Do you have enough CPU power?

i would say so yes. Decreasing cpu cycles to like 30% doesnt result in any noticeable difference in performance. Browsing the internet the problem appears to be quite common.

Try playing around with the different buffer settings in your DOSBox configuration.

i have tried
rate=11025-22050
blocksize=256-4048
prebuffer=0-100

mpu401 none, gus false. Selecting different cards in game setup. No difference at all. Other games work w/o probs. Like, i dont know, simcity2k etc.

Whats funny though, this Install Gravis Ultrasound Properly, All files, No Errors (With Pictures!) gravis ultrasound plugin for dosbox, when playing the mididemo program, also stutters.

Why play it in DOSbox? The windows version works fine in win xp for me. There is an unofficial patch that fixes the mouse crashing bug.

Cool suggestion for those that use linux/mac/whatever.

They say multiplayer works better in the DOS version.

Couldnt care less for multiplayer. But there is an unofficial game patch, for DOS version only. Fixing critical bugs and adding vital command lines parameters. In particular, if im not mistaken, every time production gets complete, there is a calculating bug, resulting in inevitable production exploit. Or it is possible to customize the starting system, or play w/o Orion, play w/o housing, etc. Pretty nice possibilities.

I never heard of that patch, Roller. Guess I have to check it out (linky?)

I fired up orion2.exe in dosbox (sound configured to SB16) and it runs great with a few adjustments:

CPU: auto/auto or even better with dynamic/max
Sound: block 4096/prebuffer 15

no sound crackling, a few glitches in cut scenes and a little (but very tolerable) sfx lag. The windows version runs much better though. Sound is better and the game runs lightning fast compared to orion2.exe in dosbox. Btw: I have a 1.8 GHz C2D CPU.

edit: I don't use a CD or image btw, the game has no cd-check or protection so I do a full install and copy over all the files that are missing from the CD. Then edit the orioncd.ini and write ".\ " (without quotes) in it which sets cd-directory to the current install directory.

Thanks for settings, tried it but no luck. http://www.lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005/01/download.html here is the patch (1.40b23), along with a readme.

have tried an CVS build, it shows fps and cycles. constant 70fps and 150'000 cycles. The sound stutters when this number changes(not always though), it jumps from 70k to 250k. Ah, an i have athlon xp 2,2ghz. Maybe it is indeed not enough power, though i cant imagine how it is possible with these numbers.

Didn't MOO2 recommend like a DX4/100 or P90? An Athlon XP 2.2ghz (2800+?) may meet that with some games possibly (Duke3D in DOSBox on my XP 2800+ ran about the same as it did on my 486DX4/100), not sure about MOO2 though.

A 1.8ghz C2D is far more powerful than an Athlon XP 2.2ghz so it could really be that simple. I've never played MOO2 sufficiently to gauge what performance would be like though.

oh, its an o/c thingy, the only difference between it and athlon 3200+ is a smaller l2 cache (which surprisingly is listed @wiki too ( as 3100+ )). dosboxed duke3d runs @800x600&best sound no probs. A mystery...