Tutorial DOSBox + D.B.G.L.

[ntalaec]

Lástima que ni en el DOSBox original ni en casi ninguno de los forks han implementado la opción de montar en ZIP.

Si esa opción está disponible, la colección de juegos ocupa mucho menos, hay muchos menos archivos que almacenar y todos los cambios en configuración y partidas guardadas de los juegos se guardan en una carpeta aparte de la que es muy sencillo hacer backup. Además, para volver a la configuración inicial del juego, basta con borrar esa carpeta de backup.

[Neville]

Creo que sí se pueden montar ZIPs con DOSBox, pero ahora mismo no recuerdo el fork / opción. Me suena haber visto algo al respecto en DBGL o en D-Fend Reloaded, otro frontend que ya no se actualiza.

[ntalaec]

Con el DOSBox oficial no se puede. Sí que ha habido forks/SVN con los que se podía pero van muriendo, los van dejando de actualizar. Cambiar a uno que tenga soporte para ZIP implica que antes o después te quedas con una versión obsoleta de DOSBox.

[Neville]

Pues vaya gracia. Espero que cuaje esto del DOSBox Pure sin necesidad de RetroArch.

[Grondoval]

Hombre, por fín traen DOSBox Pure a sistemas operativos fuera de Retroarch! Me parece un gran competidor para DOSBox-X y toda competencia es buena!

Preguntabais lo de montar ZIP, es una de las primeras funcionalidades de dicho DOSBox! Aquí os dejo todo lo que hace!

Spoiler (click para mostrar/ocultar)

Features
Load Games from ZIP

DOSBox Pure can load games directly from ZIP files without the need to extract them.
Store Modifications in Separate Save File

Changes made to a loaded ZIP file will be stored as a separate ZIP file into the libretro saves directory.
If a game is loaded directly without using a container like ZIP or ISO the saves directory is not used.
Mount Disk Images from Inside ZIP Files

CD images (ISO or CUE) and floppy disk images (IMG/IMA/VHD/JRC/TC) can be mounted directly from inside ZIP files.
The system will automatically mount the first found disk image as the A: or D: drive.
Additional disks can be loaded or swapped by using the Disc Control menu in RetroArch.
The start menu also offers the option to mount or unmount an image.
Start Menu

Start Menu

This is the first screen that appears after loading a game. It offers a gamepad controllable list with all executable files of the loaded game. In addition it can swap which floppy disk or CD is inserted.

By using the tabs at the bottom, you can view the Gamepad Mapper and while a game is running access the On-Screen Keyboard.

While a game is running, you can open the menu again by pressing L3 on the retropad (usually by pushing in the left analog stick).
Auto Start

While in the start menu, you can press right to set an item as the default which will skip the menu the next time the same content is loaded. By pressing right multiple times, a number of frames can be specified that will automatically be skipped on start. This can be used to skip over loading screens or start-up sequences.
If there is only a single choice, the menu will not show and directly run the only executable file.
To force the menu to be shown, hold shift on the keyboard or L2 or R2 on the gamepad while selecting Restart in the core menu. You can also always view the start menu by pressing L on the On-Screen Keyboard.
On-Screen Keyboard

On-Screen Keyboard

By pressing L3 on the gamepad (usually by pushing in the left analog stick) the menu will open. Then you can use the L and R buttons to switch to the On-screen keyboard tab. It is also possible to use the Input > Use L3 Button to Show Menu option to default to the keyboard when first pressing L3. The cursor on the On-screen keyboard can be controlled with the controller (or mouse or keyboard) and L2/R2 will speed up or slow down the cursor speed.
If the cursor is moved above the middle of the screen, the keyboard will move to the top. The L3 button can be changed with the Gamepad mapper and there is also a core option to remove it.
Automated Controller Mappings

When a game is loaded, DOSBox Pure will try to detect the game and apply a controller mapping.
To see the applied mapping, check Controller Port 1 under the "Controller Mapper" tab of the start menu. It will show Mapping: <GAMENAME>. Additionally you can set the core option Input > Advanced > Automatic Game Pad Mappings to Enable with notification on game detection.
Mouse Emulation

Under the "Controller Mapper" screen in the start menu there are 2 mouse emulation modes available by switching the Preset setting of any port. There is Mouse with Left Analog Stick and Mouse with Right Analog Stick.
When choosing "left stick", the face buttons (B/A) will be used as left/right mouse buttons.
For the right stick the shoulder buttons L/R will be used as left/right mouse buttons.
The X button is the middle mouse button and L2/R2 can be used to speed up or slow down mouse movement.
There is also the core option Input > Mouse Sensitivity to increase/decrease mouse movement speed.

The behavior of a real mouse or touch screen can be controlled by the Input > Mouse Input Mode option.

