DOSBOX

[sabre1]

How well does dosbox work? Is it worth the trouble to setup and use on old games? There was an old Holistic Design (Battles of Destiny) game that I enjoyed from time to time that is now a free download. I don't want to get into a configuration nightmare fiddling with a game that I will only play "very" occasionally. Thanks for the help.

[Terminus]

It works very well. The trouble will be finding a front end for it, so it'll be easy to configure. The best front end, DFEnd, has been discontinued.

[Zakhal]

I have used it for years now. Played through many old dos game with it. All you have to do is download&run it. Then mount the directory where the games is and you are ready to go.

[Mac67]

I had it downloaded a while back so i could play x-com:apocalyspe. My tolerance for fiddly computer things is pretty low, but after a couple of read throughs of the instructions I had it up and running. Amazing, since I was drunk at the time. I was using it on a pc running windows98, no idea how it works on any later versions.

[cragpider]

Hey sabre1, I've used this little beauty and I can say the new version is the best version for old DOS games, was able to play 40K Final Liberation with sound and all, Steel Panthers I and II, Avalon Hill's 1830, Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization, Command and Conquer first iteration, etc. and the instructions are pretty straight forward and are easy to follow even when you're drunk, LOL... And it works great on MS Windows XP.

[ravinhood]

I think it's very easy to use nothing more than mount c:\ <your main drive like c: > and mount d:\ <your main cdrom like d: > -t cdrom and that's it....how hard is that to do or comprehend? oh then&nbsp;press ALT + ENTER to get to full screen. I run a load of old DOS games through it now, the ones I can't figure out how to make XP run them anyways.

[sabre1]

Thanks everyone.

I did run into one problem. I started the download for "Battles of Destiny" and lo and behold, my Kapersky AV told me it had a trojan attached to it. So much for downloading that game. The website so you guys are aware of it is holistic-design.com.

[Mac67]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
I think it's very easy to use nothing more than mount c:\ <your main drive like c: > and mount d:\ <your main cdrom like d: > -t cdrom and that's it....how hard is that to do or comprehend?

Yeah, thats the bit that gets confusing when you are drunk [;)] Though maybe not for you old-timer,

[hadberz]

The best front-end is D-Fend Reloaded. http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

I think it's very easy to use nothing more than mount c:\ <your main drive like c: > and mount d:\ <your main cdrom like d: > -t cdrom and that's it....how hard is that to do or comprehend? oh then press ALT + ENTER to get to full screen. I run a load of old DOS games through it now, the ones I can't figure out how to make XP run them anyways.

And you can put all that into the end of the bat and thus start the dosbox&game with one shortcut click on your windows desktop.

[Krasny]

On the subject of X-Com Apocalypse, I have recently discovered UFO: Aftershock, which I was expecting to be so-so like it's predecessor, but is a compelling game in every respect.

AND runs fine in Windows XP.

AND version 1.2 comes WITHOUT Starforce.

[ilovestrategy]

This is good to know. You guys rock!

[Kuokkanen]

If you still have CRT monitor (I do), DOSBox can spare you from lots of headaches, for it makes game work with higher refresh rate. Two games I'm having problems with DOSBox and WinXP, are System Shock and MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. Frame rate of SS sucks and MW2:MERCS crashes after 2nd mission every time. New version might be some help... gotta remember do update.

[clark_x_zhang]

Hi Craig, May I ask how you were able to get the sound to work for Steel Panthers in dosbox? Thanks for your help, C

[wings7]

Clark, "cragpider" has not been written any messages since 2009, I don't have much experience with DOSBOX, but I'm sure someone will give you some help.

Patrick

[JamesM]

Have you tried D-Fend reloaded, can be difficult at first to learn, it incorporates dosbox with a much more functional front end.
http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/

[jamus34]

I managed to get the original Xcom running on it...you know the one where the time lapse is based on CPU cycles.

With a little reading up on the InterWebz I was able to get it up and running.

So it does work pretty well IMHO.

