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README
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DOSBox (dosbox-staging) 0.78.0 Manual
======
INDEX:
======
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 Modem: Multiplayer and BBS Gaming
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
==============
1. Quickstart:
==============
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").
===============
2. Start (FAQ):
===============
START: How to start?
AUTOMATION: Do I always have to type these "mount" commands?
FULLSCREEN: How do I change to fullscreen?
FULLSCREEN: My fullscreen is too large.
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: My keyboard's F1-F12 keys don't work.
KEYBOARD: Common key-presses conflict with system actions on macOS.
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?
DOSBox configuration files contain an [autoexec] section that holds
one or more commands, listed line by line, just as you would type them
into the DOSBox command prompt. The [autoexec] section is run on startup.
When multiple configuration files are loaded that each have [autoexec]
sections, DOSBox Staging by default joins these sections into a combined
[autoexec] that's run.
If you prefer to only run the most recently processed [autoexec] when
multiple configuration files are provided, you can set the "autoexec_section"
setting to "overwrite", in the [dosbox] section. When in this mode, the
the overwrite-order is as follows:
1. Highest priority are those command(s) provided on the command line.
2. Second is the [autoexec] section from the last processed custom conf file.
This would be custom2 if: dosbox -conf custom1.conf -conf custom2.conf
3. Third is the [autoexec] section from the local conf, ie: when
dosbox.conf is present in the current directory
4. Last is the [autoexec] section from the user's portable or primary conf,
where:
- The portable conf is dosbox-staging.conf that (may) reside along-side
the DOSBox executable.
- The primary conf is dosbox-staging.conf that (may) reside in the
user's configuration directory, which varies by operating system.
This ordering of configuration files is also discussed in Section 3:
"Command Line Parameters", and specific configuration file settings are
discussed in 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.
FULLSCREEN: My fullscreen is too large.
This is can be a problem on Windows 10, if you have display scaling
set to a value above 100%. Windows in that case will resize the screen
on top of dosbox resizing the screen, which can happen for the output:
texture, texturenb, opengl, openglnb. You can disable this Windows behaviour
by enabling a specific compatibility setting:
- Right-click the DOSBox icon and select "Properties".
- Go to the "Compatibility" tab.
- Click on "Change high DPI settings".
- Tick "Override high DPI scaling behaviour" and set it to "Application".
- Apply the changes by clicking on "OK".
Unfortunately, this compatibility option causes some side effects in
windowed mode, and in this case you will need to change the windowresolution
setting in your config file to either a fixed size (e.g. 1024x768) or
a relative size: (e.g. small, medium, or large).
Alternatively, you can disable the display scaling and or use a lower
fullresolution value.
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 /path/to/cdrom -t cdrom
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:\
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.
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 (or Cmd+F10
on macOS).
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 by 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 SoundBlaster 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 by 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 X 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 'cycles=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" as well as
Section 11: "Troubleshooting".
KEYBOARD: My keyboard's F1-F12 keys don't work.
This can happen on macOS, mini-keyboards, and some laptops.
Find and hold the 'Function' or 'Fn' key while pressing an F-key.
The 'Fn' key is often located in the lower-left corner of the keyboard.
On macOS, you can change the top row of keys to work as standard F-keys
without holding the 'Fn' key. In your system's keyboard preferences:
select "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys". Learn more
here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204436
Note: some custom keyboards might still intercept one or more F-keys, even
after the above steps have been performed. Please refer to your keyboard's
documentation for more information.
KEYBOARD: Common key-presses conflict with system actions on macOS
Conflict: Command+F5
Where: Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Accessibility
What: Disable the "Turn VoiceOver on or off" shortcut
Conflict: F11
Where: Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control
What: Disable the "Show Desktop" shortcut
Conflict: Control+arrow keys
Where: Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control
What: Disable the following shortcuts:
- "Mission Control" to deconflict Control+Up
- "Application windows" to deconflict Control+Down
- "Move left a space" to deconflict Control+Left
- "Move right a space" to deconflict Control+Right
KEYBOARD: The numlock and capslock state isn't correct.
