I'm still trying to tweak settings around to see if I can figure out just what's going on, but, it looks like RTZ has some serious issues with something in the latest CVS. Now, I am using ykhwong's build, so it is possible maybe one of the patches added is the culprit -- then again, for all I know it isn't a patch at all. I dug out an old version and it was mostly ok (I had a few problems mainly with the CD not seeming to be mounted correctly or something) though I did get a crash. I can't really think of any major difference in the settings though. Same CPU type (I tried dynamic and normal,) same number of cycles (I tries several different things from 6000 to 15000) same output type, same soundcard type, etc. Later on I'll try even more versions and see if I can track down where the issue seems to start.

Here's a rundown of the issues I've seen so far. Firstly, when I started it it would seem to kind of freeze up sometimes (or most of the time even, just not all of the time strangely enough.) DOSBox has all but stopped responding and everything. After a while though, it finally starts up. The opening animation plays fine (other than a little skip in the sound -- I think where it's trying to start loading the next file, so it may not be a fault of DOSBox emulation so much as lack of speed maybe) and the intro video plays pretty smoothly with the audio ok, though it isn't so great (I think the issue is the original audio just isn't great though, not any emulation issue.) Here's where the real problem starts though. After the intro animation is played (or canceled) where it starts to play a BGM (I even tried adlib and pc speaker, but, the MPU-401 I normally use should be actually faster than adlib emulation if maybe not pc speaker) it drags to an insanely slow speed. Cycles drop to around 2900 or so and the music plays in a very slow rate (and bear in mind that I've played some tough games at 15000 on my CPU.) It takes probably over a minute to get as far as where the vulture first lands when that's really supposed to be seconds. Of course, needless to say the sound breaks up a lot. Next thing, another video plays on top of this scene and the video seems to play smoothly for as long as I gave it (it gets kind of annoying listening to it too many times through...) It was probably about where that video starts that the old version of DOSBox crashed on me saying something like an invalid CPU operation, but, the newer version keeps going at least.

Simply put, things like videos run great, but, the moment you're at the interactive part of the game it drags to a crawl. Anyway, just kind of a heads up. I'll try to track down more later. It may turn out to be just an issue with a particular patch or something that normal users will never even see for all I know.

EDIT: Nevermind, I found it. It's the new joystick changes. Setting joystick=none makes RTZ run smoothly. I thought it seemed like it had to do with some kind of hardware polling or something, but when I disabled MPU-401 in favor of Adlib and PC speaker I abandoned that idea. Then I opened the manual and saw that this game can use a joystick to control the cursor so it struck me that this may be related. So, currently set joysticktype=none for Return to Zork. Not exactly a game you want to play with a joystick if you have a mouse (and who doesn't now that it's not 1993 anymore) anyway. I don't really understand how or why this is the problem though since the changes were to make the joystick use less CPU time...

EDIT2: Or maybe that's not it? Joysticktype=none worked at first for me, but, now it does not? Back to the drawing board I guess. Still, the fact that this game supports a joystick and the fact that it has troubles in the interactive part but not in the part where it would have no reason to poll a joystick seems suspicious, especially in light of the fact that at least one try of joysticktype=none seemed to work. Oh, and I didn't just use ykhwong's CVS version (gulikoza's as well, which, curiously enough, shows the cycles as 15000/15000 when it starts running so badly while ykhwong's shows them dropping insanely low.)

I'll try to track down some older compiles, and, more importantly, I'll use the official version later. Right now I'm just sick of RTZ, lol.