DOSBox FAQ

Compatibility

Q. Where can I learn about the compatibility of a specific game or application?

A. The DOSBox Wiki has two pages devoted to compatibility and configuration.

• Games
• Applications

You can also search the DOSBox community forums if you cannot find what you are looking for. If you can find the answer to your question, please help out the rest of the DOSBox community by writing an article about how you made your game or application work. Be sure to include the version of DOSBox you used.

Q. What if I cannot find any information about a specific game or application?

A. This might be a bit harder but you can try and find similar applications to the one your looking for. For instance, games produced by Sierra around the same time tend to use the same engine, and issues with one game can often be seen in other games. If your application is built on top of a larger platform like GWBasic, you can look for help by searching for that platform. If your trying to write an article about how you made your complex application work, try to reference the platform in your article so it can show up in search results for people trying to solve other issues.

Q. Does DOSBox support non QWERTY keyboard layouts and will it have the KEYB command?

A. It already does. Since 0.70

Q. How do you print out of the DOS Box? Can you use the program's print to a parallel or serial printer?

A. If your application can print to a file, you can redirect the file to a printer. On Windows at a command prompt or at the Run option, you can use

COPY /B [FILE NAME] LPT1

to send a file to a printer (connected or mapped to LPT1). If the application can print in Postscript format, utilities like Ghostscript/Ghostview can be used to send the file to the printer. Also, some custom builds of DOSBox have the ability to capture print data to a image. More information about this beta feature can be found at HAL9000's webpage

Performance

Q. My game/application runs slowly, how do I improve speed?

A. Increase cycles. Use core=dynamic. Try different output modes (e.g. output=overlay). Increase Frameskip. Disable unneeded components such as sound, mouse or joystick emulation. If all else fails, find a faster computer to run DOSBox on.

Also be sure to check the compatibility section of this FAQ as some game/applications are more trouble (or resource hogs) than others.

Q. The Sound/Music for my DOS game/application sounds terrible what can I do?

A. That's a complicated question since the noise/music you hear during a game will depend greatly on how it was programmed and the decisions the Sound developers made on the game. Still... there are a few tips that can be offered. Remember first to run the game's setup and select the appropriate sound card type. As of DOSBox 0.72, supported types are PC Speaker, Sound Blaster (most of the family), Adlib, Gravis Ultra Sound, General MIDI and MPU-401. The default configuration settings are to emulate a Sound Blaster 16 (used mostly for special effects) and General MIDI (used for music). For many games, these settings should provide the best sound and should be setup in the game, but can be adjusted in the dosbox.conf file (or a new conf file) should they not.

Gravis Ultrasound emulation is also supported and may deliver a superior sound for many products, but may require additional steps depending on the program. Keep in mind however that each piece of hardware has different capabilities and that gamers are STILL arguing about which is superior.

Also, game sound/music may have an impact on the speed at which the game/application runs and running DOSBox with limited resources may result in incomplete or 'choppy' sound being heard. (see previous question)

Usage

Q. My backslash key is mapped to ']' with DOSBox in Vista. Is there a workaround?

A. Press CTRL-F1 to enter the keymapper and select the backslash with your mouse. Press the DELETE button that will show up on your screen. Then press ADD to bind backslash to another key. Simply press an unused key to bind it to this. Press SAVE and then EXIT to return to the main screen.

Q. My cursor is trapped within the DOSBox window when I click inside. How do I get the cursor out?

A. DOSBox will capture your mouse when you click inside the display window (and you have autolock=true set in the Dosbox.conf). Simply press CTRL-F10 to release the mouse.