A known issue prevents SDL from reading the numlock and capslock
states on startup. Until this is resolved, we recommend toggling these
off prior to starting DOSBox. After startup, you may use numlock and
capslock as desired.
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 \.
On macOS, use the Option key, for example: Opt+58 and Opt+92.
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: The keyboard lags.
Lower the priority setting in the DOSBox configuration file, for example
set "priority=normal,normal". You might also want to try lowering the
cycles (use a fixed cycle amount to start with, like cycles=10000).
CONTROL: The character/cursor/mouse pointer always moves into one direction!
See if it still happens if you disable the joystick emulation:
First try setting joysticktype=none or joysticktype=disabled in
the [joystick] section of your DOSBox configuration file.
Also try unplugging any joysticks or gamepads.
If you want to use the joystick in the game, try setting
timed=false and be sure to calibrate the joystick (both in your OS
as well as in the game or the game's setup program).
SPEED: The game/application runs much too slow/too fast!
Look at Section 10: "How to speed up/slow down DOSBox" for more
information.
CRASH: The game/application does not run at all/crashes!
Look at Section 11: "Troubleshooting".
CRASH: DOSBox crashes on startup!
Look at Section 11: "Troubleshooting".
GAME: My Build game(Duke3D/Blood/Shadow Warrior) has problems.
First of all, try to find a port of the game. Those will offer a better
experience. To fix the graphics problem that occurs in DOSBox on higher
resolutions: Open the configuration file of DOSBox and search for
machine=svga_s3. Change svga_s3 to vesa_nolfb
Change memsize=16 to memsize=63
SAFETY: Can DOSBox harm my computer?
DOSBox can not harm your computer more than any other resource demanding
program. Increasing the cycles does not overclock your real CPU.
Setting the cycles too high has a negative performance effect on the
software running inside DOSBox.
OPTIONS: I would like to change DOSBox's options.
Look at Section 13: "The configuration (options) file".
HELP: Great Manual, but I still don't get it.
You'll find answers to most DOSBox-related questions throughout
this document. If you still have problems with running your game,
create a bug report or ask your question on:
https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/issues
===========================
3. Command Line Parameters:
===========================
An overview of the command line options you can give to DOSBox. Although
in most cases it is easier to use DOSBox's configuration file instead.
See Section 13: "The configuration (options) file".
To be able to use Command Line Parameters:
(Windows) open cmd.exe or command.com or edit the shortcut to dosbox.exe
(Linux) use any terminal emulator
(macOS) start terminal.app and navigate to:
/Applications/dosbox-staging.app/Contents/MacOS/dosbox
The options are valid for all operating systems unless noted in the option
description:
dosbox [-fullscreen] [-startmapper] [-noautoexec] [-securemode]
[-noprimaryconf] [-nolocalconf] [-conf congfigfile]
[-scaler scaler | -forcescaler scaler] [-lang langfile]
[-machine machine-type] [-socket socketnumber]
[-c command] [-noconsole] [-exit] [NAME]
dosbox --version
dosbox --printconf
dosbox --editconf [editor]
dosbox -eraseconf
dosbox -erasemapper
dosbox -opencaptures program
NAME
If "NAME" is a directory it will mount that as the C: drive.
If "NAME" is an executable it will mount the directory of "NAME"
as the C: drive and execute "NAME".
If "NAME" in an execuatble and the startup_verbosity configurable
setting is "auto" (or "low" or "quiet"), then the introductory
splash-screen and text help banner will not be shown. This is known
as instant-launch.
-exit
DOSBox will close itself when the DOS application "name" ends.
If the above conditions for instant-launch are true, then the -exit
flag is implied, and DOSBox will quit as soon as the executable
"NAME" terminates.
-c command
Runs the specified command before running "name". Multiple commands
can be specified. Each command should start with "-c" though.
