The computer I used last year for runs died, so not sure what my run's settings were exactly. I don't remember editing the conf from the GOG copy, but not sure if GOG ever changes the conf over time?

GOG's current conf file looks like this: https://pastebin.com/uBTE3kC5

Notably,

core=auto cputype=auto cycles=fixed 14000 xms=true ems=false umb=true

My run last year likely used the wrong cycle setting, then.

I'm not active, so sppadde or somebody else would be better suited to make the call, but I'd like it if the config were explicitly standardized, probably using the guide's suggestion or whatever sppadde uses if different. U7 can be sensitive to these settings. Fun demonstration: Try playing with cycles=max :)

Proposal: Add "Use a DOSBox config with core=simple, cputype=386_slow, cycles=3000." to the rules for DOS categories.

Ultima 6 for DOS has the same problem that many old DOS games have: The game runs to the speed of your hardware, so the game can be made to run very quickly just by throwing it on a fast computer at a high frame rate.

The Jazz Jackrabbit community (http://www.speedrun.com/jj1) tries to address this by standardizing a DOSBox config to use for valid runs. The same strategy should work here. Out of laziness or simplicity, I've been using the config that ships with the GOG edition of the game (core=simple, cputype=386_slow, cycles=3000), which seems as good a standard as any.

The Ultima series seems notorious for running to the speed of your computer, almost without bound.

For example, here are a couple clips from U7 (Black Gate), walking from Britain to Trinsic.

• In DOSBox 0.74, with "Cpu speed" config set to 14000 cycles (default from GOG): (1 minute, 2 seconds)

• In DOSBox 0.74, with "Cpu speed" config increased to 50000 cycles: (21 seconds)

Similar issues exist in the other games, at least up to SI, I think. Anybody have an opinion on this? If runners are generally using DOSBox, I guess it'd be pretty easy to standardize the configs, but that goes out the window if there are runners with a different setup.