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!
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.
@@RageyRage82 Same. I was really handy with DOS at one point. THIRTY years ago. Not so much now. If there are ways to make this easier, I am all for it
Absolutely. And i still use it. A lot of those modern "remakes" feel like cheap copies made in the ass-end of nowhere (like Blood, for example), and the only way to play the real deal that plays and feels like the real deal - is DOSBox.
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.
Yeah, that's what I've been doing for years. And for games that are particularly config heavy, I make a dedicated launcher.bat for them to handle the configuration. Then again, I was around when "CP/M or DOS?" was a legit debate to be had.
Yeah, I'm using per-game configs with all of my games. Works great with the LaunchBox frontend. My only concern is, how compatible are DOSBox-Daum configs with the ones of Staging for example, in case I finally are happy with a new SVN and wanting to make the switch for countless games?
@@moomah5929 For the most part, any version of DOSBOX that supports a .conf file will use the settings provided, falling back on the global .conf if settings are missing. What I typically do nowadays is make a small startup.bat file that does any game-specific config, then have a .conf file that launches that and does *only* dosbox specific setup for that one game.
"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.
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 !
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 ! :)
Truth be told, MS-DOS was the only Microsoft OS that worked 100% of the time. There was no maybe or some questionable grey area. Things were either made to work - and worked there, or they weren't made for it and thus didn't. No glitches or weird unexplained nonsense. All that pain in the neck started to appear very frequently only with the rise of Windows, and continues to besiege and plague the gaming world up to this very day. And the only sure-fire way to combat it - is to have multiple machines... The other thing is - mice worked in DOS too, and worked fairly well (especially in Doom) so maybe the teacher was a little under the rock...
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.
RetroArch core is great because that means running it via Steam is possible, and the entire point of using controller for me is playing games from the couch - my back thanks me! How do you put roms there though, each game a separate folder? Since there isn't a "rom" format for DOS games.
I wish they update DOSBox for rest of DOS games on Steam, right now most use very outdated emulator versions. I just renamed other sourceports to DOSBox.exe but it gets confusing when Steam moves or restores files.
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.
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!
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.
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 ❤
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).
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.
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
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'm going to be "that guy" and tell you all to not use save states to make booting your games easier. If there is any kind of memory corruption save states can and will keep that memory corruption alive. Instead get something like Dosbox Game Launcher and use it to configure and launch Dosbox-x. You can also turn off "close on complete" and use an empty .bat file to launch a command line. If that is too much trouble just save your current configuration and load it the next time you start Dosbox-x. I say this because I used save states in this way until a some memory corruption showed up in a Windows 3.11 install and it would crash on any game launch in Windows 3.11. The fix for my issue was easy, start with a clean Dosbox-x boot, launch Win3.11 then my game, and don't use save states as a shortcut.
Good point and you're not wrong, I don't think save states are always the best idea for some circumstances. It especially is probably not the greatest idea if programs are running especially something complex like Windows 3.1. If you just use it before programs run to recall things like mount commands I think its probably less likely to cause problems though.
When finally finishing Lands of Lore 2 in DOSBox like 26 years after buying it a few weeks ago, I actually tried DOSBox-X and had strange performance issues in the game, rendering it unplayable (like moving the mouse in the game slowed it down to a crawl). Also was quickly getting annoyed with the odd key combination choices for stuff like switching to full screen (what was wrong with ALT + ENTER?), so I went back to DOSBox-Daum. The latter offered lots of the bells and whistles of X 10 years ago and I find it odd when people do like X came up with many of these features. Save states aren't quite stable in Daum but I don't know if this got better with X.
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 tried DOSBOX-X with my own DOS developments and it crashes many times. Original DOSBOX runs perfect. DOSBOX is not intimidating for those of us who use real DOS
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.😊
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.
