how fast is your computer ?

233mhz, 94 ram, 1mb vid card, not very fast at all. 'Cept it runs Arena WAY too fast in regular mode. So the only thing I see is that... actually, I really don't know. That it can't run DosBox AND Arena? Doesen't make sense, because DosBox works fine with other games for me.

233 MHz?? Wow - sorry man, that will never work for DOSBox. I am very surprised when you say DOSBox works fine for you with other games.

Now, if that MoSlow or other speed-limiting programs does not work for you, I can only suggest that you reboot your PC, get into the BIOS, and see if you can reduce the CPU clock frequency to say 66 MHz. Save the BIOS settings, reboot, and your PC will be much slower. When done with the game, go back into the BIOS and raise the clock speed back up again.

Ah alright, thanks for your help and prompt reply, I'll try that. Er.. how does one go about going into BIOS now? Is it the setup screen, where you press F1 as the computer starts or whatnot? This is a compaq laptop, and it doesen't seem to have a screen where it says "press f1 to enter setup"...any ideas?

There should be a blinking cursor on the upper-right hand side of your screen. When you see that you need to hit F10 to get into the BIOS but.....if the FAT16 partition where the Compaq "BIOS" resides is deleted then you will have to download the software from Compaq to get into the BIOS.

As for Arena that computer is too slow to be playing Arena in DosBox. It should run fine on the host pc though as long as MS-DOS is installed.

FWIW - the key(s) you need to press to get into the BIOS differs from manufacturer to manufacturer (or rather, from BIOS to BIOS). On my PC I think I need to press DELETE.

FWIW, disabling internal and/or external caching can also result in a nice slowdown appropriate for some older games.

You'll need at least P2-400MHz/K63-500MHz to execute anything running with OPL playback and 16-bit sound mixing. Try turning music off. Completely.

Ah, thanks everyone for your feedback... leileilol, how would I go about turning off the sound on dosbox? I dont see any way to get to a sort of options menu or anything... Any help?

Don't the game have some kind of sound setup program?

leileilol, OPL and 16-bit is perfectly possible on 300MHz as well, up to about 5000 cycles. It all depends on what you value most.

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php? … eDemandingGames

My boss jokingly asked me yesterday if our new web application could be hosted on a 486. I think Gibush might've said yes had he been in my position.

::shudder::

Baha, you just wait until all your jokes are in vain! We be gettin' a new computer this year, within 2 months, something like 3.6ghz... Then, I shall finally be able to run Arena on DosBox! ...But also, then I'll be playing Oblivion. :\

Anyway, I don't understand why some games work on DosBox and some don't. For example... Sopwith (a really crap-graphics plane game from like, 300 bc) works, not really surprisingly, as it's pretty much the most low tech game I've ever seen. Others work as well, such as Rogue (which now that I think of it, might be more lowtech than Sopwith.) But, The Black Cauldron works! Thats more ...graphical, what with the colours and such.

Also, I got into BIOS by pressing F10. There, I saw no option to change the CPU clock speed. How would I do that?

The Black Cauldron is just a bunch of static screens with only your character or possibly 2 or 3 other characters moving around the screen. It's not that processor intensive.

Arena is in a whole other league compared to that game.

Most computers bought from compaq/hp/dell have special Bios's that don't allow alot of options to be configured. There could be some jumpers on the laptop motherboard that changes fsb or multiplier but probably the easiest route is to just find the DOS utilities which can disable L1/L2 cache and others that can slowdown processor speed.....or just use a decent computer and use DosBox on that.

Ah, thanks. I've been trying that, I think it's a pretty good route to go. Thanks... Though I'm sure it'll be alot better when I get a better computer, so I can use DosBox at just the right speed.