It was so weird to me that DOSBOX is seen "intimidating" to *anyone* who wants to play old DOS games. Then I realised that some of those people are ones who are too young to have used DOS when it was current tech and who are just into retro.
@@GodzillasaurusJr Exactly! I didn't make this video for the DOS warriors of old or people like myself who grew up using this stuff. I made it to help some new ones get into playing some games and using a few programs. DOS is a fun and underappreciated platform that I think younger ones should be able to enjoy as well.
@@SixOThreeI still recall having to make a special floppy disk for booting so that I could play Ultima VII, since it had a weird memory manager, you couldn’t just use a typical dos disk or the Win9x dos mode… good times!
Staging maintainer here. Thanks for mentioning Staging in your video. I'd just like to point out that people should really start using per-game configs and leave the primary global config alone for the most part. This and a lot more is explained in detail in the Getting Started guide available on our website.
I am, and I owned a 286 in the early 90s. Knew all of the commands by heart. Couldn't be arsed to remember all that and do it today. Windows point and click stuff just took over all that brain space after 30 years.
The title is a bit clickbait but the young lad gave a good basic explanation of DOSBox forks. In my opinion, this video needs a boost with some explanation of the technical difference between the original one and its forks. It would be interesting.
86box is the way to go anymore, especially if you want FM sound support that isn't just yamaha emulation. They recently added ESS support, and i'm glad we finally have another FM alternative. ESS FM can sound drastically different in some games or playing midi under dos with midier.
I actually never got into DOS gaming. I didn't get into Windows gaming, either. My use of DOS was mainly at school in computer programming class back in the mid to late 90s. The teacher we had absolutely REFUSED to put Windows on the machines. He wouldn't even allow us to use mice. I guess he thought that Windows and GUI in general would just never take off. When I did get into modern computing in 2000, I hardly ever used DOS. Windows was just far more intuitive to use. When Windows 2000 reached EOL, I just switched to Linux. I mainly used DOS for running a Color Computer 2 emulator and to write and run some DOS based multimedia tools I created. I stopped creating software as I just wanted to work with multimedia.
@@DOSStorm Up until at least Windows 98 you could set the system to just give you a DOS prompt automatically. Of the top of my head, I can't recall if that was the case with XP or not.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade XP doesn't really have DOS at all. You can run DOS programs but there really isn't a real DOS mode or sound support without VDMsound.
You jumped ship at the right time ! I had started toying with Linux, but couldn't fully leave due to some projects that I was working on. I was also in several beta tests for MS Windows. Had to stay, but I learned a lot, and sent them plenty of feedback ! :)
dosbox pure is another nice one that makes it easy to play dos games with only a controller. directories are interactive menus and you can just select the install or executable with no keyboard required. you can change options in the quick menu like the processor speed but most games are preconfigured to work great even with premade input layouts for a controller. perfect for a lot of games that don't need a lot of text input. it is a retroarch core which i know for some is a dealbreaker but it's been super nice to use in my experience. also you get access to the nice shaders like mega bezel that retroarch includes. the other nice aspect is retroarch can be easily loaded on phones and then you have an easy to use dosbox right on your phone that can even run windows 98.
Me too. It promptly brought fond memories of when I played Descent for the first time ever, on a borrowed Compaq already running Win95. Descent - Destination Saturn ❤
"Stop using DOSBox 0.74-3, use it's forks instead!" In Windows 10/11 and DOSBox 0.74-3 it's "overlay" output that's causing problems (e.g. crashes). To fix this, find DOSBox configuration file with ".conf" extension and open it with Notepad. Find in [sdl] section: output=overlay Replace it with: output=openglnb It's worth trying. If it doesn't work, switch to DOSBox Staging.
Oh my God, thank you so much. I'm totally inept at typing command codes but using dosbox-x helped me sooo much. I was able to mount the iso and now I'm playing Tale of Orpheo's Curse and feeling like a kid again!
For me, I used DOS in middle school and high school and we were just starting to get Windows when I was in high school. Our school was slightly behind the times and there was one teacher that had 3.1 and later upgraded to 95 before the school got computers running NT3.51. It was my experience with Windows at that point in time why I moved to Linux. Although, I still play a lot of games that only run for me if I use WINE or DOSBox. The first computer class I took in middle school taught us how to do low-level formatting of your hard drive, something which you can't even do now. However, learning how to bypass that DOS menu program to get at QBasic and play Nibbles and Gorilla certainly inspired my career path.
It defaults to "auto" just like the original DOSbox which works fine 90% of the time. The cycles can be adjusted on the fly with F11+= and F11+- or there is a menu that gives you the option to adjust the cycles to match specific CPUs like the 286, 386, Pentium etc.
in my experience it doesn't really do it at all for speed sensitive software anyway - but dosbox-x does have ui options for specific processors/speeds that makes it easier to quickly get to a speed you need rather than fudging with cycles until you ballpark it. (best used before loading the process).
Outside of Dosbox and its forks, try to have a look, whether a proper source port exists for the game you want to play. You would be surprised by how many old games can be played natively on modern hardware with lots of QoL improvements thanks to the source ports created by the dedicated community - almost all the major game engines from 1990s have received some kind of modern source port. Many games that you know from DOS also had competent Windows versions (Wine is your friend...) or even console ports - this can be especially helpful when looking for ways how to play them on a mobile device.
Oh, ya mean by "source ports", perhaps LZ-Doom, etc? I've seen a source port for System Shock, but I didn't find any setup instructions, and couldn't get it working. On the other hand: LZ-Doom is quite a different story - Doom is just plain awesome being played using that !
