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DOSBox v0.74 Manual (always use the latest version from www.dosbox.com)

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NOTE:

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While we are hoping that one day DOSBox will run all programs ever made for

the PC, we are not there yet.

At present, DOSBox running on a high-end machine will roughly be the equivalent

of a Pentium I PC. DOSBox can be configured to run a wide range of DOS games,

from CGA/Tandy/PCjr classics up to games from the Quake era.

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INDEX:

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1. Quickstart

2. Start (FAQ)

3. Command Line Parameters

4. Internal Programs

5. Special Keys

6. Joystick/Gamepad

7. KeyMapper

8. Keyboard Layout

9. Serial Multiplayer feature

10. How to speed up/slow down DOSBox

11. Troubleshooting

12. DOSBox Status Window

13. The configuration (options) file

14. The language file

15. Building your own version of DOSBox

16. Special thanks

17. Contact

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1. Quickstart:

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Type INTRO in DOSBox for a quick tour.

It is essential that you get familiar with the idea of mounting, DOSBox does not

automatically make any drive (or a part of it) accessible to the emulation. See

the FAQ entry "How to start?" as well as the description of the MOUNT command

(section 4: "Internal Programs"). If you have your game on a cdrom you may try

this guide: http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=8933

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2. Start (FAQ):

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START:      How to start?

AUTOMATION: Do I always have to type these "mount" commands?

FULLSCREEN: How do I change to fullscreen?

CD-ROM:     My CD-ROM doesn't work.

CD-ROM:     The game/application can't find its CD-ROM.

MOUSE:      The mouse doesn't work.

SOUND:      There is no sound.

SOUND:      What sound hardware does DOSBox presently emulate?

SOUND:      The sound stutters or sounds stretched/weird.

KEYBOARD:   I can't type \ or : in DOSBox.

KEYBOARD:   Right Shift and "\" doesn't work in DOSBox. (Windows only)

KEYBOARD:   The keyboard lags.

CONTROL:    The character/cursor/mouse pointer always moves into one direction!

SPEED:      The game/application runs much too slow/too fast!

CRASH:      The game/application does not run at all/crashes!

CRASH:      DOSBox crashes on startup!

GAME:       My Build game(Duke3D/Blood/Shadow Warrior) has problems.

SAFETY:     Can DOSBox harm my computer?

OPTIONS:    I would like to change DOSBox's options.

HELP:       Great Manual, but I still don't get it.

START: How to start?

    At the beginning you've got a Z:\> instead of a C:\> at the prompt.

    You have to make your directories available as drives in DOSBox by using

    the "mount" command. For example, in Windows "mount C D:\GAMES" will give

    you a C drive in DOSBox which points to your Windows D:\GAMES directory

    (that was created before). In Linux, "mount c /home/username" will give you

    a C drive in DOSBox which points to /home/username in Linux.

    To change to the drive mounted like above, type "C:". If everything went

    fine, DOSBox will display the prompt "C:\>".

AUTOMATION: Do I always have to type these commands?

    In the DOSBox configuration file is an [autoexec] section. The commands

    present there are run when DOSBox starts, so you can use this section

    for the mounting. Look at Section 13: The configuration (options) file

FULLSCREEN: How do I change to fullscreen?

    Press alt-enter. Alternatively: Edit the configuration file of DOSBox and

    change the option fullscreen=false to fullscreen=true. If fullscreen looks

    wrong in your opinion: Play with the options: fullresolution, output and

    aspect in the configuration file of DOSBox. To get back from fullscreen

    mode: Press alt-enter again.

CD-ROM: My CD-ROM doesn't work.

    To mount your CD-ROM in DOSBox you have to specify some additional options

    when mounting the CD-ROM.

    To enable CD-ROM support (includes MSCDEX) in Windows:

      - mount d f:\ -t cdrom

    in Linux:

      - mount d /media/cdrom -t cdrom

    In some cases you might want to use a different CD-ROM interface,

    for example if CD audio does not work:

      To enable SDL-support (does not include low-level CD access!):

        - mount d f:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -noioctl

      To enable ioctl access using digital audio extraction for CD audio

      (windows-only, useful for Vista):

        - mount d f:\ -t cdrom -ioctl_dx

      To enable ioctl access using MCI for CD audio (windows-only):

        - mount d f:\ -t cdrom -ioctl_mci

      To force ioctl-only access (windows-only):

        - mount d f:\ -t cdrom -ioctl_dio

      To enable low-level aspi-support (win98 with aspi-layer installed):

        - mount d f:\ -t cdrom -aspi

    explanation: - d   driveletter you will get in DOSBox (d is the best,

                          don't change it!)

                 - f:\ location of CD-ROM on your PC. In most cases it will

                          be d:\ or e:\

                 - 0   The number of the CD-ROM drive, reported by "mount -cd"

                          (note that this value is only needed when using SDL

                          for CD audio, otherwise it is ignored)

    See also the next question: The game/application can't find its CD-ROM.

CD-ROM: The game/application can't find its CD-ROM.

    Be sure to mount the CD-ROM with -t cdrom switch, this will enable the

    MSCDEX interface required by DOS games to interface with CD-ROMs.

    Also try adding the correct label (-label LABEL) to the mount command,

    where LABEL is the CD-label (volume ID) of the CD-ROM.

