By Alec Meer on May 28th, 2009 at 5:05 pm.
It is impossible to overstate quite how much open source emulator DOSBox has done for PC gaming. Without the tireless efforts of its volunteer staff, vast tracts of PC gaming history would be all but lost to us and our fancy modern operating systems. Yeah, the likes of Steam and GoG may be keeping olden classics in print, but c’mon – they’re doing it for the money more than for the love. The guys, though – they’re bally heroes. Even those aforementioned download services occasionally hook their wares onto DOSBox to ensure maxi-compatibility. So, on behalf of the PC gaming community, I would like to award them the biggest invisible medal in the world for it. Perhaps more usefully, I can direct you to the DOSBox website, where a brand new version of this essential retro gaming tool has just become available.
There aren’t any really mammoth, sweeping changes (so you’re stuck with typing in command lines, unless you install one of the various GUI frontends doing the rounds), but there is a lot of under the hood tweakage to improve speed, stability and Vista support. Some of the games that previously proved beyond its miracle magic may now be supported, so it’s well worth checking in case you do have some old favourite you feared would be shelved forever. Also improved is the sometimes hit’n'miss CD-ROM detection, which should make life a little easier for some games. Oh, and there’s some new rendering modes if you’re into that sort of thing. Me, I’m a bit of a purist and don’t like graphics tweaks that noticeably alter the original look of a game, but some folk do love their smooth sprite edges.
It is, as it always has been and hopefully always shall be, available for free from DOSbox.com. Those handy frontends are also available from the download page, including the wonderfully-named (but sadly OSX-only) SirDOSalot – a title I’ve lately been adopting in various online games.
Thanks, DOSbox. ThOSbox. If you really want to show your thanks, you really should drop ‘em a donation – see the button top left of their front page. On an absolutely unrelated note, there’s also a very nice button underneath our own search box. Cough.
I’ve been using this to play Settlers 2 on my eeepc, on long train journeys. Much fun.
report
Amen to that. Thanks DOSbox team!
report
Indeed, bless you DOSbox team.
DOSbox has turned my netbook from a lovely piece of equipment for work into a treasure trove of gaming joy.
I’m a fan of D-Fend Reloaded as a GUI, it provides a neat Steam-like list of games which can be individually tweaked.
As to old games, I remain convinced a remake of Floor13 is in order, given the current increasingly BigBrother state of the UK… (I just need someone with Flash skills to get it put together…)
report
There are some dudes working on porting Dosbox to the Wii. Pretty neat idea if you ask me.
report
DOSbox made writing this practical.
The DBGL front-end makes it a complete doddle to configure. I still can’t get over the fact that you can play Origin’s later DOS games (like U8 and Pacific Strike) in a window with no tweaking config files.
report
It is indeed a great program, given an awful lot of old games a second wind. A lot of the games GoG sells just wouldn’t work if not for being wrapped up in DOSBox goodness.
report
Hear! Hear! I say we do as Alec suggests and head over there and drop them a couple of quid each! I think I owe them a pint for all their work and since it’s hard to send beer over the internet money will have to do.
report
I’m curious, are there any purists out there that still run the original DOS environment for their older games?
report
Been using it for a couple years now. They’ve helped me resurrect my beloved Ultima 7 in all it’s retro glory m/.
THANX DOSBox!
Oh yeah, being using “DBGL” too, grrrreat application.
One more thing, just for the record, the Steam versions of older id soft games like Commander Keen or Heretic use DOSBox also :)
report
@Brian: I guess you know Exult, right? It’s been a while since I played (with) it, but by all accounts it *improves* on the DOS Ultima VII experience.
report
Dune 2. Great game.
report
To celebrate I shall have another go at getting X-Com Apocalypse to work.
report
My only gripe with DOSBox isn’t so much a complaint about the software, but more rather the inherent inefficiency fo emulation.
My beefy dual-core processor that can make Crysis thunder along on Very High detail quite happily struggles to emulate a 640 x 480 SVGA image. I guess it’s because it can only really use one core.
report
Bless you Dosbox.
Blosbox
report
I <3 DOSBox !
report
I second that Hear Hear and I second the call for donations to these fine people. Thanks to them I was finally able to put to rest that 386 I had kept resuscitating just to play some of my older games in their proper environment every once in a while. I was one of those purists, but getting kit just started getting prohibitive to keep the dream alive.
I’ve never used a frontend for it though. The most I do to simplify my use is mount a directory as a hard drive. It’s one of my joys actually navigating back through the command prompt, though playing with batch files is a bit easier with notepad.
