DOSBOX
 

Hello there! My name is Jack and am 17 :), I am starting with hobby like this - old games and i need your help to start. I need a link to newest DOSBOX or something to run the games and how to configure it. Well, I have a DOSBOX right now with NC but not every game can run under it and sometimes there is no voice, the other thing is that it opens only in small window like in 640x480 or eaven smaller (my normal screen size is 1024x768). I tried to fix it changing options in .txt file but it doesn't work. I think that something is wrong with my DOSBOX and I need to download something new. So the size of the DOSBOX window is the biggest problem. Next problem is how to turn the PC speaker volume down because when I was playing very old games PC speaker was so annoying that I couldn't play longer than 5 minutes :wall:.

I am waiting for your help! :)
Thanks

Jack

First of all, welcome jack.

You need to specify in which games do you have problems, as well as the DOSBox version you are using and your OS (and PC specs sometimes helps, too).

To change the windows size of DOSBox, ALT+ENTER should turn it into fullscreen mode. IIRC, there is an option on the conf file to start DOSbox always in fullscreen mode, something like fullscreen=true or something. You should have no problem looking for it.

I don't remember if it is a speaker control volume in DOSBox. The speaker as a real device hasn't really a volume control like the sound card. DOSBox should be emulating it through your soundcard, though, so turning down the volume on your speakers should be enough. If you don't like the pc speaker sound at all, the game should have an option to turn it off. If you don't find it, try tu run the game with the ? flag, or "help" or something to see if you should set the silence as a command line argument or something.

Also, have you tried to run the install or setup or similar named files from the games you have problems with? The file extensions can be .com, .exe and .bat.

Give that a try and tell us how it went for you. Good luck with the games!

Name the specific games that don't run. Make sure the games' sound is configured correctly.
Also, not many games from back then featured digitized voice to begin with.

In dosbox.conf:
output=ddraw
fullscreen=true
fullresolution=1024x768
aspect=true


There's not much choice in DOS emulators out there. It's either DOSBox... or DOSBox.

Look for the [mixer] and [speaker] sections in the config file. I don't remember if there's adjustable volume for the speaker or not.
Some speaker-using games may sound better with machine=tandy (as then they will use the Tandy-1000 sound system). For comparison, try listening to the main theme from Battletech: Crescent Hawks' Inception.

Welcome to abandonia, Jack!

DOSBox should emulate the PC Speaker, and play the sound through your normal computer speakers, rather than the actual PC Speaker. If you don't like the sound, simply turn off your speakers or turn them down.

Unless, of course, you're referring to the "DOS box" opened normally by Windows when you double-click the application file. If that is what you are referring to by DOSBOX, you have a problem. The actual DOSBox can be found at www.dosbox.com.

Also, if you're having trouble running a game from Abandonia, check the review that is on the game's page. At the bottom, sometimes there will be a message like "To run this program in DOSBox, ........" and will include specific parameters to edit in your dosbox.conf file.

Just a suggestion, Jack: If you want to avoid some painful mounting every time you want to start a game, you should create an icon onto your desktop, and drag&drop the executable (the file which you run the game) on the DOSBox icon. It should run immediately, and when you exit the game, you just simply write "exit" into the prompt and press enter.

Just a quick note on mounting. You don't need to manually mount the game directory every time you run dosbox. If you open the dosbox config file in notepad, at the end of that file you will find a line that says autoexec. After that line, write the mount command, followed by a new line that says C: (this line will change the prompt in dosbox from z:\> to c:\>). Save, exit and run dosbox.