A command can be: an Internal Program, a DOS command or an executable
on a mounted drive.
-fullscreen
Starts DOSBox in fullscreen mode.
-noprimaryconf, -nolocal, and -conf:
DOSBox Staging uses a layered configuration approach, as follows:
1. If a dosbox-staging.conf file is found along-side the
DOSBox executable, known as a portable layout, then this
configuration file is loaded first. In this case, the
executable's directory is used to load other assets such as
glshaders, mt32-roms, and soundfonts.
If a portable layout isn't found, the user's primary
configuration file is loaded from the operating system's
user configuration directory. This can be thought of as
your "global" configuration file, The -noprimaryconf flag
can be used in cases where you want to avoid loading your
primary conf file.
2. Second, if the local directory contains a dosbox.conf file,
its settings override those previously set by your portable
or primary file. The -nolocalconf flag can be used in cases
where you want to avoid loading the local dosbox.conf file.
3. Finally, custom configurations are layered on, in order,
using one or more -conf <filename> arguments. For example:
dosbox -conf myshader.conf -conf myaudio.conf
These settings override those previously set by either the
Local or Primary configurations.
This layered approach means you can start with general settings
(from your Primary conf) and increasingly fine-tune them for a specific
game.
If the [dosbox] "autoexec_section" setting is "overwrite", then
the same priority order applies when multiple configuration files
provide the [autoexec] section: DOSBox Staging will execute [autoexec]
only from the end-most (or highest priority) configuration file.
Additionally, if you've passed commands as arguments directly on the
command line, ie: dosbox /path/game/run.bat, then these take priority
over any prior [autoexec] sections - to avoid mount and launch
conflicts.
If you wish to use the original behavior where [autoexec] sections
are joined into a combined set of commands, then set the [dosbox]
"autoexec_section" setting to "join". This is also the default.
-lang languagefilelocation
Start DOSBox using the language specified in "languagefilelocation".
See Section 14: "The Language File" for more details.
-machine machinetype
Setup DOSBox to emulate a specific type of machine. Valid choices are:
- hercules - Hercules Graphics Card (monochrome)
- cga - IBM Color Graphics Adapter
- cga_mono - IBM CGA attached to monochrome display (monochrome)
- pcjr - IBM PCjr
- tandy - Tandy Graphics Adapter (Tandy 1000)
- ega - IBM Enhanced Graphics Adapter
- vgaonly - IBM Video Graphics Array (see below)
- vesa_oldvbe - VESA SVGA - VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) 1.2
- vesa_nolfb - VESA SVGA - VBE 2.0 with Linear Frame Buffer disabled
- svga_paradise - VESA SVGA - Paradise Systems PVGA1A - VBE 2.0
- svga_et3000 - VESA SVGA - Tseng ET3000 - VBE 2.0
- svga_et4000 - VESA SVGA - Tseng ET4000 - VBE 2.0
- svga_s3 - VESA SVGA - S3 Trio - VBE 2.0
The default is svga_s3.
For some special VGA effects the machinetype vgaonly can be used,
note that this disables SVGA capabilities and might be slower due to the
higher emulation precision.
The machinetype affects the video card and the available sound cards.
-noconsole (Windows Only)
Start DOSBox without showing the DOSBox status window (console).
Output will be redirected to stdout.txt and stderr.txt
-startmapper
Enter the keymapper directly on startup. Useful for people with
keyboard problems.
-noautoexec
Skips the [autoexec] section of the loaded configuration file.
-securemode
Same as -noautoexec, but adds config.com -securemode at the
bottom of AUTOEXEC.BAT (which in turn disables any changes to how
the drives are mounted inside DOSBox).
-scaler scaler
Uses the scaler specified by "scaler". See the DOSBox configuration file
for the available scalers.
-forcescaler scaler
Similar to the -scaler parameter, but tries to force usage of
the specified scaler even if it might not fit.
--version
Output version information and exit. Useful for frontends.
