SS1 Dosbox choppy, slow on Windows 7

[68289faf6afd7Davx]

I would've liked to get started playing SSP for the first time, but the framerate is too damn choppy in dosbox.
The choppiness starts to give me a headache at 640x480 (full screen mode through hud), which is the lowest I want to play at.
I tried for hours tweaking all settings dosbox 0.73/0.74/gulikoza, but nothing will help my Intel Q6600 @3,3Ghz run the game smoothly above 320x200... I use Win7 x64 so dosbox is the only option for me.
Can anyone provide a genius hint?

[68289faf6b1f4Kolya]

First genius hint: You're in the wrong thread.

Second: Turn off other programs, all the stuff in your tray.

Third:
CTRL-F11 - Slow down emulation (decrease DOSBox cycles)
CTRL-F12 - Speed up emulation (increase DOSBox cycles)

[68289faf6b31aDavx]

Sorry about that.
I already tried hours of dosbox config tweaking, cycles=max which is around 300.000 cycles. Still not fast enough.
I tried all renderers, gfx 'machines', frameskip, no scaling, no sound. None provides a big enough performance boost.

[68289faf6b41fKolya]

That is a bit odd on a 3,3 GHz processor. Then again our definitions of what's smooth or choppy may vary. Well, rest assured that back in 1994 no one could play the game at 640x480 without stuttering either, so it's kinda original.

[68289faf6b577Davx]

I estimate I get about 75fps at 320x200 full screen, 45fps at 640x480 boarded up screen, 25fps at 640x480 full screen.
The mouse cursor in-game remains very smooth, even at 1024x768.
The FPS counter in gulikoza's dosbox build is faulty, it always shows 55-65fps, even when in a 1024x768 slide show.
I guess I have to wait till dosbox supports multi-core or install windows xp to try another method.

[68289faf6b656Stingm]

It's a bit slow for me too. Running in vesa mode is a lot better but the sound effects stop working there.

[68289faf6b755hacker]

I also had slow frame rate in 1024x768 on my fast Win7 64-bit core i5.  But when I switched to gulikoza's dosbox build with direct3d option, the frame rate was greatly improved in 1024x768.

[68289faf6b86cDav]

Well, upgrading to an Intel Core i5 2500k @ 4.3Ghz finally made the game moderately playable at 640x400 full screen in gulikoza's dosbox.
The framerate gets progressively worse with each level.

At least I did finish the game with proper midi support with gulikoza's build (mt32) and it was awesome
Shlink is still lacking.