Every 5 to 10 seconds, I get a slowdown, and then it goes back to normal.

I'm running this on a laptop with the following specs:

CPU: Amd Athlon 64 3200+
GPU: Geforce4 440 Go 64M
RAM: 512MB DDR (PC 2700)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Service Pack 2

I have the latest drivers for my video card, as far as I know; I got them from the manufacturer's website: nv4.disp.dll; 6.14.0010.7230; 2/23/2005. And I'm not sure if this helps, but I checked, and there are no viruses or spyware on my computer. Is this time for a reformat? Or is there a simple solution?

Moved to Technical, you are more likely to find an answer there since it seems to be computer related and not game related.

Ooh, ooh. Can I take this one guys?

USE DOSBox!

I set it up like the website told me, but the program doesn't start for some reason, it just exits out right away.

EDIT: For example in Blood, I get the following error, " src\sound.cpp(516): Playback failed, possibly due to an invalid or conflicting IRQ." And also, when I run the game without Dosbox, and without any active sound card under setup, it runs fine.

I thought Blood works fine under native windows XP.

Okay, see, you gotta be more specific when you're asking for help.

Let's start over. What games are you having problems with? Is it predictable or just often enough to be annoying? What prompted you to come here for help? (I assume Enzio is the registered version of the person who started this thread)

In DosBox, did you use the game's internal sound configuration to set values that match the emulated soundcard? It's very important.

This is related to slowdown.

When i'm playing Elder Scrolls: Arena on DosBox it is really slow. I don't know if it is supposed to be slow or not, but how do I speed it up?

Tried increasing the cycles and killing every non-essential background process?

Do you mind running that process by me?

1. Turn off _EVERY_ non-essential program running in Windows. Be it MSN, firewall, antivirus... whatever else you've got running in the background (but remember to disconnect the network cable - so that your machine won't get virus'ed or hacked)
2. Increase the number of cycles in DosBox. That's described - in detail - in the readme file.

Ah. I see. I will read the file over again when I get home.