How did you configure dosbox? Core/cycles?

I started with settings left at defaults, core normal, cycles 3000, up 500, down 20

Why are you complaining if you didn't configure it at all??
Try core=dynamic and cycles=auto as a first start.

I personally think it's time that the default settings are changed. I believe if it was set at Dynamic, cycles on auto and a few other tweaks, a lot less people would bitch about Dosbox not working.

I mean, half the people I talk to who have problems with Dosbox say it runs dog slow so I ask, how many cycles do you have and what core do you use and they go "wha?". So I ask, did you read the readme and change default settings and then they go "You can change that??".

Won't happen like that, because old games won't work with the
0.65 auto setting. That's why it was split into auto/max, whereas
the default auto-setting should work fine for most games.

Similar for the core setting, but this won't be changed to an auto-determine
mode unless the dynamic core is really stable enough.

I had tried core=dynamic, before posting, no difference, and the cycles=auto isn't listed in dfend, I put cycles=auto in the custom tab, and the game is now playable. The only possible issues are sound stutters a little on voices, and level load times are long.

there isn't documentation that is easy to find, and trying to search the forums for a game doesn't work well, searches on this game and descent get hundreds of unrelated hits.
The game guides thread has 5 posts, the last suggesting the wiki would be a better place to put guides to getting specific games running, while the wiki refers to this forum for the same thing.

The dosbox readme has everything explained. The cycles=auto is just a
way to achieve this without fiddling with the exact cycle values.

ok, checked through the readme, cycles is mentioned, auto isn't, and it doesn't really tell how to find the optimal setting.

mentions of cycles:
Q: The sound stutters or sounds stretched/weird.
A: You're using too much cpu power to keep DOSBox running at the current speed.
You can lower the cycles, skip frames or get a faster machine.
You can also increase the prebuffer in the configfile.

and:
Examples:
1. To create a configfile in your current directory:
config -writeconf dosbox.conf
2. To set the cpu cycles to 10000:
config -set "cpu cycles=10000"

and:
CTRL-F11 Slow down emulation (Decrease DOSBox Cycles).
CTRL-F12 Speed up emulation (Increase DOSBox Cycles).

and:
NOTE: Once you increase your DOSBox cycles beyond your computer's maximum
capacity, it will produce the same effect as slowing down the emulation.
This maximum will vary from computer to computer; there is no standard.

Settings for core are not mentioned

only time word core is in the file is :
4. To check which cpu core is being used.
config -get "cpu core"

maybe I have the wrong readme file?
first line is:
DOSBox v0.65

Everything's described in

8. To run resource-demanding games

There's even a link to this section from the FAQ-section.

The core-setting and the cycles=auto are described with enough detail
in dosbox.conf. Both are not essential (though for fluent speed on an
x86 host architecture necessary), but maybe they'll be mentioned in
the readme some time.

ok, now wierdness, after a system crash, while not using dosbox/starcom, I can't get starcom fullscreen.

display blinks, and goes back to windowed

any ideas on what could have changed?

error report said it was an error with unknown device driver

Event Type: Error
Event Source: System Error
Event Category: (102)
Event ID: 1003
Date: 8/23/2006
Time: 11:26:35 PM
...
...
Description:
Error code 10000050, parameter1 eaffe094, parameter2 00000001, parameter3 bfbc89fc, parameter4 00000001.