    Under Windows you can specify -ioctl, -aspi or -noioctl. Look at the

    description of the mount command in Section 4: "Internal programs"

    for their meaning and the

    additional audio-CD related options -ioctl_dx, ioctl_mci, ioctl_dio.

    Try creating a CD-ROM image (preferably CUE/BIN pair) and use the

    DOSBox's internal IMGMOUNT tool to mount the image (the CUE sheet).

    This enables very good low-level CD-ROM support on any operating system.

MOUSE: The mouse doesn't work.

    Usually, DOSBox detects when a game uses mouse control. When you click on

    the screen it should get locked (confined to the DOSBox window) and work.

    With certain games, the DOSBox mouse detection doesn't work. In that case

    you will have to lock the mouse manually by pressing CTRL-F10.

SOUND: There is no sound.

    Be sure that the sound is correctly configured in the game. This might be

    done during the installation or with a setup/setsound utility that

    accompanies the game. First see if an autodetection option is provided. If

    there is none try selecting Soundblaster or Soundblaster 16 with the default

    settings being "address=220 irq=7 dma=1" (sometimes highdma=5). You might

    also want to select Sound Canvas/SCC/MPU-401/General MIDI/Wave Blaster

    at "address=330 IRQ=2" as music device.

    The parameters of the emulated sound cards can be changed in the DOSBox

    configuration file.

    If you still don't get any sound set the core to normal in DOSBox

    configuration and use some lower fixed cycles value (like cycles=2000). Also

    assure that your host operating sound does provide sound.

    In certain cases it might be useful to use a different emulated sound device

    like a soundblaster pro (sbtype=sbpro1 in the DOSBox configuration file) or

    the gravis ultrasound (gus=true).

SOUND: What sound hardware does DOSBox presently emulate?

    DOSBox emulates several legacy sound devices:

    - Internal PC speaker/Buzzer

      This emulation includes both the tone generator and several forms of

      digital sound output through the internal speaker.

    - Creative CMS/Gameblaster

      The is the first card released by Creative Labs(R).  The default

      configuration places it on address 220. It is disabled as default.

    - Tandy 3 voice

      The emulation of this sound hardware is complete with the exception of

      the noise channel. The noise channel is not very well documented and as

      such is only a best guess as to the sound's accuracy. It is disabled as

      default.

    - Tandy DAC

      Some games may require turning off sound blaster emulation (sbtype=none)

      for better tandy DAC sound support. Don't forget to set the sbtype back to

      sb16 if you don't use tandy sound.

    - Adlib

      This emulation is almost perfect and includes the Adlib's ability to

      almost play digitized sound. Placed at address 220 (also on 388).

    - SoundBlaster 16 / SoundBlaster Pro I & II / SoundBlaster I & II

      By default DOSBox provides Soundblaster 16 level 16-bit stereo sound.

      You can select a different SoundBlaster version in the configuration of

      DOSBox. AWE32 music is not emulated as you can use MPU-401 instead

      (see below).

    - Disney Sound Source and Covox Speech Thing

      Using the printer port, this sound device outputs digital sound only.

      Placed at LPT1

    - Gravis Ultrasound

      The emulation of this hardware is nearly complete, though the MIDI

      capabilities have been left out, since an MPU-401 has been emulated

      in other code. For Gravis music you also have to install Gravis drivers

      inside DOSBox. It is disabled as default.

    - MPU-401

      A MIDI passthrough interface is also emulated. This method of sound

      output will only work when used with external device/emulator.

      Every Windows XP/Vista/7 and MAC OS has got a default emulator compatible

      with: Sound Canvas/SCC/General Standard/General MIDI/Wave Blaster.

      A different device/emulator is needed for Roland LAPC/CM-32L/MT-32

      compatibility.

SOUND: The sound stutters or sounds stretched/weird.

    You may be using too much CPU power to keep DOSBox running at the current

    speed. You can lower the cycles, skip frames, reduce the sampling rate of

    the respective sound device, increase the prebuffer. See section 13: "The

    configuration (options) file"

    If you are using cycles=max or =auto, then make sure that there is no

    background processes interfering! (especially if they access the harddisk)

    Also look at Section 10. "How to speed up/slow down DOSBox"

KEYBOARD: I can't type \ or : in DOSBox.

    This can happen in various cases, like your host keyboard layout does not

    have a matching DOS layout representation (or it was not correctly

    detected), or the key mapping is wrong.

    Some possible fixes:

      1. Use / instead, or ALT-58 for : and ALT-92 for \.

      2. Change the DOS keyboard layout (see Section 8: Keyboard Layout).

      3. Add the commands you want to execute to the [autoexec] section

         of the DOSBox configuration file.

      4. Open the DOSBox configuration file and change the usescancodes entry.

      5. Switch the keyboard layout of your operating system.

    Note that if the host layout can not be identified, or keyboardlayout is

    set to none in the DOSBox configuration file, the standard US layout is

    used. In this configuration try the keys around "enter" for the key \

    (backslash), and for the key : (colon) use shift and the keys between

    "enter" and "L".

KEYBOARD: Right Shift and "\" doesn't work in DOSBox. (Windows only)

    This may happen if Windows thinks that you have more than one keyboard

    connected to your PC when you use some remote control devices.

    To verity this problem run cmd.exe, naviga