Several tools exist, but may seem 'jerky' on modern systems.

Vogons has a page on it.
List of Slowdown Utilities (Beta)

I find that a combination of CPUSPD and SLOWDOS works for most things.

CpuSpd - A Hardware Based CPU Speed Control Utility for DOS/Win9X Retro Gaming

Use cpuspd to lower the clockrate to the most power saving mode, (which is still about 400mhz on modern systems) then use slowdos to inject NoOp cycles in to slow it down with busywork.

Slowdos has a nasty habbit of not completely uninstalling itself from memory after use though.

It has a very useful functionality of allowing you to specify a length of time after being run, in which it functions. This is useful for games like wizardry 7, or mystic towers, which have a time sensitive early process and then dont care afterward. Setting 2 seconds or so of slowdown using a batch file, that then immediately starts the troubled program, usually sorts these out without completely cripping the computer.

New Patch - Wing Commander 1 (1990) speed throttling for 486+ CPUs

Thanks for helping.
I will try the options.

The W.C.A.T. mod by AllTinker for WC1 provides comprehensive speed regulation and additional QOL improvements (e.g. throttle control).

Wrote a bit about it here: https://www.tales-from-darkenedroom.com/post/ … t-the-guesswork

I may be wrong because I presently lack a copy to test, but I believe I observed this problem no longer exists in the Kilrathi Saga Windows port.

BaronSFel001 wrote on 2026-01-23, 15:50:

I may be wrong because I presently lack a copy to test, but I believe I observed this problem no longer exists in the Kilrathi Saga Windows port.

I had a incomplete copy of this as part of a special PC Gamer cover-disk including "full versions of pivotal PC games" and from what I remember, yes it does have proper speed/framerate limiting.

Also has WAV files for sound effects rather than awful OPL2 or even more awful MT-32 sounds.