In fact, I think I’ll fire up Codename: ICEMAN right now. I’ve been in the mood for something adventury, yet retro, and that was always, I thought, a well put together game with some nice innovations, even if I didn’t have to kick all 4 tires before I got in my car.
report
Without DOSbox, I wouldn’t be able to play my old Sierra games, nor most of my GOG games.
These are truly wonderful people, and I say they should be given honourary Knighthoods! (or real ones, if they’re British.)
report
After Winamp and Firefox, DOSBox is always the first thing to get installed on a new system. Okay slight exaggeration but it’s always there amongst the first batch.
report
I am not a fan of nostalgia.. what ms-dos game is worth to install on my eepc? maybe this Planetscape Torment game? this Fallout 2 game? I sould ponder more about the question.
report
As a few have noted above, a lot of old DOS games on GoG and Steam wouldn’t even be available without DOSBox. Most notably, the Doom collection sold on Steam by id Software is DOSBox facilitated.
report
“I am not a fan of nostalgia.. what ms-dos game is worth to install on my eepc? maybe this Planetscape Torment game? this Fallout 2 game? I sould ponder more about the question.”
Neither of those are DOS games, so ponder on.
report
looooooove dos-box… recently re-played some classic Indiana Jones using it.
report
Hum Hum I did not even know there is an option to subscribe here.
I might just do it, 2 bucks…hmm ok you convinced me.
report
@Tei
Both of those games do not require DOXBOX to run, and run perfectly fine on windows XP with the correct patches. Try going a bit older than that.
report
This really is long overdue. They are indeed champions.
report
GRRRR what the hell?
“We were unable to verify your credit or debit card. To proceed with your purchase, please select a different payment method or add a different credit or debit card, then click Continue.”
I never ever had a problem paying for anything via paypal.I bought about 35 GOGs, 15 Steams, 10 Rapidshares, etc…
This is the first time.Any ideas?
report
@Dominic White – Sounds like a settings problem rather than a lack of hardware power, the inefficiency of emulation shouldn’t be a problem with modern PCs (compare the fact that PCs have been able to emulate the N64 perfectly smoothly for years). My laptop runs Dark Forces (pretty advanced as DOS games go) in Dosbox with no problems whatsoever, and it would certainly struggle with Crysis! Getting the right CPU cycles setting is often the trick, games will stutter if it’s too low or (oddly) too high.
report
It even emulates Gravis Ultrasound and high/truecolor (not sure about the latter but it runs 15bit/16bit ones anyway) video modes, they’re thinking about everything.
report
I wrote a beginners tutorial to DOSBox for my website… please check it out! http://game-central.org/2009/editorials/how-to-configure-use-dosbox/
report
Also Wine. The lovely software that brings windows games to Mac and Linux users.
report
Here, here it’s about time someone gave them a slap on the back, good job alex
report
Incidently i’d expect it’d be virtually impossible to run ms dos on a modern pc unless your into writing usb and pci express drivers
report
I played Blood, Prince of Persia and (the beginning of) System Shock in DOSBox.
Good times.
report
Good DOS Games – TIE Fighter and X-Wing (though you can get slightly more updated win95 versions), Wing Commander: Privateer, Strike Commander, UFO, Xcom TFTD, Daggerfall (sort of had a win 95 exe but it was even more unstable than the dos version), System Shock.. hmm.. loads more but those are off the top of my head.
report
Sword of the Samurai and Covert Action are the two games that first spring to mind, both are fantastic, with mixes of strategy, puzzle solving, and action! I <3 Sid Meier!
report
I wonder if these will continue to work once Windows 7 is out. Granted, I really don’t use Windows, but still…
report
Hells yes. DosBox = Win
Love those guys. *scurries off to play some XCom : UFO Defense*
report
@Vagabond
Did you nick my avatar!? How naughty!
@no
I am running Windows 7 RC and DosBox works like a charm. Quest for Glory Anthology +Qfg 2 remake + DosBox = Win
report
Yes indeed, several unending cheers for DOSBox.
And LewieP, are they really porting one to the wii?! That would indeed be awesome. Nintendo are going to have to offer support for USB harddrives to contain the universal excitement of retro PC shenanigans (forgive me if this already exists)
report
SirDOSAlot is wonderfully named but, doubtleslly, the very best of DOSBox approaches for OSX has to be Boxer: Create self-contained icons, with the image of the original box, with all the necessary files in them so when double-clicked they launch transparently.
Arguably, the only better option would be a DOSBox wrapper but I disagree. Once you wrap it’s hard to upgrade all the wrappers but Boxer can be updated and all the Boxer bundles benefit.