--editconf [editor]
Open the default configuration file in a text editor. If no editor name
is given, then use the program from EDITOR environment variable,
otherwise DOSBox will try to guess the name.
-opencaptures program
calls program with as first parameter the location of the captures
folder.
--printconf
Print the location of the default configuration file.
-resetconf
removes the default configuration file.
-resetmapper
removes the mapperfile used by the default clean configuration file.
-socket
passes the socket number to the nullmodem emulation. See Section 9:
"Serial Multiplayer feature."
Note: If a name/command/configfilelocation/languagefilelocation contains
a space, put the whole name/command/configfilelocation/languagefilelocation
between quotes ("command or file name"). If you need to use quotes within
quotes (most likely with -c and mount):
Windows users can use single quotes inside the double quotes.
Other people should be able to use escaped double quotes inside the
double quotes.
Windows: -c "mount c 'c:\My folder with DOS games\'"
Linux: -c "mount c \"/tmp/name with space\""
A rather unusual example, just to demonstrate what you can do (Windows):
dosbox D:\folder\file.exe -c "MOUNT Y H:\MyFolder"
This mounts D:\folder as C:\ and runs file.exe.
Before it does that, it will first mount H:\MyFolder as the Y drive.
In Windows, you can also drag directories/files onto the DOSBox executable.
Environment variables
---------------------
Any configuration option can be overridden using an environment variable.
Environment variables starting with prefix "DOSBOX" are processed and
interpreted as follows: DOSBOX_SECTIONNAME_PROPERTYNAME=value
For example, you can override render aspect with:
$ DOSBOX_RENDER_ASPECT=false dosbox
=====================
4. Internal Programs:
=====================
DOSBox supports most of the DOS commands found in command.com.
To get a list of the internal commands type "HELP" at the prompt.
In addition, the following commands are available:
MOUNT "Emulated Drive letter" "Real Drive or Directory"
[-t type] [-size drivesize] [-label drivelabel] [-freesize size_in_mb]
[-freesize size_in_kb (floppies)]
MOUNT -u "Emulated Drive letter"
Program to mount local directories as drives inside DOSBox.
"Emulated Drive letter"
The driveletter inside DOSBox (for example C).
"Real Drive letter (usually for CD-ROMs in Windows) or Directory"
The local directory you want accessible inside DOSBox.
-t type
Type of the mounted directory.
Supported are: dir (default), floppy, cdrom.
-size drivesize
(experts only)
Sets the size of the drive, where drivesize is of the form
"bps,spc,tcl,fcl":
bps: bytes per sector, by default 512 for regular drives and
2048 for CD-ROM drives
spc: sectors per cluster, usually between 1 and 127
tcl: total clusters, between 1 and 65534
fcl: total free clusters, between 1 and tcl
-freesize size_in_mb | size_in_kb
Sets the amount of free space available on a drive
in megabytes (regular drives) or kilobytes (floppy drives).
This is a simpler version of -size.
-label drivelabel
Sets the name of the drive to "drivelabel". Needed on some systems
if the CD-ROM label isn't read correctly (useful when a program
can't find its CD-ROM). If you don't specify a label
and no lowlevel support is selected:
For Windows: label is extracted from "Real Drive".
For Linux: label is set to NO_LABEL.
If you do specify a label, this label will be kept as long as the drive
is mounted. It will not be updated !!
-u
Removes the mount. Doesn't work for Z:\.
Note: It's possible to mount a local directory as CD-ROM drive,
but hardware support is then missing.
Basically MOUNT allows you to connect real hardware to DOSBox's emulated PC.
So MOUNT C C:\GAMES tells DOSBox to use your C:\GAMES directory as drive C:
in DOSBox. MOUNT C E:\SomeFolder tells DOSBox to use your E:\SomeFolder
directory as drive C: in DOSBox.
Mounting your entire C drive with MOUNT C C:\ is NOT recommended! The same
is true for mounting the root of any other drive.