It is still an intensely lazy, crap team working on it for how many DECADES now? And we're still in version .74? I guess everyone needed to get their cats married first :P
@@Makeshift_Mulder Wow, what a rude thing to say about the hard work of some open source developers. You do realize those people have been developing DOSBox on their free time without any compensation?
Tried DosBox-X, and I don't like the IDE (using batch files is faster, and I'm old enough to know what I'm doing :P). I found that it has issues with PIT timer in all versions I've tried, rendering sound in many older games choppy, including a hobby retro-project of mine. Thanks for the shout-out on DosBox Staging - I've never heard of it before. So far no issues, and I'm testing it with unusual code.
DOSBOX X is great as it simplifies a lot, 86box with good RESHADE CRT filters like Mdapt (checkerboard DE-dithering for real translucency ) 95% of the time is my choice as the accuracy almost perfect making PCemu broken feeling. it also taught me how hard some of those older IBM DOS systems were to use like getting a the IBM PS/1 which is the only system to run Silpheed 3.2 correctly was a pain in the buutah but the victory so great feeling. also I'm a VGM remix artist and have tons of modules like a Yamaha MU2000ex and i can tell the sound in DOSBox/X is off less so in PCemu but unnoticeable in 86box especially sound emulation like a OPL3 card
I've been hearing a lot about 86box and I would like to give it a go sometime. I've used PCemu a bit in the past. Have you tried any of the other OPL3 emu options in DOSBOX-X? I find the NUKED mode to sound pretty accurate
@@DOSStorm yea the nuked settings are almost identical in all those emulators most likely i noticed it because i do VGM remixes that contain FM layers (OPL3,OPn2,OPNA and my DX7IIFD) and mix my instruments down to the decimal including layering work so my hearings on steroids but 98% of people wouldn't notice. (my apologies as this is gonna be messy) i did an experiment once sending midi sequences to the DX7IIFD and recording, then i sent the same sequences through those emulators and the OPL3, OPNA and OPN2 VST's ADLplug and OPNplug which all use the same cores including nuked 3 times, the results were all the emulators always desynced at some point in the tune with 86box the least and DOSBox-x the most every time but with ADLplug and OPNplug desyncing 1 out of 3 or 4 times - layering perfectly with each other and the DX7IIFD when things went right. so my guess is it's not the OPL3 emulation itself but how the the virtual machine handles it
I started using DosBox-X awhile ago on my old Dual Core Acer laptop, loaded Quikmenu software on then added shortcuts of my collection for easier access... totally happy so far with no probs 😁👍
DOSBox-Pure on RetroArch blows all this away. You can drop a Zip in like a ROM for most games and even play up to Windows 98 SE games on it while also being able to map commands to a controller if you don't like keyboard and mouse as much while being able to run it on pretty much any device that can do RetroArch on it. I often hear DOSBox-X is one of the better forks, but once I used Pure, I never went back
Staging soldme on the scaling, to be honest. It just looks tasteful, like you said. How I actually do it is having a shortcut for each game so it loads the relevant .conf file. Takes a bit more time to set up but keeps things organized, and I don't have to worry about running out of save-state slots as I would with the Dosbox-X method. I also tried Dosbox ECE in the past, but it didn't really grab me.
keen 4 does the same to me in dosbox-x, there is some ega setting you have to change in the config. tyrian also causes me issues in dosbox-x but runs perfectly under staging. i've pretty much switched over to staging completely now!
You can capture game footage in DOSBOX- X. I've used it for retro emulators such as Speccy and C64, less joypad support. You can tweak the cpu cycles as well for problematic games and files in Speccy that require 60 htz.
Does DOSBOX-X or DOSBOX Staging have festures to creates images? I‘ve been meaning to put Sims 1 in a DOSBOX container for better compatibility. And i believe this could help get Daria‘s Sick Sad World Planner to run on modern hardware as well as Visual Basic 6.
DosBox-X also ships with TONS of enhancement systems you would have to strap on with a loader or install into your dos image, along with menu commands to execute them. However, there are two common options you are failing to mention: MAME/MESS PC-Emulation: This is substantially more accurate, and lets you configure a nice virtual retro machine with your choice of retro hardware. However, it is full-on software emulation and unless you use a default system config, you need to edit a lot of config files by hand. That last one is sometimes a plus for us Penguins. QEmu or other Virtualization option: Much faster, highly efficient, can emulate a standard system widely supported by DOS, and adjust both memory space and processing speed to the appropriate era. However, speed scaling is simple scheduler based and doesn't consider how some instructions used to have longer cycles on older systems.
Years ago I used to administer a bunch of pbx's. The software ran on DOS which meant remote control was impossible. I tried running it on windows xp with dosbox and it worked perfectly. Suddenly I had remote ability on all of my phone systems. Just awesome
Didn't Lap-Link and various other software exist by about the last few years of DOS? Lap-Link was possible to run copying/backup software - and there are probably others I've already forgotten. Thought I'd mention it. :) Edited: typos
Many of the features of DOSBox-X DOSBox Daum already had roughly 10 years ago. Sadly the dev stopped developing it in 2015. Really need to update my front end setup as it seems to be a good time to move from DAUM to something more recent that is in active development.
I am on an Android tablet with a DosBox app installed, but i am not a DOS gamer. I use DosBox only for programming tiny executable files for DOS just for fun using batch files as open source container and debug (download&extract into the mouned folder). I never try to use a browser to run x86 executable files, but i used the official DosBox version on Windows til my PC died. Now i am on ARM CPU(no FPU) and the emulation of 80386/80387 CPU/FPU works great. I am familar with x86 CPU, but not with the ARM CPU. I made some videos(no speech) to show how it works and to share my projects. Have Fun.😊
I really like dosBOX Staging because of scaling and aspect ratio options. Unfortunately all games i tried are jerky and slightly choppy with animation, i don't know how to fix it. I've tried both openGL and ddraw as rendering options, but no effect. They play buttery smooth on regular dosBOX though...
