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[Eagle of Fire]

What I meant by my last post is that there ought to be some kind of hardware or software related issue which require a specific version of something to work right.

If it tries to install DirectX 3.0 then I strongly suggest that you try running the game with it instead of your most up to date DirectX and graphic card drivers. And by that, I of course mean in one of those VirtualBox which was mentioned before, not in your actual rig.

A lot of old dependancies got rid of with "modern" version of drivers. It would not surprise me in the least that the new drivers or DirectX versions simply do not act or react as they did back then.

The only other explanation that I could think of would be a "Xcom" effect in which the game call up another .exe program when you enter combat. Very old programs used to do that in DOS... And if it is the case then the program which runs too fast must be an old DOS version or alike this process. I would not know how to solve that problem though, as you would basically have two or even several specific speed requirements as the programs call each other out. It has always been a bi*** in DOSBox to run Xcom because the cycles for the world map doesn't match the cycles of the tactical phase... I've never found a good solution to that short of playing manually with the cycles every time. And since you are stuck with a Windows program, you don't even have that luxury.

[wackypanda]

I see. I think I tried installing DirectX 3.0 in Virtual PC once, but the downgrade didn't stick.

For more lolz, I installed the game on my host (Windows 7, 64 bit). Apart from the expected colour corruption (can't use compatibility mode, but 90% non-corruption can be achieved with a batch file), it actually experiences a reverse problem - the parts that are accelerated in a virtual machine (player movement) are normal, and the use of ball bins is accelerated. (To elaborate, ball bins seemingly only involve a die roll and not decision-making on the AI's part.) Quite a beauty, this game. At this point I think I'm going to have to pick my poison.

[Eagle of Fire]

At least we know that this is not a 16 bit program (aka Windows 3.x).

64 bits versions of Windows cannot run those.

[wackypanda]

True, I've read that a few times on here. So no DOSBox.

And I wanted to keep all my old games on one virtual machine... Ah well, no one said that this was an exact science.

[dosraider]

You could try to lower the RAM in VPC (VPC restart needed) to the bare minimum for W98, some 16MB (or even 8MB), will oblige to run progs in virtual HD swap file, but honestly, I don't expect much of it, as modern HDs are faster then the old system mem from those days....
However, can't hurt to try.

[wackypanda]

True. But that barely slows it down. So then back to CPU throttles - smoothest one I've used so far is CPU Grabber. I'll stick with that unless there are other ideas. For all of the programs I've used only loads upwards of 90% have any visible effect.

Found a handy list of throttle programs here: http://www.reocities.com/kulhain/