Slow DOS-designed games

[lizardkid]

Yes i know, two topics in a row. but i'm curious about this too.

I've tried Bethesda's only game i'm able to play atm, Arena. since all the rest aren't abandoneware yet, but it's a DOS-based game, and for some reason my FPS drops to about, oh, 3, with all DOS-based games i try.

Are they MEANT to be that bad? with my computer i should be able to play this while replying to email, surfing the net, talking to friends on Ventrilo and mapping. but it's terrible, it only goes....................3.............Frames...............A...........Minute.

So is there anything i can do? or is DOS too slow an enviroment for games?

[Rookie One.pl]

Running DOS games under wincrap is not a good idea in general. Get a decent DOS emulator like DosBox, guaranteed to work better.

[lizardkid]

i was using DOSBox, it wouldnt run under the cmd prompt. It still acted as if was under a slow system.

Is there anything else i could do?

[Rookie One.pl]

Well... Maybe try getting a FreeDOS bootdisk and running the game from it?

http://www.freedos.org/