    Virtual mouse movement (best used when the frontend grabs the mouse input)
    Direct controlled mouse (not supported by all games)
    Touchpad mode (drag to move, tap to click, etc., best for touch screens)
    Off (ignore mouse/touch inputs)

In Windows 3.x it is possible to use this driver for direct controlled mouse support.
Keyboard Emulation

For games that don't have automated controller mappings or are not detected successfully the core will map generic keyboard keys to all buttons. Use the "Controller Mapper" screen in the start menu or the On-screen keyboard to freely customize all the mapped buttons.
Joystick Emulation

There are multiple DOS era joysticks available as mappings under the "Controller Mapper" screen in the start menu.
Gravis GamePad (4 Buttons), First 2 Button Joystick (2 Axes), Second 2 Button Joystick (2 Axes), ThrustMaster Flight Stick (3 axes, 4 buttons, 1 hat) and Both DOS Joysticks (4 axes, 4 buttons).
These can be assigned to any port and the button layout can be freely remapped.
Gamepad Mapper

Gamepad mapper

If you need even more customization of the controls than provided by the Automated controller mappings, or the various presets for mouse, keyboard and joysticks you can use the gamepad mapper.

To open it, select "CONTROLLER MAPPER" in the start menu or click the "PAD MAPPER" button in the On-screen keyboard.

It is available any time in-game and changes are immediately saved and applied when closing the mapper. Up to 4 functions can be mapped for any button/direction of the gamepad. A mapping can be to any function of the 3 emulated input devices: keyboard, mouse or joystick.

The mapping is saved to a DOS file named "C:\PADMAP.DBP" which will be stored in the save file or next to the loaded program (when running without ZIP/DOSZ).
Installing an Operating System

When loading a content that contains a bootable CD-ROM image, the start menu will show an additional option [ Boot and Install New Operating System ]. Additionally it will also show when both a CD-ROM image and a floppy disk image are loaded, so non-bootable install CDs can be used as well.

With this option a hard disk image of selectable size (between 8 and 1024 MB) can be created after which the CD-ROM or floppy disk image will boot to install the operating system. Once the installation has completed, loading any content (for example a ZIP file) will have the option [ Run Installed Operating System ] to boot the created hard disk image as the C: drive and with the loaded content becoming the D: drive. If there are any CD-ROM images available they will appear as the E: drive.

There are two core options related to this feature:

    System > Advanced > OS Disk Modifications: When running an installed operating system, modifications to the C: drive will be made on the disk image by default. Setting it to 'Discard' will never save any changes made on C: but allows the content to be closed any time without worry of file system or registry corruption. The third option 'Save Difference Per Content' will store any changes made to the C: drive into a file in the frontends save directory, but the OS disk image must never be modified again once used, otherwise existing differences become unusable.
    System > Advanced > Force Normal Core in OS: If you encounter program errors or crashes inside the installed operating system, this option can be used to switch to a more compatible but slower mode. The option can be toggled on and off as needed.

The operating system will detect a NE2000 networking card which will not be able to connect to the real internet.
To avoid slow boot times, make sure to configure it to use base address port set to 0x300 and base IRQ set to 10.

It is also possible to create save states while running an installed operating system. This can be used to skip the startup sequence or even jump directly to the title screen of a game. Make sure to load the same operating system and do not modify the loaded ZIP file in any way otherwise the operating system will be very confused and most likely crash. To make things easier, set the operating system to auto start so it starts together with the content and skipping the start menu.
3dfx Voodoo Emulation

The core includes emulation of a 3dfx Voodoo PCI card. Compatible DOS games should work out of the box. If running an installed operating system like Windows 95 or Windows 98, you can get the required drivers from this site. Download "3dfx Voodoo1 V3.01.00" and launch voodoo1-30100.zip with the core, then run the operating system and install the driver via the control panel from the files on the D: drive.

There are a few core options related to this feature:

    Video > 3dfx Voodoo Emulation: By default a compatible 8 MB memory card with one texture mapping unit is emulated. It can be changed to an experimental 12 MB dual TMU card, a 4 MB card or support can be disabled entirely.
    Video > 3dfx Voodoo Performance Settings: By default the core will use fast OpenGL hardware acceleration to render 3dfx graphics. This setting can be used to switch to software rendering with a more faithful emulation but at much higher CPU cost.
    Video > 3dfx Voodoo OpenGL Scaling: Use this setting to increase the render resolution of the OpenGL rendering.

Multiplayer

The core emulates an IPX DOS driver and a serial modem (configurable to be a null modem or dial-up modem) as well as a NE2000 network card to be used in a booted operating system. To use it, just host or connect a multiplayer game with a supported frontend (RetroArch 1.16 and newer).