Otherwise if you or DOSBox make a mistake you may lose all your files.
Also never mount a "Windows" or "Program Files" folders or their subfolders
in Windows Vista/7 as DOSBox may not work correctly, or will stop working
correctly later. It is recommended to keep all your dos applications/games
in a simple folder (for example c:\dosgames) and mount that.
You should always install your game inside DOSBox.
So if you have the game on CD you always (even after installation!)
have to mount both: folder as a harddisk drive and a CD-ROM.
HardDisk should always be mounted as c
CD-ROM should always be mounted as d
Floppy should always be mounted as a (or b)
Basic MOUNT Examples for normal usage (Windows):
1. To mount a directory as a harddisk drive:
mount C D:\dosgames
2. To mount a directory E:\CD as CD-ROM drive D in DOSBox:
mount D E:\CD -t cdrom
3. To mount your drive A: as a floppy:
mount A A:\ -t floppy
Advanced MOUNT examples (Windows):
4. To mount a hard disk drive with ~870 mb free diskspace (simple version):
mount C D:\dosgames -freesize 870
5. To mount a drive with ~870 mb free diskspace (experts only, full control):
mount C D:\dosgames -size 512,127,16513,13500
6. To mount C:\dosgames\floppy as a floppy:
mount A C:\dosgames\floppy -t floppy
Other MOUNT examples:
7. To mount /home/user/dosgames as drive C in DOSBox:
mount C /home/user/dosgames
9. To mount the directory where DOSBox was started as C in DOSBox:
mount C .
Note the . which represents the directory where DOSBox was started,
on Windows Vista/7 don't use this if you installed DOSBox
to your "Program Files" folder.
If you want to mount a CD image or floppy image, check IMGMOUNT.
MOUNT also works with images but only if you use external program,
for example (both are free):
- Daemon Tools Lite (for CD images),
- Virtual Floppy Drive (for floppy images).
Although IMGMOUNT can give better compatibility.
MEM
Program to display the amount and type of free memory.
VER
VER set version_number
VER set major_version [minor_version]
Display the current DOSBox version and reported DOS version
(parameterless usage).
Change the reported DOS version with the "set" parameter,
either with a version number, or in "major_version [minor_version]" format.
For example: "VER set 7.1" to have DOSBox report DOS 7.1 as version number.
Alternatively, "VER set 6 22" lets DOSBox report DOS 6.22 as version number.
You can also set the DOS version via the "ver=" setting in the [dos] section
of the DOSBox configuration file so that DOSBox will activate it at start.
CONFIG -writeconf filelocation
CONFIG -writeconf
CONFIG -wcp filelocation
CONFIG -wcd
CONFIG -writelang filelocation
CONFIG -axadd
CONFIG -axclear
CONFIG -axtype
CONFIG -r [parameters]
CONFIG -l
CONFIG -help
CONFIG -help sections
CONFIG -help section
CONFIG -help section property
CONFIG -securemode
CONFIG -set "section property=value"
CONFIG -get "section property"
CONFIG can be used to change or query various settings of DOSBox
during runtime. It can save the current settings and language strings to
disk. Information about all possible sections and properties can
be found in Section 13: "The configuration (options) file".
-writeconf filelocation
(or -wc filelocation)
Write the current configuration settings to a file in a specified location
relative to the DOSBox config directory. Relative and absolute paths are
possible. "filelocation" is located on the local drive, not a mounted
drive in DOSBox.
The configuration file controls various settings of DOSBox:
the amount of emulated memory, the emulated sound cards and many more
things. It allows access to AUTOEXEC.BAT as well.
See Section 13: "The configuration (options) file" for more information.
-writeconf
(or -wc)
Write the configuration to the primary loaded config file.
-wcp filelocation
Write the current configuration settings to the specified file in or
relative to the DOSBox program start directory. Relative and absolute
paths are possible. This is located on a drive on the host, not a mounted
drive in DOSBox. It is useful if you keep DOSBox on a removable media.
