Have you tried the using normal core instead of auto or dynamic?

Various combinations? Does that include different CPU cores (normal, simple ,dynamic, auto)?

Tried normal core instead of auto. Worse performance and unfortunately the problem persisted.

By various sound combinations, I meant only that. Change what sound card DOSBox emulates (SB16, SBPro, SB2, Gravis Ultrasound) and the sound card Dark Forces uses to match. Also tried letting Dark Forces treat the default-emulated SB16 as an SBPro (which is what the autodetect thinks it is). No luck.

Testing out possibilities is rather slow since the problem isn't entirely consistent. And of course when it DOESN'T happen it makes me feel like the problem is gone and less enthusiastic to keep playing those same two levels over and over (as good as the game is).

Can you attach the save games for these levels or know of a quick way to get there via cheat code?

I know it crashes in two different locations on the last level, The Arc Hammer. One is towards the start of the level. Right here:

From what I can tell it depends on how you are facing when you go to enter that hallway up ahead. The crashes always seem to be in the same spot, while facing the same direction. I can get around that crash by changing the direction I am looking while going through the level.

The second crash I'm not going to get a picture of because there are Dark Trooper phase 2's in the area and it is too dangerous. =P That one happens very shortly after you have planted the third explosive charge and you are heading out of the ship. You go down the elevator and you enter a huge room with Dark Troopers.

I've had it crash on me before in another level but I can't remember which one.

Anyways, to get to the level to test it, you can use the cheat codes.
LAARC - Will send you to the last level, The Arc Hammer.
LAIMLAME - For invincibility so you don't have to worry about dieing while testing.
LAMAXOUT - For full ammo and weapons.

Thanks ChickenLover, nice to know my install isn't the only one being quirky. That's the same problem I have. Thanks, too, for following up on this DosFreak.

The Cheat Codes for the two levels I've had issues on are LADTENTION and LAFUELSTAT. I play on Hard difficulty, no active cheat codes (invincibility, wallclimb, supercharge, etc). To use a cheat, just load any level and type it in.

Also of note, the game creates a save for the following level when you complete and exit the previous level. So whenever I finish the Gromas Mines level (LAGROMAS, the one before the Detention Level) the game creates a brand new savegame for the start of the Detention Level. The same for completing Coruscant (LAIMPCITY) for the Fuel Station savegame. If you want to get a new savegame for one of the problematic levels, load the previous one and use LASKIP to automatically beat it and go to the next level (creating a new savegame for the next level in the process).

ChickenLover: If you can give me some more detail on where exactly in that room (the one with 4 or so DTmk2s and the final boss, right?) you get your crash, I can see if I can get a screenshot of the location. As many times as I've played the game, I've become quite good at making Dark Troopers my bitch.

If it involves looking in a certain direction, it sounds like some sprite or code causes a crash - something which would only get loaded when it's in view.

Neither of you have said where you got Dark Forces though. Do you have the original CD or did you download the ripped version? This is essential to know if the problem is really with the game or may be the result of a crack or ripped data.

Mine's a legit copy from the original release. I still have the manual and everything. Wish I'd saved the box though, that would be a nice memento to have. Ah well.

Mine is an .iso from my original disk. I don't even know where my disc is anymore.

By the way, I recall crashing around the nose of the Moldy Crow as well now that I think about it.

Oh and I'll try to get a picture of the other room. I was so frustrated last night after that happened. I had four lives and almost full health after killing the Dark Trooper phase 2 in there. 😢

Thought I'd update this with new info. The problem seems to be sound related. For all releases of DOSBox since 0.65, I'd never been able to get the auto-detect sound options to correctly identify the SB16. DF's setup utility always thought I had a Gravis Ultrasound. Having run out of options, I figured why not and tried the autodetect with 0.71 and lo and behold, it worked. Haven't had any crashes since.

0.72 comes along and broke it again. I ran the autodetect and once again it was picking up a Gravis Ultrasound. Acting smart this time, I disabled the gravis in the DOSBox config file. Ran the autodetect in the DF setup utility again and got SB16 this time. Ran through a couple tests at the beginning of that oh-so-troublesome Detention Level and had no crashes.

So the problem would seem to be Dark Forces' sound drivers. They go nuts when there are multiple sound cards and the 'top' card is not the one used. Disable the gravis, run the autodetect, and you should be fine.

Autodetect in setups were known to be flaky back in the day. It's best just to manually configure. They'd probably be more problamatic in DOSBox with people using max cycles in dosbox.conf while the setup software is run.

I have the same problems when manually setting the card as well. Even manually setting the card in 0.71 to SB16 continued to cause crashes, only letting the autodetect choose SB16 made things stable. Same thing with 0.72. Disabling the Gravis and letting the autodetect choose SB16 is the only thing that has been successful for me.

Autodetect isn't magic. If autodetect and manually setting it work differently for you in 0.71, it's because you are manually setting it wrong. Post your dosbox.conf and tell us how you setup the card manually in 0.72.

Autodetect isn't magic. If autodetect and manually setting it work differently for you in 0.71, it's because you are manually setting it wrong.

My thoughts exactly.

or the other way around.
autodetect messes up

Dark Forces does not allow you to use the SB16 without autodetecting the IRQ and DMA channels, there is no option to set these manually even if you manually selected an SB16 sound card. Moreover, during most of the time from 0.65 to 0.71 the autodetect would think the SB16 that DOSBox emulates by default, and that I never changed, was in fact an SBPro. And again, you can't use the SB16 without using autodetect to some degree. 0.71 was the first time the autodetect would accurately detect an SB16 present rather than an SBPro.

Choosing SBPro as the emulated card in the config file and letting the autodetect find that or manually setting the SBPro myself in the setup utility never proved successful for me, so I just stopped trying that after several releases.

Hmm... This sounds complicated. I don't remember exactly how the installation of DF went in DOSBox, but i'm totally sure that i didn't have any problems setting the sound devices (that was in DOSBox 0.69 or 0.70). I think DF tries to determine the IRQ and DMA setting from the "BLASTER"-variable that is set automatically by DOSBox, based on the values in dosbox.conf.

Disabling the soundcards you're not going to use (via dosbox.conf) is a good idea in general, i think. For gaming purposes, it wasn't very common to have more than one soundcard in a DOS machine, so most setup progs will assume a single card (maybe with a wavetable addon card, but that would still be "one soundcard").