I predominantly use dosbox-x but to say it's better in every way is false. There are graphical problems with dosbox-x that aren't present in dosbox which have existed for quite some time and there's a handful of other things like dosbox-x's inability to stay maximized when focus lost that doesn't happen in dosbox itself - useful for running old desktop on multi-monitor. But there are improved filter usage and various fixes that are also good on dosbox-x as well as some good built in things like ethernet, voodoo support, and some nice mouse copy/paste options. But it's imperfect in many ways even with improved features. Also, sometimes mounting isos is kinda buggy in dosbox, I've had some crash the application outright when using it - but mounting the iso externally using another program as a drive then mounting a drive and letting the other softwarw emulate the drive worked on the same iso for me - so that's also useful. Also, no the commander keen jitter issue can be issue in dosbox-x depending on the settings for the machine, I had that as wel. I believe it had to do with setting the basic S3 machine settings instead of utilizing the improved options. You can always try testing what option it is when you have it if your config is actually saved by backing up the config first then deleting half the config file and seeing if it works and continuing to cut in half until your left with the problem setting letting it default to minimum. Also, depending on hardware running PCem might be a better options too.
@@DOSStorm You might want to post on at least one other platform, just in case. UA-cam managed to block many people's computers, since so many of us use an ad-blocker that's no longer supported (on our browsers). I've got the more advanced machine than my GF, but I bought it 4 years ago, when I actually had a bit more "green". Am not swimming in as much money now, so am looking for an upgrade to her Chromebook - that preferably runs Linux, and I think I've found an i5 based HP (on eBay) that might just do the trick. Got 2 keep her in the game as best I can, with limited resources! :) Edit: Vimeo might be one of them. :)
In 1995 it took litrally all night to install and play a game. Hexen and Doom were already on from floppy disc, but Firestorm Thunderhawk 2 dam!!! Most games were still using dos aswell, but managed to master it in the end lol
I get this is aimed for easy use, but have you considered making a video using PCem/86Box for the real deal? Not easier, but way more powerful and flexible than any DosBox branch!
Well, im 55, i used those early PC 286-386 computers, im not too good at DOS commands but i remember some, using DOSBOX was kinda a pain at first but you get by, i was glad DOSBOX-X came out, it made easier to run old DOS games.
I wish to have a DOS emulator app with an intel x64 bit CPU on android that starts in 16 bit mode with a Geforce 4 VBE 3 graphic bios. The svga-S3 emulation have only a few resolutions and a mixture of VBE 1 / VBE 2 bios. In my last DOS programm on a PC with a Radeon 9750 PCIe on 28" LCD monitor i used 1920x1200x32 wide screen 16: 10 aspect ration in MS DOS.
DOSBox-X is just perfect. Very accurat emulation of anything you would want (like using the genuine MT-32 partials) and very easy to use. Can't get much better.
I have one problem: I want to set this up on Steam Deck, but on Linux it only exists as a flatpak application. I've tried to add it to Emu Deck, but it requires a config file. But I can't find any config files, because I can't find where the emulator is installed into, because I can't find any info on where the files are installed, including inside the emulator itself. I tried to search for a walkthrough on how to set up Dosbox-X on Steam Deck, but surprisingly I found nothing! Why won't anyone tell me how to setup Dosbox-X on Linux? I'm not a Linux guru, you know!
Using command line and actually building and tweaking a pc is part of the gaming experience. All the emulators etc are garbage. Same as listening to a vinyl record playing on youtube. You can buy any obsolete pc and install dos on it...doesnt need to be a real 90s retro machine. Could be a pentium 4 or athlon xp..those are a dime a dozen...can have sata hard drives, dual boot with xp on separate partitions so you can download the games then reboot to dos and play them
If the only improvements are in user-friendliness (menus over typed commands) and filters for video and audio to mimic the old hardware - and not the actual emulation - then I will stick with DOSBox! 😀 Typing in the proper commands to start the right game is easy. And for my father, I have this process automated. I wrote a Python script for him that opens DOSBox, fills in the right parameters, navigates to the right folder, opens Defender of the Crown and goes to full-screen mode. 🙂
You can use a visual configuration tool for DOSBox Staging which makes it much easier to use. You can find it on their official GitHub page: github.com/4nt1r14d/DOSBox-Staging-VCT And use the best DOSBox fork easily.
It’s insane how easy Dosbox-x is but the Staging guys make things needlessly convoluted. I mean it’s not hard but it’s wasting so much time for no reason, the frustrating thing is how stubborn they are. I mean even the context menu for Staging is gimped and barely works.
A few years ago, I bought an old Pentium 90 machine from a computer store... they tried to sell me a 633mhz machine, but I was like "way too fast for what I want to do"... so he rooted around and found this old machine. It was 20 bucks. Got a sound card for another 10. Went on ebay and bought an MT-32 for $55 bucks.. it was a great experience. I gave the MT-32 away to someone who I thought was a friend and the douchebag turned right around and sold it on ebay for $300. Needless to say, we are not friends any more.
I thought for sure you would be showing the new king of playing old games called PCem, you can go all the way up to a Pentium2 with Voodoo3 in it! Can you please produce a video about trying it yourself and show others how to use it would be a great fit on your channel.
The thing that I hate about DOSBOX is that the key combination to release the mouse is right next to the combo to kill the program. I can't count how many times I've killed everything because I wanted to use the mouse in the host again.
7:25 I think that's a 70Hz/60Hz sync issue. It's designed for 70Hz and has to throw away one frame every 7 to get down to 60fps. Or something like that.
