DOSBox

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Revision as of 15:43, 2 September 2020 by 162.158.186.215 (talk) (dosbox-staging: Fixed typo)
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DOSBox
DOSBox.png
Developer(s) DOSBox Crew
Latest version 0.74-3
Active Yes
Platform(s) Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and more
Emulates 286 and 386
Website DOSBox.com
Programmed in C++
License GNU GPLv2
Source code tgz

DOSBox is an open-source, high-level 286 and 386 emulator written in C++.

Downloads

Windows Linux macOS Latest Dev Builds
Windows Linux macOS Solaris RiscOS OS/2 Latest Stable Builds

Features

DOSBox is capable of emulating many older computer games that are otherwise very difficult if not impossible to play on modern operating systems and hardware. It has very high compatibility, as it can be configured to emulate the environment of many machines, with support for various display modes, including CGA, EGA, Hercules, Tandy, and VGA. With some work, it is even possible to install and load old Windows operating systems, such as Windows 3.11 and Windows 95, thus potentially being able to play games made for those platforms.

Frontends

LaunchBox

  • Portable Box-Art-Based Games Database and Launcher for DOSBox, Emulators, and PC Games

DOSBox SVN Daum

  • This is an enhanced build of DOSBox by ykhwong, with support for Direct3D and HLSL shaders, Glide, ethernet, and many other features not found in the official version. Unlike vanilla DOSBox, it has a menu for on-the-fly configuration. Has not been updated in years, however. According to the DOSBox wiki: "The last version broke this build in various places and uses out of date and not fully working changes of the DOSBox-X branch. It is no longer recommended to use it."

D-Fend Reloaded

  • A great frontend which allows custom per-game configurations to cut back on fiddling with settings just to run specific games well. It also lets you use your own build of DOSBox instead of the one it comes with, so it can be used in conjunction with DOSBox SVN Daum.

DOSBox Game Launcher

  • A frontend based on Java, and has a UI inspired by the original D-Fend

Versions

dosbox-staging

dosbox-staging is a fork that "attempts to revitalize DOSBox's development process". This WIP fork's existence ain't to rewrite the emulator from scratch, but to continue updating it and improve it with bugfixes and new features where vanilla DOSBox currently can't. Indirectly speaking, it's sort of a "fork to end all forks."

9xbox

There has been some interest in creating a version of DOSBox that incorporates compatibility with Windows 95/98/ME. As of 02/09/13, it has not passed the theoretical stage and no work has been done.

http://win9xbox.sourceforge.net/

DOSBox-X

DOSBox-X is a fork of the original DOSBox project, as well as an HLE PC emulator. It does what DOSBox does, but goes further, with a focus on accurate emulation of pre-2000 PC hardware and includes many more ways to tweak and configure the DOS virtual machine. The aim is for DOSBox-X to be a complete emulation package that covers all pre-2000 DOS and Windows 9x based hardware needs, including peripherals, motherboards, CPUs, and all manner of hardware that was made for PC hardware of that time. The emulator should in the future have full support and acceleration of Windows 3.x, 95, 98 and ME and software that was written for those versions of Windows.

http://dosbox-x.com/
https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x
Documentation
Wiki by Wengier (An user named Wengier launched this massive, in-depth guide on May 25, 2020, accompanied with a lengthy main page and over 70 pages showing demoscene videos, DOS & Windows installation guides, commands, and myriad other things.)

Systems

DOSBox-X aims to maintain the code to emulate the IBM PC/XT/AT, Tandy, PCjr, and NEC PC-98. It does not plan to emulate any other MS-DOS system and, in the main author's (Jon Campbell) words, only the aforementioned systems will be considered for development in DOSBox-X. This restriction prevents stretching of the codebase to an unmanageable level and helps keep the code base organized.

However, the author has stated that other coders are strongly encouraged to fork out the main DOSBox-X project so they can work to develop MS-DOS emulation on any other platform or emulate other unique MS-DOS based system(s). He has provided stubs to enable FM-Towns emulation in such a branch for any interested programmers.

Features

It has a lot of added features that does not exist in DOSBox or other forks. Just to name a few of its unique features: support for GUI menu bar & config tool, save and load state, better compatibility with DOS applications, more DOS commands, Pentium MMX & Pro, printer output, long filename and FAT32 disk images, Windows clipboard copy & paste, 3dfx Glide & Voodoo chips, cue sheets with FLAC/Opus/Vorbis/MP3 CD-DA tracks, FluidSynth, NE2000 Ethernet, V-Sync, and many more.[1]

Win31DOSBox

Win31DOSBox is a fork of DOSBox that aims to be an easy method of playing Windows 3.xx games on your computer. It has an easy setup program and has the ability to print from Windows 3.11. (Might need some tweaking.)

To get started with Win31DOSBox you first need a copy of either Windows 3.11 or WfW (Windows for Workgroups) 3.11 (IMG, CD, or MSDN download) and once you have that you need to put either the 6 (Windows 3.11) or 9 (WfW 3.11) IMG files if you are using those, the ISO file which is only for WfW 3.11, or the MSDN self-extracting .exe.

After that, you then can run InstallWin31DOSBox.exe which will automatically install Windows for you. Once Windows is installed, check that everything works and then install Video for Windows and Quicktime which is located in the Video folder in Program Manager. It is also recommended to install WinG and Win32s aswell.

To get software onto the system there are multiple ways. For folders and files, you can drag them into the C-DRIVE folder. If you have a physical CD you can just insert it into your CD drive. If it's a CD image you need to mount it using a software like Virtual CloneDrive. If it's a floppy disk image you need to drag the respective images over the Extract to A-Drive Folder.exe program which will extract them to the A-DRIVE folder.

References