Box Art

Box Art

Each game on the shelf is a box. EmuDOS downloads cover art automatically on import and lets you choose between flat 2D covers and rendered 3D boxes, swap in your own image, or refetch art for the whole library.

Where art comes from

Source	Role
ScreenScraper	Primary source. Works out of the box with the app's developer credentials; logging in with your own screenscraper.fr account (Preferences → Snaps) raises your download limits and unlocks parallel downloads.
SteamGridDB	Optional fallback for games ScreenScraper doesn't have. Paste an API key under Preferences → Snaps.

Art is stored inside each gamebox's media folder (box-front.png for 2D, box-3d.png for 3D), so it travels with the game.

2D vs 3D boxes

ScreenScraper provides both a flat 2D cover and a rendered 3D box for most DOS games. EmuDOS keeps them as separate files so you can switch freely.

• Global default — Preferences → Snaps → Use 3D boxes by default.
• Per game — right-click a game → Box style → Default (follow global), 2D box, or 3D box. Use this when one style's art looks better for a particular title.

If a game is set to a style whose art hasn't been downloaded, it falls back to the other so a box never goes blank. The shelf shows through the transparent edges of an angled 3D box, so different box shapes all sit naturally on the wood.

Downloading art

• One game — right-click → Download box art (2D) or Download 3D box art (3D). Downloading a 3D box switches that game to 3D so you see it immediately.
• Whole library — right-click the shelf background → Download missing art (2D) or Download 3D box art (all games) (3D, which also switches the shelf to showing 3D).

Bulk downloads run concurrently, capped to your ScreenScraper account's allowed thread count (free/anonymous access is single-threaded; paid tiers allow more). Log in under Preferences → Snaps so the count is captured — the login status shows how many threads your account allows.

Use your own cover

Found a better image? Drag it straight onto the game's box — from a local file or directly from a web browser. EmuDOS copies it into the gamebox, normalizes it to PNG, and shows it at the box's real aspect. You can also right-click → Set box art from file….