If file is omitted, the configuration will be written to dosbox.conf.
-wcd
Write the current configuration to the default config file.
-writelang filelocation
(or -wl filelocation)
Write the current language settings to a file in a specified location.
"filelocation" is located on the local drive, not a mounted drive
in DOSBox. The language file controls all visible output of the internal
commands and the internal DOS.
See Section 14: "The Language File" for more information.
-axadd "line1" "line2" ...
Adds a command line to the autoexec section.
-axclear
Clears the autoexec section.
-axtype
Prints the content of the autoexec section.
-r [parameters]
Restart DOSBox, either with the parameters that were used to start the
current instance or any that are appended.
-l
lists DOSBox parameters:
- the configuration directory
- the config files that were used when starting this session
- the command line parameters DOSBox was started with
-h, -help, -?
Displays an overvie of the config commands.
-h, -help, -? sections
Displays the list of sections in the config file.
-h, -help, -? section
Displays the list of properties contained in the specified section.
-h, -help, -? section property
Shows information about the specified property in the specified section:
- purpose of the property
- possible values, current value, default value
- whether it can definitely not be changed at runtime
-securemode
Switches DOSBox to a more secure mode. In this mode the internal
commands MOUNT, IMGMOUNT and BOOT won't work. It's not possible either
to create a new configfile or languagefile in this mode.
(Warning: you can only undo this mode by restarting DOSBox.)
-set "section property=value"
CONFIG will attempt to set the property to new value.
-get "section property"
The current value of the property is reported and stored in the
environment variable %CONFIG%. This can be used to store the value
when using batch files.
Both "-set" and "-get" work from batch files and can be used to set up your
own preferences for each game. Although it may be easier to use separate
DOSBox's configuration files for each game instead.
Examples:
1. To create a configuration file in your c:\dosgames directory:
config -writeconf c:\dosgames\dosbox.conf
2. To set the cpu cycles to 10000:
config -set "cpu cycles=10000"
3. To turn EMS memory emulation off:
config -set "dos ems=false"
4. To change the key mappings
config -set "sdl mapperfile=/path/to/mapper-file.map"
5. To check which cpu core is being used.
config -get "cpu core"
6. To view the list of possible cpu cores:
config -help cpu core
7. To change the machine type and restart:
config -set "machine cga"
config -wc -r
8. To configure the autoexec section to auto-mount a directory at start:
config -axadd "mount c c:\dosgames" "c:"
config -wc
9. To create a specific config file in the config directory:
config -set "dos ems=false"
config -set "cpu cycles=10000"
config -set "core dynamic"
config -axadd "mount c c:\dosgames" "c:" "cd my_game" "my_game"
config -wc my_config.conf
10. To restart DOSBox from a specific config file in the config directory:
config -r -conf my_config.conf
LOADFIX [-size] [program] [program-parameters]
LOADFIX -f
Program to reduce the amount of available conventional memory.
Useful for old programs which don't expect much memory to be free.
-size
number of kilobytes to "eat up", default = 64kb
-f
frees all previously allocated memory
Examples:
1. To start mm2.exe and allocate 64kb memory
(mm2 will have 64 kb less available):
loadfix mm2
2. To start mm2.exe and allocate 32kb memory:
loadfix -32 mm2
3. To free previous allocated memory:
loadfix -f
RESCAN [Drive:] [-All]
Make DOSBox reread the directory structure. Useful if you changed something
on a mounted drive outside of DOSBox. Ctrl+F4 (or Cmd+F4 on macOS) does
this as well!
Drive:
Drive to refresh.
-All
Refresh all drives.
if both a Drive: and -All are missing, then the current drive will be
refreshed.
MIXER
Makes DOSBox display its current volume settings.
Here's how you can change them:
mixer channel left:right [/NOSHOW] [/LISTMIDI]
channel
Can be one of the following: MASTER, DISNEY, SPKR, GUS, SB, FM [, CDAUDIO].
