What files are you getting when you download it?

Yeah, the version at http://cvscompile.aep-emu.de/ doesn't even having timesync ...nor does it come with a config file. And it still has the problem. I'm going to have to say that there's no way to play Arena using DOSBOX without having it either being sluggish in the more demanding areas (like town centers) and normal everywhere else or normal in the demanding areas and super fast everywhere else.

All DOSBox versions have a config file. It's built-in. I suggest you read the docs to learn how to get it.

I think your being really picky.

Here's my experience with Arena.....

I really haven't done ALOT of testing but I did play around in the initial dungeon, exploring, fighting...etc....and then finally going into a town and walking around, interacting, going into less densly populated areas of the town and then more densly populated areas.

When first starting the game I set the cycles to as high as possible (95% processor usage) and then played the game.....in the intial dungeon everything was fine with no apparent problems. Next I entered the town and encountered the problem that you describes, NPC characters moving super fast, your own character actions moving very fast......my fix for this was to simply switch to Normal core by hitting the shortcut key (only in ykhwong's build of course), while in the town....(I did not bother adjusting cycles)....and then switching back to Dynamic core when entering the dungeon.

Your above post mentions that you can get it to be "smooth" in densly populated town areas but then your still super fast in less densly populated areas. Are you sure that you were using normal core?

Just tried it again and switching to normal core still fixed it for me (11/29 DosBox Build). Have you tried disabling hyperthreading or making sure that the DosBox affinity is set to one processor?

Bingo - that may be my problem. I have HT enabled. How do I configure DOSBOX for 1 processor without having to disable my entire systems HT?
Thanks so much for putting the time in to help.

That's the only thing that I can think of. HT has caused problems before.

You can disable HT in the Bios but a more simple fix is to go into Task Manager (Press Ctrl+ALT+DEL),

Go to "Processes"

Right-Click on "DosBox" Process.
Set "Affinity" to a single processor.

It's been a looooooong time since I've had to set affinity for gaming (2001?). So I've never had a chance to test DosBox with multiple processors or hyperthreading. I doubt that this is the issue anyway since from what I've heard DosBox only uses multithreading for the sound portion of SDL.......

Still it's best to try everything.

Guess I'll have to play around with my BIOS tonight and see if I can get Arena working in real MS-DOS (to see if Arena displays the same simptoms). oh joy. 🙁

Since this is about one particular game, shouldn't this thread be moved to the games/apps section?

JAL

Personally, if I had an HT CPU I'd probably disable HT if I were using it for gaming so that a game that doesn't use multiple intensive processes/threads/whatever could have more than 50% of the CPU. I've also heard that HT can cause instability issues.

Setting it to 1 affinity didn't really make a difference 🙁 ..I still have the same issue. This issue seem like its a DOSBOX issue, not one of this game. Even with timesync, DOSBOX doesn't accomodate for changes in the environment that removes/increases the demand for CPU cycles. If CPU cycles would automatically drop and increase depending on where I moved this wouldn't be an issue.

Did you try disabling HT from bios altogether?

Yeah, I tried that too. DOSBOX simply doesn't accomodate such changes by alternating CPU cycle counts as needed.

If I understand what you are saying, that would be wrong solution anyway. The real system did not change CPU speed either. Coincidentally, do you have CPU with SpeedStep? I know, HT and SpeedStep is not the most common combination but these days you never know. Also, what's your video card? By any chance, it is not one of on-board UMA thingies?
The last thing: did you ever run that game on the real system? It may be that it is as inconsistent on the real hardware, just nobody was paying attention. I know from experience that some people are more sensitive to this kind of things. Twelve years ago the things were not exactly at they are today. I still remember producer of one game who said that the acceptable frame rate is four fps, and twelve fps is the target because the animations can't get any smoother. 🤣

I'm pretty sure I don't have SpeedStep. My video card is a Geforce FX5900 Ultra 256. I never did play the game on a 486-DX2 33 or 66 so I can't say for sure. However, I would imagine that it did not have this issue because when I run the game on Windows XP (using a method that can be found at www.elderscrolls.com/forum) I don't have this issue at all. The game runs at one speed, regardless of where I am. I'm not sure that I can play my CD version this way, though and I'm sure that Daggerfall won't run in Windows XP...and I'll probably have this problem with that too.

Was playing around with Arena again today but decided to just use Normal core for everything.....

Initially I had the same problem....but then I noticed that the details slider set back to low again....so I set to it to max and the NPC characters when back to normal speed. I then when to a less populated area or between some walls and sword swinging and whatnot was at the proper speed. Lower the detail again simply increases the speed again.

I did all of that without modifying cycles (I only modified cycles to the maximum when my game initially started). The game is still kinda choppy tho so if it runs smoothly for you in XP then you'll have to wait until DosBox is further optimized for these later DOS games.

Yes, if you lower the detail settings it'll speed up the game to abnormal speeds. It's like I was saying, if I play Morrowind and set my settings to the lowest possible, I'll get the smoothest possible gameplay, it won't go beyond a certain speed. I always leave my detail setting on max in Arena...and I still have the issue.

When I use Normal Core, the speeds will be perfect in most areas and start to get clunky in areas with a lot of buildings. That's with my CPU usage up to 100%. I'm running 3200mhz (p4). Maybe when I get a new computer (AMD 4500 or thereabouts) in the future it will be able to run it better. Then again, maybe not. 3200mhz should be able to simulate a 486-dx2 66 through DosBOX, no?

Or maybe you're right...maybe we just need better versions of DOSBOX.

Hmmm, mabye I wasn't using detail levels effectivly before (they seem to reset after loading a save game).

I just tried dyanmic core again with full detail levels and only the # of cycles that I need for the game which is about 25,000 cycles and the game seems to be working fine (heh...seriously). I haven't done enough testing yet with audio to determine if this is the optimal # of cycles.

For me it only resets after I start a new game.

Arena saves the detail level to the saved game files, so when you load a game it sets the detail back to the level it was saved at.