To use the NE2000 card make sure to configure the Windows 95/98 driver to use base address port set to 0x300 and base IRQ set to 10.
MIDI Playback with SoundFonts or MT-32

If DOSBox Pure finds one or more .SF2 sound font file in the system directory of the frontend, one of them can be selected via the Audio > MIDI SoundFont core option. This sound font will then be used to play General Midi and Sound Canvas music.

If the system directory contains a pair of _control.rom and _pcm.rom files, an MT-32 synthesizer can be emulated with them.

Alternatively if the content mounted to the C: drive contains a file named DOSBOX.SF2 or MT32_CONTROL.ROM/MT32_PCM.ROM, it will be used as a per-game override to the core option.
Cheat Support

DOSBox Pure exposes its memory for cheats in the libretro frontend.
For details how to use it and how to find new cheats while playing the game, check the documentation on the RetroArch website.
This can also be used to add controller rumble support to DOS games.
Save States

The DOSBox Pure core fully supports libretro save states.
Make sure to test it in each game before using it. Complex late era DOS games might have problems.
Be aware that states saved with different video or cpu settings are not loadable.
Before loading a state, you need to launch the same game that was running while it was saved.
Rewind Support

If supported by your frontend, using the core option Save States Support, rewinding can be enabled.
Keep in mind that rewind support comes at a high performance cost.
Shared System Shells (like Windows 3)

If DOSBox Pure finds any .DOSZ zip files in the system directory of the frontend, they will get listed in the start menu under a sub-menu with the name [ Run System Shell ].

When a shell is selected, DOSBox Pure will underlay the content of the shell's DOSZ zip file as the base of the file system of the C: drive. This way, one installation of (for example) Windows 3.1 can be used for multiple games, keeping the Windows installation and games in separate ZIP files.

On startup it will look for any of the following files to automatically start the shell:

    C:\WINDOWS.BAT
    C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
    C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM

Booter Games

When loading a ZIP file which contains a floppy or hard-disk image or loading such a disk image directly, the start menu will show an additional option [BOOT IMAGE FILE]. When selected, a list of system modes (emulated graphics card) will be shown and once a mode is selected, DOSBox Pure will try to boot from the mounted image. While running a booter game, the mounted disk can be easily swapped with the Start menu or Disc Control menu or hotkeys set in the frontend.

Loading M3U8 Files

If the core gets loaded with a .m3u8 file, all files listed in it will be added to the disc swap menu. The first image will automatically get mounted as A: or D: drive depending if it is a CD or floppy disk image.

Con ganas de probarlo y compararlo con DOSBox-X!

[Neville]

Si recordáis, hace unos meses nos quedamos sin DOSBox ECE, uno de los forks más populares de DOSBox. Además de no apartarse demasiado de cómo funciona la versión oficial, tenía integrado soporte para Roland MT-32, gráficos 3Dfx y fuentes de sonido SF2.

Pues hoy he sabido de otro (y van ya...) fork de DOSBox llamado DOSBox-Optionals. Existe solamente para Windows y además de esos extras tiene quitados los límites de memoria RAM, lo que la debería hacer ideal para emular Windows 3X y 9X.





Todavía está por ver si será un buen sustituto para DOSBox ECE, o por si el contrario es su propia historia.

Ah, y el archivo de configuración está en DATA\dosbox.conf. Y usa por defecto el shader crt-lottes_woBogen.

[JimRaynor]

Vaya con el ECE; en la práctica solo lo usé en muchos de los packs compartidos por socios en el foro.  Una pena porque tenia muchas cositas interesantes.

Ojalá este nuevo optionals progrese o, al menos, deje su granito de arena en el sector. 
Aunque Windows no acepte mucho más de 512 MB de forma nativa, será interesante para emular muchos juegos con mayor potencia.

Este shader lottus que utiliza es más propio de monitores arcade, creo. Queda muy guay.  Yo tiendo a colocar el Fast Crt en los packs que hago porque apenas consume recursos, pero si puedes permitirte y trastear un poco hay muchos mejores, es algo en lo que retroarch da mil vueltas a cualquier emulador independiente porque puedes modificar , adicionar capas de cada shader y guardar los cambios creando tu propio estilo visual.

DosBox Pure no lo usé nunca en el PC; en Android, en cambio, es la pera. 
También acepta un montón de opciones desde hace tiempo (3Dfx, MT-32…) y es bastante estable a la hora de emular Windows 98. 

