System wrote:

ASUS Maximus VIII Hero Z170 Intel Core i7-6700K @4.0GHz nVidia GTX 980 Ti 6GB 32GB ram 1TB sata3 SSD Windows 10 DOSBox 0.74-2.1 […]
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ASUS Maximus VIII Hero Z170
Intel Core i7-6700K @4.0GHz
nVidia GTX 980 Ti 6GB
32GB ram
1TB sata3 SSD
Windows 10
DOSBox 0.74-2.1

dosbox.conf wrote:

fullscreen=false fulldouble=false fullresolution=desktop windowresolution=1920x1440 output=openglnb autolock=1 sensitivity=50 wa […]
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fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=desktop
windowresolution=1920x1440
output=openglnb
autolock=1
sensitivity=50
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
usescancodes=true

language=
machine=svga_s3
captures=capture
memsize=31

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=tv2x forced

core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=auto
cycleup=1000
cycledown=1000

nosound=false
rate=44100
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=80

mpu401=intelligent
mididevice=default
midiconfig=

sbtype=sb16
sbbase=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
sbmixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplemu=compat
oplrate=44100

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=44100
tandy=auto
tandyrate=44100
disney=true

I started playing Master of Orion 2 a few weeks ago, using the installation from GOG. I didn't do much with the dosbox config other than getting the resolution and scaler looking the way I wanted. A few days later I added the 1.50 patch from moo2mod.com. For a while, it ran perfectly.

Then a few days ago I suddenly started running into stuttering problems. Intermittently, with seemingly no relation to what's going on in the game, it will stutter. Sometimes it's just for a fraction of a second, and in the worst cases it can last several seconds. When it happens, it affects everything in the game. I often see sound stuttering as a common dosbox issue, but this also includes game animations and mouse movement, so I can't say whether sound is the root issue or just one of the symptoms. During the long interruptions, the game isn't completely frozen, but seems to be running around 1 frame per second. Depending on the length of a stutter, the sound may be fine afterward, or it might be garbled and crackly for a few seconds, or it might be messed up until I restart the game.

If I look at the per-core CPU performance graphs in the Windows Task Manager, I actually see the CPU utilization drop to almost nothing on the core that's running the game when the stutters happen.

I briefly loaded up Heroes of Might and Magic 2 through DOSBox and saw the same problem there, but I haven't played enough of other games to say for sure whether this is a general DOSBox problem or just specific to a couple of games.

A few things on my system changed shortly before this issue began, but not immediately before it:
- Installed an ASUS utility to manage fan speeds
- Reconnected and updated my Vive headset (Steam VR)
- Connected a bluetooth dongle and tried (failed) to get an xbox controller to connect to it.
I have since uninstalled the ASUS utility and disconnected the Vive and the bluetooth dongle.

If I set the CPU cycles to a fixed amount (e.g. 400000) instead of Auto and close basically everything else that's running (Steam, GOG, Chrome) that seems to maybe make it better. It's definitely not 100% though, and it's hard to say exactly how much (or even if) it helps because the problem is so irregular to begin with.

Tried a separate fresh install, same problem.

Ran Microsoft Defender scans (full scan and offline scan) that didn't turn up anything.

I can run non-DOSBox games (tried Outer Wilds and Minecraft) without any issues

Any ideas what might have changed to start causing this problem? I feel like even if there's a way to fix or mitigate it with dosbox.conf settings, I'll be bothered if I don't know why it worked fine before..