The Descent music comparison should have been of the same exact part of the soundtrack, otherwise we can't compare properly because the parts that we can hear are different. Other than that, nice video :)
DOSBox is an incredible program. The inner complexity, compatibility and speed are amazing, but I think most users just take that for granted though, especially since it's so easy to use. All of the DOS games I still play have fan-made Windows front-ends/engines now (Doom 1 and 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Carmageddon, etc), so I no longer use DOXBox, but I found it very useful in years gone by to play these classics, all thanks to the DOSBox' authors.
I tried all of these, and wound up on 86Box. It's not exactly user friendly, but for me the results were great, since you can literally create a PC of any spec to run on.
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!
@@DOSStorm You might want to post on at least one other platform, just in case. RUclips 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. :)
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
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.
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.
It varies from game to game. Some games will auto detect a sound blaster device other games you will need to run a setup program that comes packaged with the program. If you need to run a setup program you should be able to select Sound Blaster 16 with IRQ 7 and DMA 1. If you want to change what DOSBOX-X is emulating you can go to Main > Configuration Tool and click on "Sound Blaster".
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.
I've started gaming on the PC back in 1993 so DOS isn't new. Matter in fact, it's where I started playing on it. So, luckily for me, it's not much of intimidation. But having DOSbox does makes life easier.
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
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.
I encounter Joystick issues for flight simulatore. how can you balacne out the analogue joysticks which for example were necessay for privateer with a new USB joystick. is there a tutorial for how to configure a joystick?
Does the version of flight simulator you're running have a calibration tool? I would start there first. Are you using Windows? There is still a "game controllers" menu inside the Windows control panel that will let you calibrate the joysticks if they are a bit off. There are also some settings in DOSBOX-X for setting the joystick type that may help.
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 😁👍
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 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!
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!
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.
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.
I was playing Amiga games on both floppy and hard drives back in the early 1990s, but I decided to switch to PC because of Commodore going bust, and of course, Doom. But going from the Amiga's Workbench and self-booting floppy games to MS-DOS was like A STEP BACKWARDS, and it was a horrible time for me, and I missed the Amiga days already. But then everything got a bit better with Windows 95.
There was definitely a time when Amiga wiped the floor with DOS. Early DOS games look awful next to the Amiga versions(and sometimes even the C64) but the late DOS games started looking pretty good. It really is a shame the Amiga faded away, it was so ahead of its time in many ways.
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.
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.
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. 🙂
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.
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 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.
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
@@RageyRage82 Same. I was really handy with DOS at one point.
THIRTY years ago. Not so much now. If there are ways to make this easier, I am all for it
i always had a commander installed and until i was forced to use command line for work in 2018 i only ever used formatc to reinstall windows
Absolutely. And i still use it. A lot of those modern "remakes" feel like cheap copies made in the
ass-end of nowhere (like Blood, for example), and the only way to play the real deal that plays
and feels like the real deal - is DOSBox.
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.
So.. Is Staging faster for gaming than OG DOSBox, or not?
Yeah, that's what I've been doing for years. And for games that are particularly config heavy, I make a dedicated launcher.bat for them to handle the configuration.
Then again, I was around when "CP/M or DOS?" was a legit debate to be had.
Yeah, I'm using per-game configs with all of my games. Works great with the LaunchBox frontend. My only concern is, how compatible are DOSBox-Daum configs with the ones of Staging for example, in case I finally are happy with a new SVN and wanting to make the switch for countless games?
@@moomah5929 For the most part, any version of DOSBOX that supports a .conf file will use the settings provided, falling back on the global .conf if settings are missing.
What I typically do nowadays is make a small startup.bat file that does any game-specific config, then have a .conf file that launches that and does *only* dosbox specific setup for that one game.
"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.
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 !
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 ! :)
Truth be told, MS-DOS was the only Microsoft OS that worked 100% of the time. There was no maybe or some
questionable grey area. Things were either made to work - and worked there, or they weren't made for it and thus
didn't. No glitches or weird unexplained nonsense. All that pain in the neck started to appear very frequently only
with the rise of Windows, and continues to besiege and plague the gaming world up to this very day. And the only
sure-fire way to combat it - is to have multiple machines...
The other thing is - mice worked in DOS too, and worked fairly well (especially in Doom) so maybe the teacher was
a little under the rock...
