DOSBox

Started by Slasher, Tue 10/05/2016 18:57:51

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Slasher

hi

has anyone here downloaded DOSBox to play the old dos games?

i have 32bit win 7.

AnasAbdin

I did. Works fine with windows 7 32bit

SinSin

I have dosbox and its quite good, as a rule I play my old Lucasarts and Westwood games on Scummvm and Sierra games on Dosbox.
easy to use too simply drag your game onto the icon and go..:-D
Currently working on a project!

Slasher

hi guys,

setup and i ran 'Quake'... plays and seems ok.

cheers :)

Danvzare

I use it all the time. It's brilliant software, especially once you figure out how to configure it.

Did you just want to know whether it was credible?

Slasher

i just wanted to make sure it would run ok.

i need to learn the configurations though.

cheers

Babar

Quote from: Sinsin on Tue 10/05/2016 19:13:22
I have dosbox and its quite good, as a rule I play my old Lucasarts and Westwood games on Scummvm and Sierra games on Dosbox.
easy to use too simply drag your game onto the icon and go..:-D
Many Sierra games work on ScummVM now as well
The ultimate Professional Amateur

Now, with his very own game: Alien Time Zone

SinSin

I didn't know that Babar :)
Currently working on a project!

Radiant

Yes, I use dosbox for old platformers. Works like a charm.

Monsieur OUXX

#9
DosBox is just the #1 choice for anything that doesn't run on ScummVM.

Now for something useful: In the Start menu (or its Windows 7 equivalent) there is a link to the Dosbox configuration file (dosbox.conf). It simply opens the file in Notepad.

You should learn how to use it, it's mainly useful for two things :

1) Add the mounting instructions at the very end of it. They'll be executed automatically at each startup so that you don't have to type them each time:
Code: ags

mount c "d:\Users\Documents and Settings\My Documents\myDOSgamesfolder"
c:
cd myfavoritegame
myfavoritegame.exe


2) I suggest adding a graphic filter from the few filters offered. It's gorgeous. (just look up the corresponding section in the file and pick a filter from the list, like mame2x or whatever)

3) Learn how to speed up and slow down the virtual CPU clock while you're playing a game. I think it's F11 and F12 or something -- Google it (when you press the right keys you'll see the corresponding message appear in the console window of DosBox AND you'll see the CPU speed change in your game's window title bar). For every new game you try, it's good to find out which speed gives the best results between FPS drop and refresh saturation. It's kind of trial and error, but once you got it for a game, it's just a matter of pressing these keys a few times each time you run it.
 

CrashPL

Hey, back in the day I used DosBox on a daily basis, so I can assure you it's something you want to use, when it comes to accurate DOS emulation. :)

I own two retro PCs, both with Windows 98 and DOS 7.0, and I can definitely tell DosBox does the emulation pretty well, even nailing down some of the things like the pretty good FM synth (I have a Yamaha OPL3-SAx ISA card in one of the oldschool rigs, so I have a direct comparison between those two ;)), not to mention you can even emulate Gravis Ultrasound quite accurately under DosBox. Stuff like floppy/CD images, or controllers also works well (there's a separate mapper for both mouse, keyboard and a gamepad in DB, so you're not limited just for the in-game configuration). And if you're passionate enough, you can grab the DosBox megabuild and install Windows 3.1/95 on it. :)

For the hundreds of games I've ran on DosBox, only one of them refused to work (Montezuma's Return, dunno why, it works on my oldschool rig...), and that's really something!

Retro Wolf

https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxFrontends

I recommend using a DOSBox Manager to make things easier. I think I used to use D-Fend, it's been a while.

Crimson Wizard

#12
I think it may be better to use modern port/rewrite of a game, if such exists, for example ScummVM for old adventure games, as was mentioned above.
The main reason is that newer versions may have a lot of issues fixed (something that you won't ever get when using DosBOX, since it just emulates original behavior).

There is a number of open-source rewrites of old games, such as Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Open Dune, Open XCOM (recreates the original UFO: Enemy Unknown); they mostly keep original game feel, but at the same time get rid of old system limits, such as unit limit, etc, which were "necessary evil" at the DOS times.

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