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First post, by 65C02

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Rank Newbie
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Newbie

So I've always noticed some slight input lag while playing games in DOSBox. I always assumed some lag to be normal, as it's there on other emulators as well. However the other day I was running DOSBox on Windows XP for the first time ever, and immediately noticed that the usual input lag was COMPLETELY GONE! It felt like playing on a real DOS computer.

I made sure that the DOSBox version and conf file was exactly the same on all three computers. Yet I could not get rid of the slight input delay on Windows 7 and 10. Btw, the Win7 and 10 computers use an i7-950 and i7-8700K respectively, so it's definitely not caused by lack of CPU power. The Windows XP computer only has an Athlon 3000+.

Does anyone know of a way to reduce DOSBox input latency on Windows 7 and later?

Reply 1 of 2, by mothergoose729

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Rank Oldbie
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Oldbie

That doesn't surprise me. Windows 7 and Windows 10 implement lots of legacy direct X and direct draw features with a compatibility layer. When it comes to direct draw in particular, this introduces quite a bit of input lag. The same is true for other emulators; for example PCSX2 is generally more laggy in windows 10 than windows 7, ect.

It sucks the big ones. Just one more reason to keep around old computers. GoG and emulation are amazing, but you still are losing something compared to the real thing (not that DOSBox is the real thing, but still).

Reply 2 of 2, by DosFreak

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Rank l33t++
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l33t++

For anything to be worked it needs to be repeatable by other people:
Compare different output modes.
Compare with and without WINDIB.
Try Windows 7 on the Athlon and see if the same issue occurs.
Compare the same games (real vs protected) and cycles.
Try other SDL 1.2 games

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