Try different output= settings.

Changed output= to overlay and core= to dynamic and Cycles to 1 and frameskip to 10... no effect. CPU work output still shoots all the way up to 100% when I run the program.

Cycles to 1?????
Better make that 10000, 20000 or even 30000.

Set it to 30000, seems to be even slower

Bubby_the_Tour_G wrote:

Set it to 30000, seems to be even slower

If it get slower at higher cycles, the cycles are too high. Now you must lower the cycles, because your real CPU tries to manage more cycles as it can really do.

It actually doesn't matter how many cycles I allow, whether it's set to 1 or 30000, it's still extremely slow. And I have a good computer, I'm not running a Commodore 64 or a 386 here.

I had a very similar system like yours and it sounds to me rather that your Windows is f**ked up - if Dosbox always uses 100% it's probably windows that is doing something it shouldn't. You could mess with priority and see what it gives though.

Try reducing the priority= settings in dosbox.conf, unplug any joysticks
and disable sound using the games' setup programs.

Still, no effect. I'm gonna try Dosbox in Safe Mode and see if any programs are messing with it.

Crap. Dosbox doesn't run in Safe Mode. Restarted m'puter and disabled most of the unneccessary .exe's that were running in my system memory. Ran Dosbox again... still lagged down and eating 100% of CPU.

I guess my problem remains unsolved... what a bummer

Check your ddraw/d3d acceleration in dxdiag.
Make sure hardware acceleration for video is all the way to the right.

It is.

DOSBox shouldn't use 100% CPU after starting it. There's something wrong with your machine, OS, or setup. Let's try to identify the source of the problem.

- Unplug _all_ USB devices, and disable programs running in the background, like virus scanners, etc.
- Re-Install DOSBox, or copy the default dosbox.conf file into the directory you've installed DOSBox
- Change the "priority=higher,normal" line to "priority=normal,normal"

Start DOSBox (not the game). If it's still using 100% CPU (and i mean 100%, not 85% or 90%), change the "output=" setting in dosbox.conf, and watch the CPU utilization after every "output=" change (just start DOSBox, not the game).

Some general questions:
- Do you have any FPS or other modern 3D games on your machine? If you have, do they run OK?
- Did you install the latest drivers for your graphics card and sound-chip? Is your DirectX up to date?

Even to me dosbox gives 100% cpu usage, but it runs fast, now set this:

cycles=max

doesn't he work fine now? 😀

Sorry brother, it still refuses to work properly. Still slow like molasses. 🙁

red_avatar wrote:

it sounds to me rather that your Windows is f**ked up - if Dosbox always uses 100% it's probably windows that is doing something it shouldn't.

Have you tried reinstalling or repairing windows?

i attempted repairing windows once and all it did was cause the computer to reset while starting windows ;\

but that was after recovering from a virus. the virus was gone, but the damage it caused remained...