@@kumbah2006 PC video modes are full of odd numbers. The standard VGA 400 line modes are 70Hz. 480 line modes are 60Hz. 75Hz isn't until you get into VESA modes. But 70Hz is the rate for 320x200 as well; and it's the reason that DOOM, for example has a 35Hz system timer.
You're welcome! Yeah the original DOSBOX is fine and its still the foundation of these projects. However, I'm really liking Staging the more I mess with it, the scaling and the filters it chooses in auto mode look great most of the time.
Agreed - I've seen people on YT making vids about it, but haven't watched any of them yet. Been busy watching retro vids, and stuff about "tiny homes". :)
@@DOSStorm yeah when I arrived, some dude had asked some questions and although they had been talking (it appeared that this one dude gave really vague answers to his questions) and that dude got kind of fed up and said "just f-ing install windows yourself like I told you to, it's not hard." 🤦♂
one problem is if you have over 200 dos games and you don't know what to play at any given time. thus you would need a gui to make all this work. now you could use a front end but where is the fun in that lol. good vid.
It was so weird to me that DOSBOX is seen "intimidating" to *anyone* who wants to play old DOS games. Then I realised that some of those people are ones who are too young to have used DOS when it was current tech and who are just into retro.
@@GodzillasaurusJr Exactly! I didn't make this video for the DOS warriors of old or people like myself who grew up using this stuff. I made it to help some new ones get into playing some games and using a few programs. DOS is a fun and underappreciated platform that I think younger ones should be able to enjoy as well.
Thoughts of configuring mscdex and drivers just makes me nauseous.
@@SixOThreeI still recall having to make a special floppy disk for booting so that I could play Ultima VII, since it had a weird memory manager, you couldn’t just use a typical dos disk or the Win9x dos mode… good times!
i never used this craapy system called Dos except scholl thank good i have amiga
@@moskic153 Buddy, the 90s called. Rivalries are over.
Staging maintainer here. Thanks for mentioning Staging in your video. I'd just like to point out that people should really start using per-game configs and leave the primary global config alone for the most part. This and a lot more is explained in detail in the Getting Started guide available on our website.
Of course, if you originally played games on DOS, you probably won't be intimidated by the command line.
I am, and I owned a 286 in the early 90s. Knew all of the commands by heart.
Couldn't be arsed to remember all that and do it today. Windows point and click stuff just took over all that brain space after 30 years.
@@RageyRage82I still remember the command to format a floppy in my Commodore 1541
Wow... Literally he just recommended forks of dosbox...
The only thing better than DOSBOX is forking DOSBOX.
Fair enough. The forks do add some nice improvements though, which I was trying to share.
It would have been interesting if you had also explored alternatives to DOSBox alongside the DOSBox forks.
The title is a bit clickbait but the young lad gave a good basic explanation of DOSBox forks. In my opinion, this video needs a boost with some explanation of the technical difference between the original one and its forks. It would be interesting.
@@blahdelablah
I would like to see a video of games and other software running on an emulated DOS on a real or virtual OS, or ran on FreeDOS.
86box is the way to go anymore, especially if you want FM sound support that isn't just yamaha emulation. They recently added ESS support, and i'm glad we finally have another FM alternative. ESS FM can sound drastically different in some games or playing midi under dos with midier.
I actually never got into DOS gaming. I didn't get into Windows gaming, either. My use of DOS was mainly at school in computer programming class back in the mid to late 90s. The teacher we had absolutely REFUSED to put Windows on the machines. He wouldn't even allow us to use mice. I guess he thought that Windows and GUI in general would just never take off. When I did get into modern computing in 2000, I hardly ever used DOS. Windows was just far more intuitive to use. When Windows 2000 reached EOL, I just switched to Linux. I mainly used DOS for running a Color Computer 2 emulator and to write and run some DOS based multimedia tools I created. I stopped creating software as I just wanted to work with multimedia.
Interesting story. Makes you wonder how that teacher adapted over time when GUIs became the norm.
@@DOSStorm Up until at least Windows 98 you could set the system to just give you a DOS prompt automatically. Of the top of my head, I can't recall if that was the case with XP or not.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade XP doesn't really have DOS at all. You can run DOS programs but there really isn't a real DOS mode or sound support without VDMsound.
You jumped ship at the right time !
I had started toying with Linux, but couldn't fully leave due to some projects
that I was working on. I was also in several beta tests for MS Windows.
Had to stay, but I learned a lot, and sent them plenty of feedback ! :)
DOSBox Staging is used by the new update to the DOOM classic collection on Steam.
dosbox pure is another nice one that makes it easy to play dos games with only a controller. directories are interactive menus and you can just select the install or executable with no keyboard required. you can change options in the quick menu like the processor speed but most games are preconfigured to work great even with premade input layouts for a controller. perfect for a lot of games that don't need a lot of text input. it is a retroarch core which i know for some is a dealbreaker but it's been super nice to use in my experience. also you get access to the nice shaders like mega bezel that retroarch includes. the other nice aspect is retroarch can be easily loaded on phones and then you have an easy to use dosbox right on your phone that can even run windows 98.
Do you play in DOSBox with DualShock 2 Sense?
Take a sip of vodka every time he says Dosbox
That sounds like a hangover waiting to happen. 🤣
I thought about the same thing, but with whisky instead. Vodka is bad for your liver.
@@HeathenDance okay fine, but if you want to drink whiskey it has to be Scottish whiskey
@@SteveMacSticky Agreed. And aged.
@@SteveMacSticky, whiskey is Irish, whisky's Scottish, or so I was said... ))
I loved hearing the music from Descent briefings in the intro!