[sPzAbt653]

DFend has moved on to 'DOSBox Game Launcher'. If you have trouble with other DosBoxes, you may want to try this one - http://members.quicknet.nl/blankendaalr/dbgl/

[Riitaoja2]

I have been using DOSBox to play my old DOS games for several years now. The last official version has been 0.74 since 2010. That seems to work just fine for all the games I have played with it.

I am not using any third party frontend programs though. Just configuring DOSBox with Notepad seems to be enough.

In the DOSBox config file the most useful settings are in the end under the [autoexec] field.
Here I have input the path to my DOS C: drive and my computers CD/DVD drive like this:
mount c D:\DOSGAMES\
mount d E:\ -t cdrom -ioctl

So I have all my DOS games on the D: drive under \DOSGAMES\ -folder. And I mount it as the virtual C: drive for DOSBOX.
And ofcourse my computers CD/DVD drive letter is E: and for DOSBox I mount it as D:

That's all it really takes. To get to Full screen one can press "Alt Gr + Enter". Or if one likes DOSBox to always start in full screen one can edit the option in the beginning of the conficuration file under [sdl] as follows:
fullscreen=true

If a game runs too slow I press the keys Ctrl + F12 to speed up the emulation.
Or if it runs too fast Ctrl + F11 slows down the speed.
Most games however run with correct speed without the need to manualy change it.


You can also create a .bat file with the cycles command to automate the speed adjustemt for a particular game if you like.

For example for Steel Panthers 2 I have created a file START.BAT in the game directory that has the following in it:
cycles 60000
steel2
Running the game with this start.bat file automaticaly adjusts the cycles to 60000 which seems to be good for Steel Panthers 2. So I do not need to manualy press "Ctrl+F11" or "Ctrl+F12" to adjust the speed every time I run the game.

Most of the games will run at the correct speed under DosBox with the default "cycles auto" value. However for some games you may need to experiment to find the correct cycles value.


The README.TXT file that comes with DOSBox is definately recommended reading. It contains all the information you need to run the emulator the way you want.


P.S The DOSBox configuration file can be accessed from the Windows Start menu under:
->"All Programs"->DOSBox-0.74->Options

[wings7]

ORIGINAL: Riitaoja2

I have been using DOSBox to play my old DOS games for several years now. The last official version has been 0.74 since 2010. That seems to work just fine for all the games I have played with it.

I am not using any third party frontend programs though. Just configuring DOSBox with Notepad seems to be enough.

In the DOSBox config file the most useful settings are in the end under the [autoexec] field.
Here I have input the path to my DOS C: drive and my computers CD/DVD drive like this:
mount c D:\DOSGAMES\
mount d E:\ -t cdrom -ioctl

So I have all my DOS games on the D: drive under \DOSGAMES\ -folder. And I mount it as the virtual C: drive for DOSBOX.
And ofcourse my computers CD/DVD drive letter is E: and for DOSBox I mount it as D:

That's all it really takes. To get to Full screen one can press "Alt Gr + Enter". Or if one likes DOSBox to always start in full screen one can edit the option in the beginning of the conficuration file under [sdl] as follows:
fullscreen=true

If a game runs too slow I press the keys Ctrl + F12 to speed up the emulation.
Or if it runs too fast Ctrl + F11 slows down the speed.
Most games however run with correct speed without the need to manualy change it.


You can also create a .bat file with the cycles command to automate the speed adjustemt for a particular game if you like.

For example for Steel Panthers 2 I have created a file START.BAT in the game directory that has the following in it:
cycles 60000
steel2
Running the game with this start.bat file automaticaly adjusts the cycles to 60000 which seems to be good for Steel Panthers 2. So I do not need to manualy press "Ctrl+F11" or "Ctrl+F12" to adjust the speed every time I run the game.

Most of the games will run at the correct speed under DosBox with the default "cycles auto" value. However for some games you may need to experiment to find the correct cycles value.


The README.TXT file that comes with DOSBox is definately recommended reading. It contains all the information you need to run the emulator the way you want.


P.S The DOSBox configuration file can be accessed from the Windows Start menu under:
->"All Programs"->DOSBox-0.74->Options

Thanks for the info!