This also makes browsing collections of games a pure joy:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eduo/tags/boxer/
report
A hearty “hell yeah” from this happy DOSBox user as well. Without this fabulous bit of software wizardy I’d never have gotten to play my beloved Mechwarrior 2 games again.
These guys are LEGENDS.
report
@Tei: Syndicate!
@solar: I’d guess LewieP was referring to the homebrew version of DOSBox for the Wii. I can’t imagine Nintendo being down with the idea of something that could be a competitor to WiiWare if it were able to load games you already owned, and as far as selling DOS games wrapped in DOSBox via WiiWare, I don’t think many games would lend themselves to working without a keyboard, which would probably be a requirement for their customers.
report
I remember gaming on a DOS computer. Having to reboot to get the EMS the game needed and the correct IRQ settings so that you could get sound working without another piece of hardware conflicting and not working. I remember having to uninstall some of the big games (like Sim City 2000) to get enough space on my 512 MB hard-drive to install another game that I fancied playing.
Setting up DOSbox to work with these older games is about a million times simpler than getting the games to run on the OS and hardware they were designed for.
I’d love to get my hands on games like Terra Nova, and Dune 2 (The sprites in the DOSbox logo). I currently have it running an old share-ware game Slicks-n-Slide.
report
I grinned at the Look Around You reference.
Thanks, Alec.
Thalec.
report
@Thirith:
Yep, I’ve played with Exult, it does improve U7. But I really like that feeling of playing it exactly like the old times, with the old MIDI tunes, with blocky graphics, it’s pure nostalgia. :D
report
@Subject 706, nope. I added this myself. :P
A big Crusader fan? Check out my Crusader website: http://www.echosector.com. All I’m doing is advertising so far, heh. :\
report
I always liked the concept of DOSBox, but it’s missing one thing that almost every self-respecting platform emulator has: savestates.
Aged graphics and sound don’t bother me, but it seems like many of those ole games were brutal and unfair, and trial and error were the main way to accomplish anything. I’d give more of them a try if I had savestates to remedy that.
report
Dosbox is brilliant, and lets me use my old DOS games on my trusty linux laptop. With that and Wine I very rarely need Windows any more.
report
DOSbox is wonderful, but I’ve had more smiles from SCUMMVM, which you definitely can get on the Wii.
Hooray for community emulation projects!
report
Gooo DOSBox! *does dance*
report
I’m sure the Look Around You scientists have a box of DOS somewhere on that shelf of theirs.
report
…and of course, huge kudos to the DOSBox team! The dynamic core enhancement in 0.7 was just brilliant, and they just keep on trucking along making it even faster and better.
report
Dune2 via Dosbox… Woot. Perhaps even Dune too (see what I did there) and once again I can hear those lovely smugglers… “I have some ‘Crys’ for trade WHAT! at this price”
Ahh those were the days.
report
I got DOSBox purely to play Dune 2!
And MonkeyMonster, do you mean Krys? The fremen knives made out of sandworm teeth!? Hehe, I loved the original Dune – I’ll never forget the day I completed it.
report
Well Mr Butler… I was unsure (getting old, memory not so good) so used the mighty oracle of wikipedia who said… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crysknife
So shove that up your sandworm and make some spice :D
report
Yes, DOSBox is without a doubt the best thing since sliced bread. There are so many great DOS games out there worth discovering and playing for years to come. Even for those of us who think we’ve played ‘em all there’s always a new golden oldie waiting to be…*acquired*.
Yeah, the likes of Steam and GoG may be keeping olden classics in print, but c’mon – they’re doing it for the money more than for the love.
Actually, there does seem to be a fair amount lot of love involved in what GOG are doing, and if they are somehow managing to make money out of their frequently generous packages of retro treasures, so much the better…
report
Well that told me! My (probably not so old) memory was that it was with a K.
And wtf, http://wiki.dune2k.com/Krys_knife
But I think we’ll run with slightly more indepth ‘proper’ wiki.
report
I’ll join the DOSBox love-in!
report
Boxer (Mac only) + DOSBox for the win
report
@GibletHead2000, Settlers 2 got a spiffy re-release a few years ago. Updated graphics, identical gameplay.
report
It supports Master of Magic (and so do I!!!)
report
Hey now, little DOSBox, show them what to do….
report
It’s worth noting that the only reason these old games even show up on Steam is because of DOSBox. Even many recent commercial collections use DOSBox. Almost nothing else works anymore.
report
Some students opine that creating the custom classification essay can be simple, however I claim that the only distinguished research writing services will create the research papers of high quality.
report