CDAUDIO is only available if a CD-ROM interface with volume control is
enabled (CD image).
left:right
The volume levels in percentages. If you put a D in front it will be
in decibel (Example: mixer gus d-10).
/NOSHOW
Prevents DOSBox from showing the result if you set one
of the volume levels.
/LISTMIDI
Lists your PC's MIDI devices. To use one, set the 'midiconfig' attribute
in your configuration file to the device's numerical ID or any part of
its textual name. For example:
Examples:
(any OS) midiconfig = name # matches any part of name, case-insensitive
(Linux) midiconfig = 128:0 # connects to specific port
(Windows) midiconfig = 2 # connects to specific port
IMGMOUNT
A utility to mount disk images and CD-ROM images in DOSBox.
IMGMOUNT DRIVE [imagefile] -t [image_type] -fs [image_format]
-size [sectorsbytesize, sectorsperhead, heads, cylinders]
IMGMOUNT DRIVE [imagefile1 imagefile2 .. imagefileN] -t cdrom -fs iso
imagefile
Location of the image file to mount in DOSBox. The location can be
on a mounted drive inside DOSBox, or on your real disk. It is possible
to mount CD-ROM images (ISOs or CUE/BIN or CUE/IMG) too.
If you need CD swapping capabilities, specify all images in succession
(see the next entry).
CUE/BIN pairs and cue/img are the preferred CD-ROM image types as they can
store audio tracks compared to ISOs (which are data-only). For
the CUE/BIN mounting always specify the CUE sheet.
imagefile1 imagefile2 .. imagefileN
Location of the image files to mount in DOSBox. Specifying a number
of image files is only allowed for CD-ROM images.
The CD's can be swapped with Ctrl+F4 (or Cmd+F4 on macOS) at any time.
This is required for games which use multiple CD-ROMs and require the CD
to be switched during the gameplay at some point.
-t
The following are valid image types:
floppy: Specifies a floppy image. DOSBox will automatically identify
the disk geometry (360K, 1.2MB, 720K, 1.44MB, etc).
cdrom: Specifies a CD-ROM image. The geometry is automatic and
set for this size. This can be an iso or a cue/bin pair or
a cue/img pair.
hdd: Specifies a harddrive image. The proper CHS geometry must be set
for this to work.
-fs
The following are valid file system formats:
iso: Specifies the ISO 9660 CD-ROM format.
fat: Specifies that the image uses the FAT file system. DOSBox will
attempt to mount this image as a drive in DOSBox and make
the files available from inside DOSBox.
none: DOSBox will make no attempt to read the file system on the disk.
This is useful if you need to format it or if you want to boot
the disk using the BOOT command.
When using the "none" filesystem, you must specify a drive number:
Drive number Will be mounted as ...
------------ ----------------------
0 A: in DOS
1 B: in DOS, if A: is already mounted
2 C: in DOS
3 D: in DOS, if C: is already mounted
For example, if C: has already been mounted and you want
to mount a 70MB image as D:, you would use:
imgmount 3 d:\test.img -size 512,63,16,142 -fs none
Note how this differs versus imgmount'ing an image with
read-only access, which is:
imgmount e: d:\test.img -size 512,63,16,142
-size
The Cylinders, Heads and Sectors of the drive.
Required to mount hard drive images.
An example how to mount CD-ROM images (in Linux):
1. imgmount d /tmp/cdimage1.cue /tmp/cdimage2.cue -t cdrom
or (which also works):
2a. mount c /tmp
2b. imgmount d c:\cdimage1.cue c:\cdimage2.cue -t cdrom
(in Windows):
imgmount d f:\img\CD1.cue f:\img\CD2.cue f:\img\CD3.cue -t cdrom
imgmount d "g:\img\7th Guest CD1.cue" "g:\img\7th Guest CD2.cue" -t cdrom
Don't forget that you can also use MOUNT with images, but only if you use