- 6Other Useful features
Save the dosbx.conf file and when you start DOSBOX, the game should boot and start automatically just like the good old days when you shoved the disk in and turned on the (Atari) computer. After reading this, the explanation in the DOSBOX readme.txt file should make sense and you can figure out how to add more drives for multiple disk games. Search failed me: Dosbox save games/chars, Gold Box: Sturmrabe: Troubleshooting: 31: 02:39 AM: X-com Apocalyse Save Games: Tobu: Troubleshooting: 4: 03:53 PM: Kyrandia 2 Save Games: xberserkx: Troubleshooting: 1: 10:04 PM: I Cant Save Games In Goblins 3: natyfonti: Troubleshooting: 2: 04:47 PM: How Do.
Basic Concepts
DOSBox is an emulator that recreates a MS-DOS compatible environment (complete with Sound, Input, Graphics and even basic networking). This environment is complete enough to run many classic MS-DOS games completely unmodified. In order to utilize all of DOSBox's features you need to first understand some basic concepts about the MS-DOS environment.
- Connectivity (Modems/Networking)
Installation
The first step is to install DOSBox. This guide will use the 0.74 Windows 32-bit version which is available for download. Download the release for your operating system. If you are a Windows user, get the Win32 installer.
After downloading, install DOSBox to any directory. Also, make a folder to put all your old games in. I put DOSBox in C:DOSBox, and my old games directory is C:OLDGAMES. I put a game in my OLDGAMES directory, TESTDRIV, which is Test Drive, an old racing game. Your directories should look like this:
Running a game
Now, the hardest part, getting games to run. First, run dosbox.exe in your DOSBox folder. Remember that OLDGAMES directory you created in Step 1? You have to basically set that as new directory just for DOSBox. Essentially, it's going to become the C:> drive of DOSBox. So, type:
To dissect the above:
- MOUNT: Tells the program to mount a directory
- C: Tells the program what you want your new drive to be called (leaving it as C: is fine)
- C:OLDGAMES: This is the directory I want to set as the new drive for DOSBox, because all my games are in it. If you created a different directory, write in the directory you created.
(Note: If you want to mount a CD-ROM instead of a folder, type this:
(Note: 'cdrom' is case sensitive and must be lowercase!)
In this example, D: -T cdrom tells DOSBox that my D: drive is a CD-ROM drive, and the first D, tells DOSBox what my new drive name should be called. If you are running your game off a CD-ROM then make sure to use D: in place of C: in the following examples. You can find instructions on how to mount other devices, such as floppy drives, in the mount section).
After you've done this, you will be prompted with a Z:>. Now, just write what you wanted to call your new DOSBox drive, which as I said above, we called C. To navigate to that newly mounted drive just type in:
Hopefully, you're all set! Now, it's time to run the game. Previously I had mentioned a game called TESTDRIV in my OLDGAMES folder. I now want DOSBox to go to that folder. So type in:
That's it! CD stands for 'Change Directory', so you've changed the directory to TESTDRIV. You can find instructions on how to use the Change Directory command, in the CD section of the Commands article.
One more step, running the game! Most games have an EXE file in their directory that you can run. However, some might require a BAT file, or COM file (common in demos and really old games). Most of the time, the file is in the root folder. Please consult the documentation of your game for which file is needed to start the game. In the case of Test Drive, it's TDCGA.EXE. So now, I just type this:
That's it! Here's a picture of all of the commands I've written about in Step 2:
Alternate methods for running a game
The steps described above are closely aligned with how DOS Based operating systems behave natively. However modern operating system allow for more user friendly (although less authentic) ways of playing your favorite games. If the steps above seem tedious or confusing you can try some of these other guides. In most cases these guides will still require you to setup a working DOSBox environment.
- Creating desktop shortcuts
NOTE: If you have problems with launching the game, unrecognizable errors being spit out, saving settings, or having the game drop out while running it, one thing to try is to make sure all the files are not set to Read Only. In Windows, select the folder of the game, right click and hit properties, uncheck Read Only if it is checked, and apply to all sub folders.
If you have other errors, please search the forums first before posting a question.