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?
RetroArch core is great because that means running it via Steam is possible, and the entire point of using controller for me is playing games from the couch - my back thanks me! How do you put roms there though, each game a separate folder? Since there isn't a "rom" format for DOS games.
@@KasumiRINA zip files actually work really well
DOSBox Staging is used by the new update to the DOOM classic collection on Steam.
I wish they update DOSBox for rest of DOS games on Steam, right now most use very outdated emulator versions. I just renamed other sourceports to DOSBox.exe but it gets confusing when Steam moves or restores files.
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.
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!
That's what I switched to a while ago, in Linux and Windows 11. X is great, also possible to run Win98 on it lol, better than VBox for that purpose.
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?
i use d-fend reloaded. it comes with dosbox and allows for using a seperately available dosbox version
Me too, the file browser makes it much easier.
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.
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 ❤
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... ))
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.
I usually spin up a pcEm, seems more realistic, loading times included but I will check out the other forks. :)
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.
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
the cgi on your beard is oscar worthy
Hehe its actually not CGI, its just a really horrible costume beard I found on ebay.
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'm going to be "that guy" and tell you all to not use save states to make booting your games easier. If there is any kind of memory corruption save states can and will keep that memory corruption alive. Instead get something like Dosbox Game Launcher and use it to configure and launch Dosbox-x. You can also turn off "close on complete" and use an empty .bat file to launch a command line. If that is too much trouble just save your current configuration and load it the next time you start Dosbox-x. I say this because I used save states in this way until a some memory corruption showed up in a Windows 3.11 install and it would crash on any game launch in Windows 3.11. The fix for my issue was easy, start with a clean Dosbox-x boot, launch Win3.11 then my game, and don't use save states as a shortcut.
Good point and you're not wrong, I don't think save states are always the best idea for some circumstances. It especially is probably not the greatest idea if programs are running especially something complex like Windows 3.1. If you just use it before programs run to recall things like mount commands I think its probably less likely to cause problems though.
When finally finishing Lands of Lore 2 in DOSBox like 26 years after buying it a few weeks ago, I actually tried DOSBox-X and had strange performance issues in the game, rendering it unplayable (like moving the mouse in the game slowed it down to a crawl). Also was quickly getting annoyed with the odd key combination choices for stuff like switching to full screen (what was wrong with ALT + ENTER?), so I went back to DOSBox-Daum. The latter offered lots of the bells and whistles of X 10 years ago and I find it odd when people do like X came up with many of these features. Save states aren't quite stable in Daum but I don't know if this got better with X.
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'm not sure which beard was supposed to be the joke, so I laughed at both of them.
@@danfay6201 Fair enough. XD
I tried DOSBOX-X with my own DOS developments and it crashes many times. Original DOSBOX runs perfect. DOSBOX is not intimidating for those of us who use real DOS
Also get the branch with the CRT filters integrated for the real classic look
You found a solution to the Commander Keen video stutter! Last time the game ran smoothly was 6.22. ❤
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
what do you think of using 86Box? I mostly use it for DOS games and running old Windows versions
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?
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.
@@SxGaming3390 , plot twist... it works.
That took me back seeing Commander Keen, Jazz Jackrabbit and Descent
you've never heard of norton commander-volkov commander-dos navigator? who need comand line??? do you like it when you hurt? :)
The Descent music comparison should have been of the same exact part of the soundtrack, otherwise we can't compare properly because the parts that we can hear are different. Other than that, nice video :)
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!
DOSBox is an incredible program. The inner complexity, compatibility and speed are amazing, but I think most users just take that for granted though, especially since it's so easy to use.
All of the DOS games I still play have fan-made Windows front-ends/engines now (Doom 1 and 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Carmageddon, etc), so I no longer use DOXBox, but I found it very useful in years gone by to play these classics, all thanks to the DOSBox' authors.
I tried all of these, and wound up on 86Box. It's not exactly user friendly, but for me the results were great, since you can literally create a PC of any spec to run on.
