Is there any way to fix this?

No, dumb users can't be fixed.

is holloween harry a protected mode game? is monster bash a protected mode game? they dont run that well @ 3000 cycles which is what AUTO sets the cycles to.

It's why I ALWAYS change auto to max for default - it's far more reliable and for the games that are sensitive to speed, auto is not garanteed to work anyway.

The problem is that with max, dosbox will consume 95% cpu even at prompt. Plus some games (like prince of persia) will be broken or run too fast. Unfortunately not everything can be autodetected...

And some games don't work at all, like monkey1 and several others.
So you'd need another (additional), as simple-as-possible check to divide
the game types into more classes.

or include a additional warning message when starting DOSBox with the MAX cycles setting active?

Doubt that anybody reads it... maybe somebody can make a list of games
that don't work with something like say "cycles=max 60%" or so, on a not
too slow pc.

What is the "protected mode" criteria? I mean, what triggers "protected mode" and what (if something at all) changes back to "standard mode"?

I remember reading about "flat mode" (enabling protected mode, changing segment length to 4Gb and then disabling protected mode to manage 4Gb with standard mode). Will that count as "protected" or "standard" mode?

Flat mode is very very rare, think ultima7 being the only relevant one.

If a game switches to pmode and cycles=auto, dosbox switches to max
cycles for the duration of the game (ie. returns to the old [fixed] cycle
value when the game exits, int21/4c).

Could Comanche be flat mode as well? It had the same memory manager probles as Ultima 7, requiring none at all, or VCPI.

Doubt it, more likely they want cpl0 and thus prefer no memory manager
at all or vcpi (which should run at cpl0, too), but don't have that game.

Since there are many things that can't be autodetected in any way, we need a way to make the configurable options more accessible to the novice users, that's why dosbox definitely needs a menu or at least a gui similar to the keymapper (think of pressing ctrl+f2 and it shows up the options menu).

my two cents...

Moe was working on this some time ago.

It's not dead yet, but still sleeping. Every time I continue working on it, I can't figure something out and let it be. Shame on that, since the GUI toolkit itself is already fully working.

EDIT: I began working on it again, and this time I got real progress. Maybe there will be a beta version soon, although I guess it will still be quite some time before it becomes available for the general public.

Listen, when something doesn't work with auto I just change it to max. It doesn't look that difficult to me and if some game or program doesn't work at all then peace!

Pardon my ignorance, but where exactly IS it written that 'auto' sets 'max' only for protected mode games?

nowhere

Well, then why are you calling a person that doesn't know this "dumb" ? 😖

wd wrote:

No, dumb users can't be fixed.

Maybe reread this thread and the original thread before posting.
Dunno what you want.