# "I Need To Slow Everything Down!" **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 13, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209 "2008-04-13T21:45:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/1 "2008-04-13T21:45:56Z")
I’m currently running an I don’t know CPU. Whatever it is, it’s too fast for some of my old games and emulators. I need a program to slow it down. I have been using Mo’Slo. But even setting that at its lowest speed now gets me about three times too fast. Can anybody recommend a CPU-slowing utility? ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/2 "2008-04-13T22:15:28Z")
Try this: Press ctrl-alt-del, right-click on the application you want to slow, and lower its priority. Or you could just open Itunes and Microsoft Word- that slows my ancient laptop down a whole bunch. ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/3 "2008-04-13T22:24:33Z")
I haven’t tried these, but they seem like likely contenders: [http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Games/Tools-Editors/Game-Speed-Adjuster.html](http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Games/Tools-Editors/Game-Speed-Adjuster.html) [http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Games/Tools-Editors/Game-Speed-Controller.html](http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Games/Tools-Editors/Game-Speed-Controller.html) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/4 "2008-04-13T23:30:56Z")
Game Speed Adjuster doesn’t seem to have any effect at all. I can’t get the download link for Game Speed Controller to work. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/5 "2008-04-13T23:36:32Z")
[QUOTE=DocCathode] I’m currently running an I don’t know CPU. Whatever it is, it’s too fast for some of my old games and emulators. I need a program to slow it down. I have been using Mo’Slo. But even setting that at its lowest speed now gets me about three times too fast. Can anybody recommend a CPU-slowing utility? [/QUOTE] If they are DOS games, use [DOSBox](http://www.dosbox.com/), a nifty little DOS emulator. I use it to run old Sierra adventure games once in a while ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/6 "2008-04-13T23:41:28Z")
I have DosBox, how do I adjust the speed? ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/7 "2008-04-14T00:16:21Z")
[QUOTE=DocCathode] I have DosBox, how do I adjust the speed? [/QUOTE] CTRL-F11 decrements the number of CPU cycles, slowing the speed CTRL-F12 increments the number of CPU cycles, increasing the speed See if this gets you running correctly. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/8 "2008-04-14T00:18:58Z")
hmm, trying to run the program I want gets me the error message “Load error: No DPMI- get csdpmi\*b.zip” ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/9 "2008-04-14T02:10:47Z")
FWIW, In college, I played [Scorched Earth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(computer_game)) on an ancient PC. I downloaded the game a few years ago, and there was nothing I could do to slow it down from ridiculously fast. I probably didn’t have DOSbox, but I might have. Good luck! Joe ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2008, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/10 "2008-04-15T01:32:26Z")
I remember playing Operation: Overkill on BBSes. Unfortunately even Mo’Slo on an Inspiron 7K wouldn’t slow it down enough to make it playable as a single player. ☹ I shudder to think what it’d look like on a multi-core machine these days. 😃 But I’ll keep an eye on this thread to see if any of that might be of help. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-slow-everything-down/445209/11 "2008-04-15T04:42:48Z")
[QUOTE=DocCathode] hmm, trying to run the program I want gets me the error message “Load error: No DPMI- get csdpmi\*b.zip” [/QUOTE] Those are some sort of files for DOS Protected Mode Interface. Download the ZIP file it’s asking for [here](http://clio.rice.edu/cwsdpmi/csdpmi5b.zip) and extract the files to your DOSBox folder.