Play Retro DOS Games Perfectly with DOSBox

Did you know that your new 2018 computer processor still has the same core internals as the first Intel 8086 processor released in 1978? In theory, this means that software written to run on this 1978 processor should run without real issues on a modern processor. All of these chips are part of the “x86 ” processor family.

This should also mean that video games written for DOS back in the 80s and 90s will work on modern computers, right? While you would be technically right if you said so, things are much more complicated.

First, despite the same basic instruction set, modern processors and processors from thirty or forty years ago are actually radically different. They have different architectures and are much, much, much faster than something like the 80386 CPU.

Plus, operating systems have come a long way, too. Even some games developed for Windows 7 (which essentially has the same kernel as Windows 10) may have serious compatibility bugs that require fixes or special compatibility modes before they work.

If you tried a classic DOS game on your modern computer, chances are it won’t work at all. This is a shame because there is an extensive library of classic games covering the history of personal computers. So what’s a retro gaming fan to do?

Enter DOSBox

Enter DOSBox

DOSBox is free software that faithfully emulates the original DOS environment of the IBM PC. Not only that, it also mimics some of the most popular hardware of the era, such as the Creative Sound Blaster sound card. This means you can use it to perfectly play classic DOS games as if you were running them on a PC four decades ago.

You are not limited to Windows either, there are also versions of the software for macOS and Linux! The only thing you need to deal with is getting your hands on the games. It can actually be a little tricky.

Where to find games

In this article, we use the shareware version of the classic shooter DOOM. To get your copy, just google “DOOM Shareware”, there are many sites that still host the software. This is perfectly legal as shareware games are essentially extended game demos and you are not violating any terms of the license.

However, full retail DOS games are still the property of their publishers. If you download a copy without paying for it, you are piracy.

If you still have the original DOS games on CD or floppy disk, then you can use DOSBox to run the game (or back it up). It’s a great way to access your old collection of games again.

Thanks to sites like Good Old Games , you can even buy many classic DOS games legally. Specifically, GOG uses a pre-configured copy of DOSBox to make this all work. If you buy a DOS game from GOG, you don’t need to manually configure DOSBox at all. If you don’t want to change the settings, this guide will still be helpful.

Finally, there is the software rejection , these games fall into a gray zone. The companies that own the rights to these games have long since disappeared. Nobody actively protects their copyrights for these games. Most likely, they will never be put up for sale again. You can find these games on abandoned software sites, but keep in mind that this is not entirely legal.

Setting up the game with DOSBox

Set up your game with DOSBox

Before you can use DOSBox, you must install it. Just go to the DOSBox Downloads page and download the correct version of the game for your computer. Here we are using the Windows versions that have an installation wizard. Just launch it after downloading and install the app.

Before starting DOSBox, create a folder on disk for your DOS games. This folder will act as a virtual hard drive in DOSBox and you can copy all your games there. We recommend creating this folder at the root of your drive for easier access from DOSBox

On our Windows 10 computer, the installer did not create a shortcut, so go to the installation directory and run DOSBoxexe. Obviously, you can create your own shortcut from there to make future sessions more convenient. After starting the program, the DOSBox window should open as follows.

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Not “SET BLASTER” parameters. These are numbers that you enter into any game that requires you to use a Sound Blaster card. Earlier we created a folder in the root of our C drive called “DOSAPPS”. We copied our shareware DOOM files into this folder, but before we can run them in DOSBox, we need to “mount” this folder as our virtual hard drive.

To do this, we type “MOUNT C C: DOSAPPS”, after which you should see this confirmation message.

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Now switch from drive Z to drive C in DOSBox by typing C:

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This game still needs to be installed, and the installation files are located in the “doom19s” folder. To switch to this folder, type CD doom19s

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The installer is called Install.bat, so we just type Install.bat and press Enter, and then the installer starts.

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Now just follow the instructions and let the program install the game on your virtual drive C.

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Once the installation is complete, you will be presented with the DOOM installer.

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We will select “keyboard only” as the controller type and then “Sound Blaster” as the sound card. If you recall, DOSBox was showing Sound Blaster’s default configuration at startup. So, we choose port 220, IRQ 7 and DMA channel 1. The default choice of 3-channel mixing works for us too.

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Once all this is done, we select “Save Options and Run DOOM”.

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If everything is ok, the game should start.

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Oh yeah! You are now ready to play!

Additional tips

To get full screen mode, just press ALT + ENTER to switch window modes. You can play the game as usual. The next time you launch the game, you can simply navigate to the installed folder after connecting the C drive and launch the game in the same way we launched Install.bat.

Some DOS games do not require installation, you can simply copy their entire folder into the DOS game folder and launch them.

There is a lot you can customize in DOSBox to make it work the way you want it to. Find an excellent text file with instructions in the DOSBox installation folder. There are plenty of tips and tricks here.

You can also type HELP in DOSBox itself to brush up on good old DOS commands. However, the most important shortcut you need to be aware of right now is the CPU cycle switch.

This speeds up or slows down the DOSBox virtual processor. Therefore, if the game is running at the wrong speed, simply press CTRL + F11 or CTRL + F12 to add or remove speed.

To exit DOSBox, enter EXIT at the command line, or simply close the application window. That’s all you need to know to get started with some classic DOS games. Don’t blame us if you spend all night listening to 90s music and playing DOOM!

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