As MiniMax said increase the cycles. You might also want to try the
combination core=dynamic and cycles=auto (see dosbox.conf).

I don't think it matters, but why did you write:

mrray wrote:

Z:\>mount E E:\ -t cdrom

when I told you to write:

Z:\>mount D E:\ -t cdrom

i tried that and it only gets as far as this (the step before the cd speed test)

just habbit keeping the drive letters the same as to not confuse myself

Configure the sound correctly (irq7).

ok using mount d e:\-t cdrom it has a set of illegal commands for e:sound\sndstart,
ufoexe\black.
intro.
ufoexe\black.
ufoexe\geoscape.
sound\sndend.

here is the dxdiag report for my machine, it is not a brillinatly fast macine as it is a laptop but its quite good as laptops go. (i think)

You either installed it outside dosbox, or in dosbox with e: mounted as
cdrom so you have to stick to the mount e e:\ .

Use setsound or whatever configures the sound there and
choose sb16 irq7 dma1

mrray wrote:

i tried that and it only gets as far as this (the step before the cd speed test)

According to your screensnap the game expects the SoundBlaster card to use IRQ 5 and you have configured DOSBox to emulate IRQ 7.

Either change your DOSBox configuration, or re-configure the game to match DOSBox.

P.S: If your press ALT + PrintScreen when you grab a screenshot, you only get the current window, not the whole desktop. Saves you from cropping the picture manually.

it still freezes at cd speed test but that seems to have fixed the sound problem

Try my 60 seconds guide, and re-install the game. Once re-installed keep the drive mounts exactly the same as when you installed the game.

is there anyway to manually input the cd test result and bypass this part of the load? as with the new install it still crashes at the cd speed section

i need to go so any help sent i wil not get untill tommorrow (thurs 1st)
thanks for all the effort everyone is putting in i really appreciate it.

You can try adding the -ioctl option to the CD mount:

Z:\>mount D E:\ -t cdrom -ioctl