Is there something in particular you want to do?

With such old hardware you could probably do plenty with a suitable DOS bootdisk, for instance.

Run some apps while in Windows XP.

I take it the current source couldn't be optimized for Pentium 3s then?

Most builds should be already optimized for p3...but no optimizing will make up for lack of power. But it should be fine for 286/386 era games.

The compiler does it usually far better than you could optimize the sources.
And adding architecture-specific custom optimizations is not maintainable.

wd wrote:

The compiler does it usually far better than you could optimize the sources.

Do you mean the actual program/method used to compile would make a difference (Visual C++ for instance)?

wd wrote:

The compiler does it usually far better than you could optimize the sources.
And adding architecture-specific custom optimizations is not maintainable.

Perfectly understandable.

Forgoing the latest DOSBox app/game compatibilities, could someone recommend me a build that would run the best on a PC from this era?

-> PIII, 512MB RAM, Yamaha Sound, Matrox Graphics, Windows XP...

Do you mean the actual program/method used to compile would make a difference (Visual C++ for instance)?

Various compilers have the possibility to target a specific architecture.

Did you try installing simply the standard DOSBox 0.74? Was it too slow? And if so, was it much too slow or just a little too slow?

If it was much too slow even with core=dynamic and cycles=max config file options, there won't be much you can do about it. How about dual-booting your old PC into real DOS in that case?

If you have a competent soundcard with OPL2/3 you can use Hal's megabuild to use the OPL passthrough for a bit of a speed boost for those games that use adlib opl2 etc.

Use no scaler.

Also, 22050 every rate.

I still run DOSBox on machines 2 generations before the P3 for some CGA games that go too fast 😜