterward.

There are three ways of combatting it:
1) write back the read value (which is what I did, since it is what my systems programming manual tells me to do) -- see the attached patch
2) read the reset port (which seems cleaner and is more efficient in the DOSBox code but may have the effect of toggling the vertical retrace).
3) rewrite those functions not to use the internal ports

the internal ports must be used. (think of acces(port) violations)
hmm could you check all int10 things for it ?
if that is allready in your patch I will send to the cvs

The only reads done from the VGAREG_ACTL_READ_DATA port are in int10_pal.cpp. All occurrences have been patched in the patch I posted above (the same was submitted to SF)

[offtopic]
w00t, this was my 101st post. Just noticed I'm no longer a "newbie", but a "member".
[/offtopic]

commited this and the call 8 in all video modes.