Don't worry, just use the website in the sidebar on the right and download the binary for your system accordingly.

You can't take other peoples cycles recommendations at face value. Everyone has different computers running different hardware and software on the host, different configurations for dosbox and different settings used by the game.

For this game try with dynamic core with a max of 20000 cycles and see what that does. You may need to recalibrate your joystick as well. DOSBox is very tweakable, don't be afraid to change settings.

The requirements for the game are as follows, obviously you cannot go by game requirements either but at least you know the bare minimum for possibly playable.

Machine Requirements:
--------------------

To run 1942: The Pacific Air War, you will need:

1) A 386 SX processor (386 DX 33 MHz or higher recommended)
2) 570k free conventional memory
3) 1.5 Meg free EMS memory
4) 16 MB free hard disk space
5) Joystick or mouse

NOTE - 1942: The Pacific Air War has not been
tested under Microsoft Windows