By sluggish are you talking about the joystick response or the game fps? If fps try changing the core to dynamic or normal(it's probably set to auto now). I can't remember which one runs Strike Commander better. core=normal cycles=auto cycleup=500 cycledown=20 or core=dynamic cycles=auto cycleup=500 …

The early '90s was the golden age of PC gaming no question. I'm not sure which ones you're familiar with or which type of game you like so I'll just rattle off the best pre-1995 games... Great: Ultima Underworld(the original FPS RPG) Ultima 7(the most amazing 2D open world RPG ever) Ultima …

These early 3d games by Origin were bleeding edge tech at the time and were a pain to run even with a top of the line rig. It's still a bit easier playing them in Dosbox though. Try editing your dosbox.cfg joystick settings to this: joysticktype=4axis timed=true autofire=false swap34=false …