I'm trying to get Windows 3.1 to run smoothly in Dosbox (success = being able to play MIDI files and edit text files simultaneously within 3.1) and have been having hit or miss results on various machines. Ideally I'd like for it to work at my default setting of 25000 cycles, as I have some apps that can use the extra speed. Obviously, there are a ton of variables. Here's what I have so far:

- i3 6100 (3.7 GHz, CPU passmark score = 5465), underlying OS = Windows 10: Runs smoothly at 25000 cycles

- Phenom 945 (3.0 GHz, 3698), Windows XP: Runs smoothly at 25000 cycles

- Celeron N2840 (2.2 GHz, 1012), Windows 8.1: Runs smoothly at 10000 cycles. MIDI plays ok at 25000 but gets choppy when I work on text files.

- i3 5005U (2 GHz, 2919), Windows 10: Have to bump this all the way down to 3000 cycles. At 10000 it is better but even moving the mouse will slow it down. At 25000, even MIDI playing by itself is very choppy. A crucial clue is that the SB16 drivers in my WIN.BAT take longer to load. They take about 4 seconds to load on the other machines and this machine takes about twice that (at 25000 cycles). No other problems (Doom runs fine).

I'm really scratching my head on the last one. Connecting the dots, it looks like it may have something to do with the CPU clock speed, but it's hard for me to imagine the i3 performing so much worse than the Celeron, especially with the CPU mark being almost 3 times as great. It also happens to be my main laptop so I'd really like to get this one working. I've tried updating the underlying audio drivers, reinstalling Dosbox, trying another copy of Windows 3.1 and SB16 drivers, etc. and still no dice. What other things could be affecting the speed?