Are you starting eqgame.exe with taskset? If not, see if that helps stabilize things.
```
# what I currently launch with
$ taskset -c 0-1 wine eqgame.exe patchme &>/dev/null
# or the _way-too-classic-for-me_ single core
$ taskset -c 0 wine eqgame.exe patchme &>/dev/null
```
Full gist
https://gist.github.com/mgeitz/aa295...d818d0ebb3e37a
Regarding changes in `winecfg`... I think all I've done there is set eqgame.exe to leverage `Windows Version: Windows XP`