Me too. It promptly brought fond memories of when I played Descent for the first time ever, on a borrowed Compaq already running Win95. Descent - Destination Saturn ❤
"Stop using DOSBox 0.74-3, use it's forks instead!"
In Windows 10/11 and DOSBox 0.74-3 it's "overlay" output that's causing problems (e.g. crashes).
To fix this, find DOSBox configuration file with ".conf" extension and open it with Notepad.
Find in [sdl] section:
output=overlay
Replace it with:
output=openglnb
It's worth trying. If it doesn't work, switch to DOSBox Staging.
Oh my God, thank you so much. I'm totally inept at typing command codes but using dosbox-x helped me sooo much. I was able to mount the iso and now I'm playing Tale of Orpheo's Curse and feeling like a kid again!
For me, I used DOS in middle school and high school and we were just starting to get Windows when I was in high school. Our school was slightly behind the times and there was one teacher that had 3.1 and later upgraded to 95 before the school got computers running NT3.51. It was my experience with Windows at that point in time why I moved to Linux. Although, I still play a lot of games that only run for me if I use WINE or DOSBox. The first computer class I took in middle school taught us how to do low-level formatting of your hard drive, something which you can't even do now. However, learning how to bypass that DOS menu program to get at QBasic and play Nibbles and Gorilla certainly inspired my career path.
How does Dosbox X work with getting the "speed" for individual games correct? Do you have to do trial and error to get it right for each game?
No differently than other flavors of dosbox. It's just a better dosbox.
It defaults to "auto" just like the original DOSbox which works fine 90% of the time. The cycles can be adjusted on the fly with F11+= and F11+- or there is a menu that gives you the option to adjust the cycles to match specific CPUs like the 286, 386, Pentium etc.
@@DOSStormthank you. I will give it a try.
in my experience it doesn't really do it at all for speed sensitive software anyway - but dosbox-x does have ui options for specific processors/speeds that makes it easier to quickly get to a speed you need rather than fudging with cycles until you ballpark it. (best used before loading the process).
@@Elektribe The only cycle-accurate emulator for 4.77 MHz games today is MartyPC. I use dosbox-x for anything from the 386+ era.
Using EXODOS is my choice for playing DOS games these days. All games pre-configured for your playing pleasure.
I'm not sure which beard was supposed to be the joke, so I laughed at both of them.
@@danfay6201 Fair enough. XD
i use d-fend reloaded. it comes with dosbox and allows for using a seperately available dosbox version
Outside of Dosbox and its forks, try to have a look, whether a proper source port exists for the game you want to play. You would be surprised by how many old games can be played natively on modern hardware with lots of QoL improvements thanks to the source ports created by the dedicated community - almost all the major game engines from 1990s have received some kind of modern source port. Many games that you know from DOS also had competent Windows versions (Wine is your friend...) or even console ports - this can be especially helpful when looking for ways how to play them on a mobile device.
Oh, ya mean by "source ports", perhaps LZ-Doom, etc?
I've seen a source port for System Shock, but I didn't find any setup instructions, and couldn't get it working.
On the other hand:
LZ-Doom is quite a different story - Doom is just plain awesome being played using that !
the cgi on your beard is oscar worthy
Hehe its actually not CGI, its just a really horrible costume beard I found on ebay.
I usually spin up a pcEm, seems more realistic, loading times included but I will check out the other forks. :)
You found a solution to the Commander Keen video stutter! Last time the game ran smoothly was 6.22. ❤
That took me back seeing Commander Keen, Jazz Jackrabbit and Descent
It's a lot better 86Box (fork of PCem), where you can build up your PC or take a branded one, and then try Aladdin on both and see difference
0:54 That is not true. Lots of commits have been made to the DOSBox SVN but they just have not made any official release.
You're correct, most of the official releases have been security updates as of late but the project is still active.
The fact that "SVN" is even being mentioned is testament to the fact that the project must be pretty dead in 2024.
It is still an intensely lazy, crap team working on it for how many DECADES now?
And we're still in version .74? I guess everyone needed to get their cats married first :P
@@Makeshift_Mulder Wow, what a rude thing to say about the hard work of some open source developers. You do realize those people have been developing DOSBox on their free time without any compensation?
@@Makeshift_Mulder Time to fork the project and not be lazy then?
Tried DosBox-X, and I don't like the IDE (using batch files is faster, and I'm old enough to know what I'm doing :P).
I found that it has issues with PIT timer in all versions I've tried, rendering sound in many older games choppy, including a hobby retro-project of mine.
Thanks for the shout-out on DosBox Staging - I've never heard of it before. So far no issues, and I'm testing it with unusual code.
Yeah I've found Staging to be optimized really well for most games. I think it is my goto solution for emulation at the moment.
Well, I actually like using configuration files. It's easy way of controlling and to have a backup.
DOSBOX X is great as it simplifies a lot, 86box with good RESHADE CRT filters like Mdapt (checkerboard DE-dithering for real translucency ) 95% of the time is my choice as the accuracy almost perfect making PCemu broken feeling. it also taught me how hard some of those older IBM DOS systems were to use like getting a the IBM PS/1 which is the only system to run Silpheed 3.2 correctly was a pain in the buutah but the victory so great feeling. also I'm a VGM remix artist and have tons of modules like a Yamaha MU2000ex and i can tell the sound in DOSBox/X is off less so in PCemu but unnoticeable in 86box especially sound emulation like a OPL3 card
I've been hearing a lot about 86box and I would like to give it a go sometime. I've used PCemu a bit in the past.
