awgamer wrote:though admittedly as PCs get ever faster than this problem goes ever smaller
CPUs get more cores, but cores themselves (DOSBox uses one core) on same frequency have not become much faster and frequencies are stucked. Single core speed of i5 4xxx is only ~50% faster than C2D 8xxx wich are 7 years old. And frequencies stay practically same: C2D overclocked easily to 4 GHz and almost the same you may expect from today Intel CPUs. So the progress of speed in DOSBox emulation is slooow for last 10 years, compared to what was befor (every 3 years speed doubled, at least).
On a 3570k, DOSBox runs faster than machines of the DOS era, last gasp for DOS was pretty much 1996, pentium 200 came out that year
3570 - yes... without 3D hardware emulation, while some DOS games used it. Look at fps in Pyl (the game is for DOS, only installer is for Windows) with standard software emulation of Voodoo, in 640x480 at least (optimal 800x600 needs Voodoo 2 emulation wich is not finished).
Commercial DOS games were released in 1999 and recommended ~P2 400 and up. Even to play DOS Quake in 800x600 (common for after 1995 resolution) with 30 fps you needed P3 500 MHz, not P200. I'd say DOS era lasted during Win9x era and formaly ended with beginning of XP era at 2002.
aside from some cases of emulation issues that drags the speed down the only speed issue for today is on slow devices
Some games still do not work good or at all in DOSBox. Speed stays as problem for 3D cards emulation. Today slow devices give speed near P2 300, I suppose. I need to check speed on trash like Z3735F to be sure.
and for its Windows emulation foray.
By good way, windows games need 3D cards support. It's not close task - no support for normal Direct3D cards, not enough CPUs speed. OpenGL mode for Voodoo, if will be made correctly, may solve speed problems mostly. Multicore support for 3D cards emulation could solve them too. While to wait good speed with current CPU progress is too long - it needs >3 times faster cores, when we have 50% gain during 7 years.