Lo de tener que cargar los juegos desde un archivo .zip nunca lo vi claro ni práctico, pero para un proyecto tipo la colección DGBL tiene mucho sentido. 
Al menos, en la tableta puedes cargar directamente muchos de los juegos de la colección.  Y el que este en .zip es la unica forma de que te les reconozca retroarch como parte de una Playlist
Ya los que tienen la ISO comprimida en el mismo .zip no sé cómo se hace, o si se ha implementado un menú, como ocurre cuando quieres abrir una ISO de Windows (y te da la opción de crear una partición HD para instalar el sistema operativo).

[Grondoval]

Me pregunto como se podrá cambiar el codec de captura de video en DOSBox-X...



He leido en algún github que depende de como se haya compilado DOSBox-X, pero he probado tanto mingw como vsbuild y ambos tienen sombreada la opción...

[Neville]

¿Tal vez editando el DOSBox.conf?

[Grondoval]

He examinado a fondo el fichero .conf y no hay nada relacionado con el formato de captura, tan solo indicar rutas y poco mas.

Revisando la wiki de DOSBox no menciona nada de otros tipos de formatos de grabación...

https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Recording_Video

Va a ser lo que mencionaban en el github que hay que compilarlo... Pero parece que también mencionan que da problemas...

https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/discussions/4247

[Neville]

Hoy tenemos nueva versión de DOSBox-X, la v2025.12.01.



Las novedades parecen centradas en el modo Tandy y su detección:

Spoiler (click para mostrar/ocultar)

2025.12.01
  - Video debug overlay: For Tandy and PCjr emulation, add information on
    the screen that shows the line mask, display and cpu memory banks and
    the corresponding segment values, which may aid in debugging issues
    with games and reveal any remapping or page flipping (joncampbell123).
  - Tandy emulation: Add the string "Tandy" somewhere in the DOS kernel
    at startup if machine=tandy. The game "The Train: Escape to Normandy"
    scans from FFFF:0000 for the string "Tandy" which of course wraps
    around to the first 64KB of memory where the DOS kernel resides. If
    it does not see this string, it does not think it is running on a Tandy.
    Such a detection routine will obviously break if you're on a 286 based
    Tandy with HMA enabled, or you're running normal MS-DOS on a Tandy
    system. This change allows the game to run (joncampbell123).
  - Tseng ET4000 emulation: Mode 0x24 is unusual in that it is a 130x28
    text mode with a 13-pixel high character cell. The ET4000 VGA BIOS
    apparently has a specific font for that mode, so, incorporate that
    font into DOSBox-X and use it for mode 0x24 (joncampbell123).
  - Tseng ET4000 emulation: Fix modes 0x22/0x23/0x24 to match how the
    actual VGA BIOS programs them. This fixes problems where the 132x25
    mode was rendered only on the upper half of the screen (joncampbell123).
  - Fix Tseng ET3000/ET4000 emulation bug where CGA graphics modes
    were garbled. The main VGA emulation no longer uses M_CGA2/M_CGA4
    and the ET4000 emulation needs to behave the same to fix the
    graphics modes. Apply fix to ET3000 emulation as well. (joncampbell123).
  - Some extra code in shell processing was preventing drive change commands
    if the last character was a backslash i.e. "a:\" instead of "a:".
    Fixed. (joncampbell123).
  - INT 21h AH=4Bh EXEC: Real MS-DOS returns a nonzero value like 0x3E01.
    A buggy version of Magic Pockets fails to call INT 21 AH=4Dh to read
    the INTRO.EXE exit code and expects AL to just be nonzero to continue
    to the game. So to make it work properly (kind of), return a nonzero
    value. (joncampbell123).
  - Tandy machine type: Many registers are WRITE ONLY according to SX
    documentation, yet "Troubadours" likes to read/modify/write those
    registers in what appears to be hand-rolled manual modesetting code
    to set up 320x200 16-color mode, so, add code to respond to reads
    from those ports with zeros and print a debug message to the log
    about how DOS games are not supposed to read those registers. Make
    the hand-rolled modesetting work by returning 0x00, rather than 0xFF.
    The code will not set up the mode correctly if 0xFF is returned, but
    will if 0x00 is returned. A side effect of this is that, since one
    of the registers controls the RAM address used as video memory, this
    moves it down to 512KB from base memory as well, which of course
    easily corrupts the very end of the MCB chain unless you enable more
    than 640KB of RAM and ask DOSBox-X to emulate the full Tandy 768KB
    of conventional memory. Though the game still crashes very easily,
    and in the exact same manner in both DOSBox-X and DOSBox SVN, this
    fix does solve the problem where the game was only able to draw
    2 out of 4 scanlines on the screen. (joncampbell123).

Descargas aquí.

[Grondoval]

De DOSBox-X tengo entendido que quieren hacer que soporte hasta Pentium III y Windows 2000 y Millenium, sin descuidar todo aquello por lo que ha pasado por MS-DOS, por lo que pintará interesante el panorama para futuros eXoDOS.