OK....
No problems anymore running the game with sound.
The problem is now that the SFX sounds crappy and slows down the game...if there is no SFX it runs properly but as soon as there are some sounds played it slows down and the sound isn't played properly...
do i have to use CLI2NOP under WindowsXP? some threads say i should, some say i shouldn't...
do i need the plutonium pack?
what shall i do??

Unfortunately this has been discussed NUMEROUS times, in fact it was brought up as recently as last week. The problem is with the engine used by Duke3D: It DOES NOT like NT OS'. If you do a search for "duke windows" in the search at the top right of this web page, you'll get 31 results, mostly of people having problems, but also some answers as to just HOW to run Duke 3D. Don't get your hopes up TOO much, though... I don't recall anyone getting it 100% perfect.

Reduce the sound quality in order to get it running smoothly. CLI2NOP will not help fix the speed.

22kHz, 6 voices, 16-bit Stereo should do the trick.

Your system might just be too slow, though. Since you didn't give us any specs as per the posting guidelines we couldn't tell you.

I've had DUKE3D running perfectly on WinXP before...now I just have to figure out how I did it...

I've got it running. Sound FX = Sounblaster at 44kHz with 8 voices in stereo. Music = general midi (SB causes lag). Video = 320 x 200 (Normal Mode).

You may have to run the game from a batch file to prevent it from locking up. I've included some files that might help you get the game running. Just unzip into your DUKE3d directory and change the location to duke3d.exe in the batch file if neccessary. Run the game from the included shortcut to start in fullscreen mode.

Intriguing. And it runs at full speed with those sound settings? Hmm... something seems off.

Damn! I included the wrong .cfg in that zip. Be sure to change the music to general midi if you're experiencing lag.

The game runs perfectly for me on these settings. I finished all 4 episodes with them.

Btw, I corrected that zip file.

You replayed Duke3d in 320X200? Bleh! Heck when it first came out I was running it in 640X480 or 800X600. I believe Mech2 ran fine on that same machine @ 1024X768 on my 486DX4/100 but Duke was slower. Course it's been so long my memory is probably playing tricks on me....

Ok...I've got the game running in 640X480, but the screen just blacks out in 800x600.

Yup, that's the good ol' GF force ya. Stick a GF3 in there or an ATI chipset and you can play up to 1600X1200 in NT.

I'd do that, but my piece-of-s**t motherboard has no AGP slot.

What of a PCI slot?

Yeah, I have a couple of PCI slots free.