Have you tried any of the other OPL3 emu options in DOSBOX-X? I find the NUKED mode to sound pretty accurate
@@DOSStorm yea the nuked settings are almost identical in all those emulators most likely i noticed it because i do VGM remixes that contain FM layers (OPL3,OPn2,OPNA and my DX7IIFD) and mix my instruments down to the decimal including layering work so my hearings on steroids but 98% of people wouldn't notice.
(my apologies as this is gonna be messy) i did an experiment once sending midi sequences to the DX7IIFD and recording, then i sent the same sequences through those emulators and the OPL3, OPNA and OPN2 VST's ADLplug and OPNplug which all use the same cores including nuked 3 times, the results were all the emulators always desynced at some point in the tune with 86box the least and DOSBox-x the most every time but with ADLplug and OPNplug desyncing 1 out of 3 or 4 times - layering perfectly with each other and the DX7IIFD when things went right. so my guess is it's not the OPL3 emulation itself but how the the virtual machine handles it
I started using DosBox-X awhile ago on my old Dual Core Acer laptop, loaded Quikmenu software on then added shortcuts of my collection for easier access... totally happy so far with no probs 😁👍
DOSBox-Pure on RetroArch blows all this away. You can drop a Zip in like a ROM for most games and even play up to Windows 98 SE games on it while also being able to map commands to a controller if you don't like keyboard and mouse as much while being able to run it on pretty much any device that can do RetroArch on it. I often hear DOSBox-X is one of the better forks, but once I used Pure, I never went back
Staging soldme on the scaling, to be honest. It just looks tasteful, like you said.
How I actually do it is having a shortcut for each game so it loads the relevant .conf file. Takes a bit more time to set up but keeps things organized, and I don't have to worry about running out of save-state slots as I would with the Dosbox-X method.
I also tried Dosbox ECE in the past, but it didn't really grab me.
keen 4 does the same to me in dosbox-x, there is some ega setting you have to change in the config. tyrian also causes me issues in dosbox-x but runs perfectly under staging. i've pretty much switched over to staging completely now!
You can capture game footage in DOSBOX- X. I've used it for retro emulators such as Speccy and C64, less joypad support. You can tweak the cpu cycles as well for problematic games and files in Speccy that require 60 htz.
Great video. Not new to me, but you did a good job telling your viewers about DOS options in 2024.
Does DOSBOX-X or DOSBOX Staging have festures to creates images? I‘ve been meaning to put Sims 1 in a DOSBOX container for better compatibility. And i believe this could help get Daria‘s Sick Sad World Planner to run on modern hardware as well as Visual Basic 6.
Sims 1 isn't a DOS game.
@@KILRtv She's been meaning to do it for better compatibility, let her try XD
@@SxGaming3390 , plot twist... it works.
DosBox-X also ships with TONS of enhancement systems you would have to strap on with a loader or install into your dos image, along with menu commands to execute them.
However, there are two common options you are failing to mention:
MAME/MESS PC-Emulation: This is substantially more accurate, and lets you configure a nice virtual retro machine with your choice of retro hardware. However, it is full-on software emulation and unless you use a default system config, you need to edit a lot of config files by hand. That last one is sometimes a plus for us Penguins.
QEmu or other Virtualization option: Much faster, highly efficient, can emulate a standard system widely supported by DOS, and adjust both memory space and processing speed to the appropriate era. However, speed scaling is simple scheduler based and doesn't consider how some instructions used to have longer cycles on older systems.
Years ago I used to administer a bunch of pbx's. The software ran on DOS which meant remote control was impossible. I tried running it on windows xp with dosbox and it worked perfectly. Suddenly I had remote ability on all of my phone systems. Just awesome
Didn't Lap-Link and various other software exist by about the last few years of DOS?
Lap-Link was possible to run copying/backup software - and there are probably others I've already forgotten. Thought I'd mention it. :)
Edited: typos
If only someone would combine DosBox-X and Staging.
A menu in Staging would be awesome especially for trying different shaders and scaling modes.
Many of the features of DOSBox-X DOSBox Daum already had roughly 10 years ago. Sadly the dev stopped developing it in 2015. Really need to update my front end setup as it seems to be a good time to move from DAUM to something more recent that is in active development.
Can one use WinLater on an Android device to run one of these Dosbox forks to run 32 bit extended DOS and 16 bit DOS games?
I am on an Android tablet with a DosBox app installed, but i am not a DOS gamer.
I use DosBox only for programming tiny executable files for DOS just for fun using batch files as open source container and debug (download&extract into the mouned folder).
I never try to use a browser to run x86 executable files, but i used the official DosBox version on Windows til my PC died. Now i am on ARM CPU(no FPU) and the emulation of 80386/80387 CPU/FPU works great. I am familar with x86 CPU, but not with the ARM CPU.
I made some videos(no speech) to show how it works and to share my projects. Have Fun.😊
0:58 I have that same spiral plasma lamp
Any plans to write a x64 OS lately? Are you trying to be the next Terry Davis?
I really like dosBOX Staging because of scaling and aspect ratio options. Unfortunately all games i tried are jerky and slightly choppy with animation, i don't know how to fix it. I've tried both openGL and ddraw as rendering options, but no effect. They play buttery smooth on regular dosBOX though...
Hello. Can you make video about 86box? I heard it can emulate any old machine "486dx2/66, 4mb ram, 400mb hdd" etc. which sounds awesome
@@adam-xt8te Definitely a possibility in the future! I still need to actually try it out myself.
What is the name of the game at 0:58? Please tell me, i think its lost game from my childhood.
Stargunner by Apogee.
@@DOSStorm Thank you very much!
Hello DOS Storm!!! Please, what would you recommend for emulating dos games under Android please?
Have you ever done a tutorial on how to open a CMD and only use one core?
Yes, I knew most of these features. There was a time that computer owners got used to read manuals if they had to get something up and running.
