Just picked this up the other day remembering all the good times I had with it back in the 90s.
Unfortunately it's verry choppy (choppier than running on my 486 DX 50 back in the day) and I was wondering if there are any dosbox settings I can modify for this.

The config file is kind of a mess, and I'm way past my prime in debugging, so If anyone has some optimization advice, I'd gladly take it.

Sadly Falcon 3.0 is a game that is really hard to get running smooth with Dosbox, this has probably to do that it was very hard to get running smooth on original Dos machines as well.
You can try my .conf if you want:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8gaLlWvvpfKVDY0eHVZRVk4WEU/view?usp=sharing

Note that it has issues with the intro being out of sync but gameplaywise it should be okay.

Thanks, Helped a bit.

I don't know what cycle count is set by GOG by default, but the game will run smooth for cycles=20000, mind you that the situation reports in campaigns will scroll to fast to read at that speed, and the intro may be influenced as well. You may set the cycles by hand with CTRL-F11 (decrease) and CTRL-F12 (increase) in game if you like (if GOG didn't mess with the mapper) - set around 20000 during flight and 5000 or lower when in GUI.

GOG just sets it to auto cycles, which doesn't work well for Falcon 3.0.

The cycles were set to Auto, which are unfortunately only 3000.

Yeah this needs around 20,000 cycles or more. GOG really didn't configure it well. I also recommend using dosbox ECE, which will give you the ability to map many more axes to dosbox, making HOTAS usage easier.

I think falcon plays best at 9000 - 10000 cycles.

Anything higher than that makes the plane very sensitive in rolling and hud responsiveness.
ALso the G effects are affected and nearly unplayable (even if wasn't much better on an actual 386...).

I have found the G effects difficult but not unplayable (set to moderate in game). Realistically a pilot cannot pull 9 Gs like it's nothing, you want to keep your Gs in the 6-7 range max for the most part, you can handle 9 in limited bursts. Effects are cumulative and your pilot does become fatigued, once you start blacking out it keeps getting easier to black out unless you let the pilot rest. I find it more fun to have to pay attention and manage Gs while dog fighting. Of course to each their own.

I like G effects too.

What I was trying to say is that a CPU cycle count too high will affect how G effects works in the game, making it worse that it was actually meant to be on the original HW.