hard to say. It's been so long that I played U8 but I don't remebernot being abble to finish it 😀
We'd need a savegame to figure more out... Maybe if anyone asks on #pentagram on irc.freenode.net... 😀

I've beaten it in DOSBox version 6.3 under XP without any problems, but I'm not sure if I've done it on any other version of DOSBox.

You never updated to v 0.72? 😉

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.comp … a1be6ada00773bc

"I suspect your problem is related to the IRQ setting of your sound card. When running the INSTALL program of U8, you have to c […]
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"I suspect your problem is related to the IRQ setting of your sound card.
When running the INSTALL program of U8, you have to choose a IRQ setting
-
from memory it's 2, 3, 5 or 7. Make sure that this is what your computer
thinks is correct - look up your card in start/settings/control
panel/system/hardware/sound, music devices/your card/resources. More
boring
details are on my Ultima 7 For Beginners page 😀

Re the earthquake: From the Origin tech help page.......

"When I am watching Lothian being sacrificed, the screen won't quit
shaking!"
Continual shaking of the screen is a problem related to your Sound
Card's
IRQ setting. Run the INSTALL program from the C:\ULTIMA8 directory.
Ensure
that the settings are correct. If you know them to be correct, but
cannot
get past the shaking, set the game for NO sound and NO music. Save the
settings for the install program and run the game again. Without sound,
you
should be able to get past this point, save the game again, run the
install
program and reconfigure your sound for the rest of the game. See our
Sound
Card Help Page for more information."

Probably what it is.

Don't know what's so hard about setting IRQ's,Ports, DMA, and selecting the proper soundcard in DOSBox. Lazy kids today. 😉

IRQ was set to 5 by default by Soundblaster 16 and upwards so I'm not surprised some people forget to change it.