Game Settings and Media

Game Settings & Media

Per-game settings

Right-click a game → Preferences → Game Options. Everything here is saved as an override for that game and survives catalog updates.

Setting	What it does
CPU cycles	Emulated CPU speed. Auto/Max for most; Fixed pins a cycle count for speed-sensitive games.
Machine type	Emulated graphics/era (VGA, EGA, CGA, Tandy, Hercules, …).
Memory	Conventional/extended memory size.
Sound card / MIDI	See [[Sound & MT-32
Aspect correction	Corrects the picture to the original aspect ratio.
Brightness / Gamma	Frontend image adjustment, applied by EmuDOS.

Save applies on next launch. Reset returns the game to the catalog default.

The curated catalog

When you download the Game catalog (Preferences → Downloads), EmuDOS can recognize a game on import and apply known-good settings automatically, so most games need no manual tuning. Your own changes always layer on top of the curated base and survive catalog updates. See How It Works for the data model.

Manuals

Right-click → Download manual. EmuDOS fetches the manual (ScreenScraper, falling back to the Internet Archive) as a real PDF, saves it per game, and opens it.

Screenshots & recording

• F12 saves a screenshot — crisp, at the game's native pixels by default.
• F9 starts/stops gameplay video recording — recorded sharp, exactly as shown on screen (no smoothing). Recording needs FFmpeg, installed once from Preferences → Downloads (optional, not bundled). A ● REC badge shows while recording.

Screenshots and videos are saved per game, inside that game's gamebox. Browse them (and your save states and notes) from the game's Manage window — right-click a game → Manage. Under Preferences → Media you can set the screenshot size (native pixels or the displayed window size) and the video quality (Low / Medium / High).

Manage window

Right-click a game → Manage for a per-game home with tabs for save states, screenshots, videos, in-game saves, and notes. View or delete any item, right-click → Show in Explorer to reveal it on disk, and jot per-game notes (copy-protection answers, cheat codes, where you left off) that save automatically and travel with the game.

Mouse

• Middle-click toggles mouse lock — the cursor hides and is held to the window for look/turn games. Middle-click again (or Alt-Tab) to release. Locked motion uses raw mouse input so it stays accurate.
• The scroll wheel raises/lowers mouse sensitivity on the fly (DOS games don't use the wheel, so there's no conflict).

Hotkeys

Rebind keys in Preferences → Hotkeys — click a box and press the key you want (Esc resets to default).

Action	Default
Screenshot	F12
Record video	F9
Mouse lock	(middle-click; bindable)
In-game menu (swap CDs/disks)	F10
Quick save state	F5
Quick load state	F8

Middle-click always toggles mouse lock regardless of binding.