A little due diligence never hurt anyone. 👍
I predominantly use dosbox-x but to say it's better in every way is false. There are graphical problems with dosbox-x that aren't present in dosbox which have existed for quite some time and there's a handful of other things like dosbox-x's inability to stay maximized when focus lost that doesn't happen in dosbox itself - useful for running old desktop on multi-monitor. But there are improved filter usage and various fixes that are also good on dosbox-x as well as some good built in things like ethernet, voodoo support, and some nice mouse copy/paste options. But it's imperfect in many ways even with improved features. Also, sometimes mounting isos is kinda buggy in dosbox, I've had some crash the application outright when using it - but mounting the iso externally using another program as a drive then mounting a drive and letting the other softwarw emulate the drive worked on the same iso for me - so that's also useful.
Also, no the commander keen jitter issue can be issue in dosbox-x depending on the settings for the machine, I had that as wel. I believe it had to do with setting the basic S3 machine settings instead of utilizing the improved options. You can always try testing what option it is when you have it if your config is actually saved by backing up the config first then deleting half the config file and seeing if it works and continuing to cut in half until your left with the problem setting letting it default to minimum.
Also, depending on hardware running PCem might be a better options too.
Another great how to video. Thank you for doing these.
My pleasure. As long as there is an audience I will continue to do my thing. 🙂
@@DOSStorm You might want to post on at least one other platform, just in case.
UA-cam managed to block many people's computers, since so many of us use
an ad-blocker that's no longer supported (on our browsers).
I've got the more advanced machine than my GF, but I bought it 4 years ago, when I actually had a bit more "green".
Am not swimming in as much money now, so am looking for an upgrade
to her Chromebook - that preferably runs Linux, and I think I've found an
i5 based HP (on eBay) that might just do the trick.
Got 2 keep her in the game as best I can, with limited resources! :)
Edit: Vimeo might be one of them. :)
In 1995 it took litrally all night to install and play a game. Hexen and Doom were already on from floppy disc, but Firestorm Thunderhawk 2 dam!!! Most games were still using dos aswell, but managed to master it in the end lol
I get this is aimed for easy use, but have you considered making a video using PCem/86Box for the real deal? Not easier, but way more powerful and flexible than any DosBox branch!
Well, im 55, i used those early PC 286-386 computers, im not too good at DOS commands but i remember some, using DOSBOX was kinda a pain at first but you get by, i was glad DOSBOX-X came out, it made easier to run old DOS games.
I wish to have a DOS emulator app with an intel x64 bit CPU on android that starts in 16 bit mode with a Geforce 4 VBE 3 graphic bios. The svga-S3 emulation have only a few resolutions and a mixture of VBE 1 / VBE 2 bios. In my last DOS programm on a PC with a Radeon 9750 PCIe on 28" LCD monitor i used 1920x1200x32 wide screen 16: 10 aspect ration in MS DOS.
But *how* do you setup dosbox-x for windows? It redirects me to a github page and then I don't know what to do.
Use the link on the DOSbox-X page for ReactOS/XP+.
you've never heard of norton commander-volkov commander-dos navigator? who need comand line??? do you like it when you hurt? :)
DOSBox-X is just perfect. Very accurat emulation of anything you would want (like using the genuine MT-32 partials) and very easy to use. Can't get much better.
Staging with CRT filters seems like the way to go.
Dude we need a video on how to make dosbox play games straight off the disc
You can. Just select "mount folder as CD-ROM" and select the drive.
The best part of DOS are the commands in command line that the Beauty of the tripp Back to the pass
Descent 1 briefing music in the background? )))
Nice touch, bc intro is like briefing itself )
Dear Dos Friend. I have a question. Is it a way that I can run a 32bit program in a 64bit Windows machine using DosBox ?
Like a program with a 32/DOS extender? It should work in DOSbox if it is a DOS program.
@@DOSStorm Its a Cobol compiled ERP system.
Quite interesting! However, you forgot the fact you can run PC-98 programs on DOSBOX-X, so you can play the old Touhou games for exemple.
Technically PC-98 could also be considered "DOS gaming" as well imo.
I have one problem: I want to set this up on Steam Deck, but on Linux it only exists as a flatpak application. I've tried to add it to Emu Deck, but it requires a config file. But I can't find any config files, because I can't find where the emulator is installed into, because I can't find any info on where the files are installed, including inside the emulator itself. I tried to search for a walkthrough on how to set up Dosbox-X on Steam Deck, but surprisingly I found nothing! Why won't anyone tell me how to setup Dosbox-X on Linux? I'm not a Linux guru, you know!
Does anyone know what's the game running at the beginning? Looks sick, thanks!
That is Stargunner! It was Apogee's last game before they switched thier name to 3D Realms. It's free on GoG these days.
Thanks! I've claimed it on GoG but never played it, shame on me.
Using command line and actually building and tweaking a pc is part of the gaming experience. All the emulators etc are garbage. Same as listening to a vinyl record playing on youtube. You can buy any obsolete pc and install dos on it...doesnt need to be a real 90s retro machine. Could be a pentium 4 or athlon xp..those are a dime a dozen...can have sata hard drives, dual boot with xp on separate partitions so you can download the games then reboot to dos and play them
If the only improvements are in user-friendliness (menus over typed commands) and filters for video and audio to mimic the old hardware - and not the actual emulation - then I will stick with DOSBox! 😀
Typing in the proper commands to start the right game is easy. And for my father, I have this process automated. I wrote a Python script for him that opens DOSBox, fills in the right parameters, navigates to the right folder, opens Defender of the Crown and goes to full-screen mode. 🙂
The actual sound emulation is quite a bit better in staging, but yeah nothing wrong with the original DOSbox as well.