Descent 1 briefing music in the background? )))
Nice touch, bc intro is like briefing itself )
08:38 What game is that?
I would also like to know 😂
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!
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.
RUclips 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. :)
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
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.
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.
Mate, if someone is playing with dos box surely they know how to use dir and cd command. Also your wall clock has stopped.
The clock is a faaaaaaaaaaake 🤣
Well, I actually like using configuration files. It's easy way of controlling and to have a backup.
Have you ever done a tutorial on how to open a CMD and only use one core?
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.
How do you get sound ? Or change it ?????
It varies from game to game. Some games will auto detect a sound blaster device other games you will need to run a setup program that comes packaged with the program. If you need to run a setup program you should be able to select Sound Blaster 16 with IRQ 7 and DMA 1.
If you want to change what DOSBOX-X is emulating you can go to Main > Configuration Tool and click on "Sound Blaster".
Great video, thanks! Never knew there are forks of DosBox project which are evolving.
If only someone would combine DosBox-X and Staging.
A menu in Staging would be awesome especially for trying different shaders and scaling modes.
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.
Great video. Not new to me, but you did a good job telling your viewers about DOS options in 2024.
I've started gaming on the PC back in 1993 so DOS isn't new. Matter in fact, it's where I started playing on it. So, luckily for me, it's not much of intimidation. But having DOSbox does makes life easier.
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
What game is that in the intro?
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.
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 encounter Joystick issues for flight simulatore. how can you balacne out the analogue joysticks which for example were necessay for privateer with a new USB joystick. is there a tutorial for how to configure a joystick?
Does the version of flight simulator you're running have a calibration tool? I would start there first. Are you using Windows? There is still a "game controllers" menu inside the Windows control panel that will let you calibrate the joysticks if they are a bit off. There are also some settings in DOSBOX-X for setting the joystick type that may help.
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 😁👍
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.
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+.
what game is that 0:56
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!
Staging with CRT filters seems like the way to go.
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.
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!
Yep, downloaded DOSBox-X, and never went back to the regular DOSBox...
Given that DosBox emulates stuff from the 80's and early 90's, I would hope that there wasn't much development left.
Suttering scrolling on early PCs is not an error, but authentic.
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.
Will this work with 3.5 inch floppy drive?
Sure, there is no reason you can't mount a real floppy drive.
Does D-fend still exist?
D-fend reloaded.
What is the shmup showed in the intro 00:58 ?
@@claudiomet Stargunner
@@DOSStorm @claudiomet its free on steam
@@DOSStorm Thnx !!! 😄👍
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 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.
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.
I was playing Amiga games on both floppy and hard drives back in the early 1990s, but I decided to switch to PC because of Commodore going bust, and of course, Doom. But going from the Amiga's Workbench and self-booting floppy games to MS-DOS was like A STEP BACKWARDS, and it was a horrible time for me, and I missed the Amiga days already. But then everything got a bit better with Windows 95.
There was definitely a time when Amiga wiped the floor with DOS. Early DOS games look awful next to the Amiga versions(and sometimes even the C64) but the late DOS games started looking pretty good. It really is a shame the Amiga faded away, it was so ahead of its time in many ways.
When I double click on DOSBox X app nothing happens.
What 's that underwater shmup at the beginning?
Yeah I had to look it up lol. Stargunner!
When i try too run setup from my image nothing happens
I like d-fend reloaded a lot, but sadly it doesn't run in linux.
Hello DOS Storm!!! Please, what would you recommend for emulating dos games under Android please?
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?
You haven't experienced true DOS music until you've tried Darklands in Roland mode using one of the newer forks such as Staging...
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.
Does anyone know what's the title of the game at 8:05?
Its called Mystic Towers.
@@DOSStorm Much appreciated.
@@the-deceiver355gooe game
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.
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.
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.
the flatpak versions are a pain. they freeze whenever they should access the file system. not ok for a DISK operating system
How is a command line intimidating? It's so freeing in that you're not stuck to windows.
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.
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.
What about ExoDos dude?
It was interesting to learn of the newer features.
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.
1:00 game name pls?