Every so often at seemingly regular intervals I'm getting pretty substantial stutters, where the game code is still running but the screen isn't updating. Its a pretty big game killer since I often lose my ball when I can't see what's going on. I'm running using the default configuration, nothing custom, in fullscreen. Any potential fixes?

Try a different video output, like ddraw.

Yeah seems like it's an issue with a recent update or something. It was working perfectly before, not sure what happened.
Changing the video output to ddraw made it even slower, but changing it to opengl seemed to work for me.

Alright I'll try those out and then get back

Curious if you were able to solve the issue. It’s been a problem for me too, I’ve tried different dosbox builds, different configs etc, nothing seems to fix it.

1) Download and extract https://dosbox-staging.github.io/v0-75-2/

2) Mount your Epic Pinball installation folder using Dosbox-staging.

3) Enjoy

I’ve been using staging and I still get the stuttering. Perhaps you could share your config?

Try output = texturepp and for texture_renderer, try auto, direct3d, direct3d11, opengl, or opengles2 and see if that gets rid of the stutter.

You could also create an issue here to get additional help as well:

https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/issues

I use DOSBox Staging with the same config as GOG prepared, only enabled GUS instead of SoundBlaster. The GOG-selected output=overlay silently falls back to output=opengl. Tested on Linux on two machines: one with Intel Sandy Bridge and one with AMD RX 590 - both work perfectly.

You could try using DOSBox X with VSYNC enabled as I've configured it here: https://www.gog.com/forum/epic_pinball_the_complete_collection/epic_pinball_gravis_ultrasound_and_screen_tearing_fix_guide/post1

Or with DOSBox Staging, you could also try using your video card software to force VSYNC on the dosbox.exe that is being used to run Epic Pinball. That should theoretically work with "output=texturepp" and "texture_renderer=" set to opengl or Direct3D.

Okay, we're making progress! DOSBox staging, output=texturepp and texture_renderer=opengl. Forced vsync through NVIDIA control panel for the program. The game runs fine now when you're actually playing (which is great!), however with these settings the music skips in the menus, along with the menu screen stuttering in general. But we're getting closer...lol

Although I know this isn't GUS, have you tried Soundblaster sound, now that you have V-Sync enabled?

It's been Soundblaster the whole time. I'm really at a loss here, especially when others can get it working fine. For some reason, this and Jazz Jackrabbit are the only ones that give me this stutter thing.

The vsync solution seems to mess up other games too, so it really seems like there is no one size fits all option, so to speak. I appreciate everyone's help though!

Glad to hear that some progress is being made! I'm not sure how you've set some of the options, but with output=texturepp, all other scaling options should be disabled as it can interfere with how the pixel perfect scaling mode works. That could add a bit of lag if some are enabled. So to be clear the following should be set like this: You could also try playing with the settings in the [mixer] section, "blocksize" specifically.

As for the VSYNC messing other games.... You had mentioned trying different DOSBox builds, did you try the DOSBox X one I mentioned previously? The VSYNC is built in, so that you wouldn't need to force it. Also you can get the pixel perfect mode through an OpenGL Shader, and I've updated that guide to reflect this.

EDIT: The only other thing I can think of is running the setup.exe through DOSBox and making sure that the PORT,IRQ,DMA for your audio choice all match what in the "dosbox_epin.conf"