Performance
Yay, you've gotten your game to run! But maybe you're experiencing slowdown? How do you fix this? With the following commands:
CTRL+F7 = Decreases frameskip
CTRL+F8 = Increases Frameskip
CTRL+F11 = Slows down the game
CTRL+F12 = Speeds up the game
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to open the Task Manager, and click the Performance tab. Start by pressing CTRL+F12 until your CPU Usage level begins to go above 95%. After that, if you still need a performance boost, hit CTRL+F8 to have DOSBox not render some frames. The console window will display all of the changes you've made, and the top of the game window will display the current settings. Adjust these settings as needed until your game goes smoothly. Please keep in mind that not all games will run smoothly on DOSBox.
Other Useful features
Quick Start for Windows
Windows users have an option of dragging the EXE of their DOS game onto the DOSBox program (or shorcut pointing to the DOSBox program). This will automatically start the game. If this doesn't work, then I would recommend reading the rest of this article.
Automatically Mounting Your DOS Games folder
You can save yourself some time by having DOSBox automatically MOUNT your folders and change the drive to C:. In original DOS based operating systems a file called AUTOEXEC.BAT contained any commands that the user wanted executed every time the computer booted up. This functionality is simulated by the [autoexec] section of the dosbox.conf file.
For DOSBox versions older than 0.73 browse into program installation folder and open the dosbox.conf file in any text editor. For version 0.73 go to Start Menu and click on 'Configuration' and then 'Edit Configuration'. Then scroll down to the very end, and add these lines:
Now those commands will be executed automatically when starting! If you're having trouble with that, make sure it looks like this (look at the bottom):
Full Screen
Just press ALT+ENTER Gnucash mac download. to go into and out of full screen.
Dosbox Save State
Alternatively, you can open the dosbox.conf file as mentioned above and change 'fullscreen=false' to 'fullscreen=true'. DOSBox will then run in full screen mode when you open it.
Does Dosbox Save Games
DOSBox-X emulates a PC necessary for running many DOS games and applications that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems, similar to DOSBox. However, while the main focus of DOSBox is for running DOS games, DOSBox-X goes much further than this. Started as a fork of the DOSBox project, it retains compatibility with the wide base of DOS games and DOS gaming DOSBox was designed for. But it is also a platform for running DOS applications, including emulating the environments to run Windows 3.x, 9x and ME and software written for those versions of Windows. By adding official support for Windows 95, 98, ME emulation and acceleration, we hope that those old Windows games and applications could be enjoyed or used once more. Moreover, DOSBox-X adds support for DOS/V and NEC PC-98 emulations so that you can play DOS/V and PC-98 games with it.DOSBox-X is designed to be a general purpose DOS emulator (including DOS-based Windows) that is both fully-featured and easy to use. We implement new features with each official release, and try our best to make them work consistently on all supported platforms. At the same time, we are making efforts to improve emulation quality and usability for end users who want to run DOS programs or games. In order to help improve the general DOS emulation and also to help continued DOS developments, it is our desire to implement accurate emulation, accurate enough to help make new DOS developments possible with confidence the program will run properly on actual DOS systems. DOSBox-X features a flexible configuration, as we believe a better way to emulate the DOS platform is to give users all the options to configure the DOS virtual machine, as a complete DOS emulation package, including original IBM PC system all the way up to late 1990’s configuration, whatever it takes to get your DOS program or game to run. Below are screenshots of some DOS programs/games running in DOSBox-X.
Dosbox Save Game
Configuration Tool running in DOSBox-X (With Spanish [Español] language file) |
Dosbox Mac Save Games
A few examples of DOSBox-X's unique features are available in the DOSBox-X's Feature Highlights page. It is our hope to cover all features needed by DOS programs and games (and DOS-based Windows, etc), including, among many others, printing, networking, file/record-locking, clipboard, multimedia, 3dfx Voodoo & Glide, disk controller and IDE emulation, debugging features, etc, which are already supported; in some applications the software may also work in combination with 3rd-party solutions like Printfil or WinPrint on Windows host systems for even smoother experiences.
DOSBox-X maintains a Wiki system (see also guide page list) which explains how to set up DOSBox-X and configure different types of DOS software to run in DOSBox-X. Also, as DOSBox-X is an open-source project, we strongly encourage users or developers to contribute to DOSBox-X in order to make it work even better as a complete DOS emulation package. Please visit our project website on GitHub for more information. Feel free to leave comments or feedbacks as we would like to hear from you, and we always welcome and encourage you to join the DOSBox-X Team.
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