You haven't experienced true DOS music until you've tried Darklands in Roland mode using one of the newer forks such as Staging...
It was interesting to learn of the newer features.
What's the shoot 'em up 1 minute into the video? Looks cool...
@@RGG-fp4dt Stargunner by Apogee
What is that word processor with the supporters on the CRT screen at the end?
It's The Children's Writing & Publishing Center by the Learning Company.
You can use a visual configuration tool for DOSBox Staging which makes it much easier to use. You can find it on their official GitHub page:
github.com/4nt1r14d/DOSBox-Staging-VCT
And use the best DOSBox fork easily.
Good stuff! Thank you for sharing.
It’s insane how easy Dosbox-x is but the Staging guys make things needlessly convoluted. I mean it’s not hard but it’s wasting so much time for no reason, the frustrating thing is how stubborn they are. I mean even the context menu for Staging is gimped and barely works.
Will this work with 3.5 inch floppy drive?
Sure, there is no reason you can't mount a real floppy drive.
the flatpak versions are a pain. they freeze whenever they should access the file system. not ok for a DISK operating system
A few years ago, I bought an old Pentium 90 machine from a computer store... they tried to sell me a 633mhz machine, but I was like "way too fast for what I want to do"... so he rooted around and found this old machine. It was 20 bucks. Got a sound card for another 10. Went on ebay and bought an MT-32 for $55 bucks.. it was a great experience. I gave the MT-32 away to someone who I thought was a friend and the douchebag turned right around and sold it on ebay for $300. Needless to say, we are not friends any more.
Can I instal and play DOS games which I have on CD, with the help of these programs?
Yes. He covers that 3:00 into the video. Couple ways to do it.
If it's a physical CD you can use the "mount folder as CD drive" option and just select the drive letter.
@@DOSStorm Thanks.
I thought for sure you would be showing the new king of playing old games called PCem, you can go all the way up to a Pentium2 with Voodoo3 in it! Can you please produce a video about trying it yourself and show others how to use it would be a great fit on your channel.
It has been requested A LOT. It's on my list of video projects for sure.
The thing that I hate about DOSBOX is that the key combination to release the mouse is right next to the combo to kill the program. I can't count how many times I've killed everything because I wanted to use the mouse in the host again.
I think you can change it to right ALT, but I might not remember that clearly enough.
Check your "manual" and see what it says about that, perhaps?
7:25 I think that's a 70Hz/60Hz sync issue. It's designed for 70Hz and has to throw away one frame every 7 to get down to 60fps. Or something like that.
Yeah most DOS games run at 70hz. You're probably right.
I thought it was 75 hz ? 70 is kind of an odd number. :)
@@kumbah2006 PC video modes are full of odd numbers. The standard VGA 400 line modes are 70Hz. 480 line modes are 60Hz. 75Hz isn't until you get into VESA modes. But 70Hz is the rate for 320x200 as well; and it's the reason that DOOM, for example has a 35Hz system timer.
When I double click on DOSBox X app nothing happens.
I need a new version of DOS-Box for Windows 98!
Maybe you can use the F8 key menu, and boot into 98's DOS itself?
Play the game, and then boot back into Win 98 when done.
08:38 What game is that?
What 's that underwater shmup at the beginning?
Yeah I had to look it up lol. Stargunner!
og dosbox doesnt really bother me, but these are still some cool alternatives i suppose, thank you for making this video!
You're welcome! Yeah the original DOSBOX is fine and its still the foundation of these projects. However, I'm really liking Staging the more I mess with it, the scaling and the filters it chooses in auto mode look great most of the time.
I like d-fend reloaded a lot, but sadly it doesn't run in linux.
How is a command line intimidating? It's so freeing in that you're not stuck to windows.
what game is that 0:56
If a DOS command line is too intimidating for you, I have some nice wooden block for you to play with.
upon joining the discord for dosbox-x, I found that the community is a mixture of inactive and somewhat hostile.
Never been on there....Good to know I guess.
Agreed - I've seen people on YT making vids about it, but haven't watched any of them yet.
Been busy watching retro vids, and stuff about "tiny homes". :)
@@DOSStorm yeah when I arrived, some dude had asked some questions and although they had been talking (it appeared that this one dude gave really vague answers to his questions) and that dude got kind of fed up and said "just f-ing install windows yourself like I told you to, it's not hard." 🤦♂
Does D-fend still exist?
D-fend reloaded.
wait are you pulling my leg... saying that when you run DOS, all you see is a "command line interface"...?! no way why would that be
And i thought it's the spirit which DOSBox wanted to transport, so people who used DOS don't feel it's too different... :)
Thing about the penguin is if you're using dosbox flatpack its sandboxed and you can't access your drives. Doh!
Yes you can if you use Flatseal
You start a DOS emulator and get a DOS prompt! how intimidating! 😂
one problem is if you have over 200 dos games and you don't know what to play at any given time. thus you would need a gui to make all this work. now you could use a front end but where is the fun in that lol. good vid.
D-Fend Reloaded is nice. I used that on Windows. Now that I've switched to Linux I use Lutris, but only have a handful of games set up with it.
I like to install DOS on 86Box and run DOS games on that.
What is the shmup showed in the intro 00:58 ?
@@claudiomet Stargunner
@@DOSStorm @claudiomet its free on steam
@@DOSStorm Thnx !!! 😄👍
Switched to DosBoxX way back in 2016 or so
interesting but according to me though Dos Box Pure(retroarch core) was even more easy to play dos games...
What game is that under water shmup???
It's StarGunner by Apogee.
@@DOSStorm thanks!!! Looks darn awesome
Say a prayer for us 48 years who didnt have google back then it was ask ur mate those days