How to: Configure & Use DOSBox

• DOSBox v0.73 The application.
• D-Fend Reloaded v0.9.1 The frontend I recommend.

Then proceed to install. DOSBox’s installation is fairly straightforward, just follow the directions and do your changes accordingly. D-Fend has a few options available after its installation, after running it for the first time.







Follow these steps to install it:

1) Click next.	2) Select your DOSBox installation folder.
3) Click next.	4) I highly recommend installing all games to one directory, put that path in. If you want separate folders, leave it at the default.
5) Select your preference.	6) D-Fend is now ready to be used.

We’ll leave configuring D-Fend for later. For now, let’s back up a step.

Command Line Interface

This is the default, retro way of getting your games to work, using the vanilla DOSBox program. If you’ve yearned to typing commands to get your games to run, this is the way to do it. While not identical to DOS commands, the relative idea of DOS is present in this form. Generally, I only use the command-line interface (CLI) to initially install a game, then use D-Fend to do my configuring and playing later.

To get started, I recommend reading through the help guide and command list by typing ‘intro’ and ‘help’ respectively. If you have the patience to learn the commands, go right ahead. The most important command you’ll be using in the CLI is ‘mount’, which creates the directory where you wish to specify as the ‘C:’ drive. Since it is an emulator and not an OS, you must specify directly where you wish your ‘C:’ drive to be located. This will be where you wish to install your game. If you plan to install all the games to a specific folder, I recommend mounting the root folder as the directory. For instance, I use ‘C:\DOS’ to house all my games, mounting the DOS folder will allow me to install games to the proper folder correctly. This is the route I highly recommend. It is a pain if you wish to install all your games to their default directory.

Also, I recommend not installing games inside the ‘C:\Program Files’ folder, it is easier for mounting and configuring if the directory was all one series of characters.

To mount your folder, type: ‘mount DRIVELETTER FOLDER‘, in this case, I did ‘mount c C:\dos’.

Now that we’ve mounted C:\DOS as the root directory, it is now time to mount our disc drive. The cool thing about DOSBox is, you don’t actually need a CD to mount a CD-ROM drive. If you don’t wish to insert your CD every time you play, you can just simply copy the CD’s contents to a folder and mount that folder as the disc drive. Keep in mind, your drive letter must differ from that of the folder you previously mounted. I recommend ‘D:’.

To mount your CD drive, type: ‘mount DRIVELETTER FOLDER -t cdrom’, in this case, I did ‘mount d D:\’, as I actually used a CD.

As stated earlier, you can mount any location as the CD drive, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an actual CD/DVD-ROM drive. Just mount it accordingly. We are now ready to install the game.

Navigate to your CD drive, and initialize installation.

Success! Make the changes you want, and install the game.

The game is now installed. But it is not yet configured.

Your game is now ready to be played, but more than likely, it will not be optimized to play just yet. The next section is optional, but I highly recommend proceeding, as it makes your gameplay experience much better.

Frontend Integration

Now that we have DOSBox and D-Fend set up, it is now time to configure our game. To do this, we must first make a profile for the game. Go back to D-Fend, and click the ‘Add’ button, and then ‘Add with wizard’.

1) Click next.	2) Select your game executable and optionally, the setup program. Click next.
3) If you are lucky, a pre-made configuration template may exist and will automatically apply itself. In this case, there is. If there isn’t, just select the default template. Click next.	4) Click next.
5) Select the game’s installation directory for hard disk, and the directory of the CD. The hard disk directory maybe inputed already.	6) Select the CD’s directory. The access method may change depending on the game, leave it at default for now. Click OK, then OK again.

Most of the configuration has been done for us, since the game already has a pre-configured file. But regardless, we should still change some settings.

The profile has been created. Right-click the game profile, and click edit.

The game profile editing window.

As you can see, the game is very customizable. From program start-up parameters, to the specific sound card emulator to use, they’re all in here. However, as stated at the beginning, I will just focus on the most important aspects to get your games running. Since my chosen game has been pre-configured, I don’t need to make many changes. Since D-Fend is a frontend, you don’t need to learn anything different if you know how the configuration files work. You can read about DOSBox configuration files here.

Now to run the game.

The game runs flawlessly.

I even went to lengths to put it in my Steam games list.

As for games that do not have a pre-configured file, it is up to you to find the best settings for the game. The best bet for this would be to changing settings in the CPU, Memory, and Graphics tabs. If you seem lost, configuration files for your games may be on the Internet. Check out the official DOSBox forums for help. D-Fend also offers many packages of freeware and shareware games also already configured, and your favorites may be included and ready to be played! See the game list and obtain them here.

Now you know the basics to get your old DOS games running. I recommend checking out the links I suggested through this tutorial to further your knowledge with DOSBox and D-Fend. Now, go party like it’s 1995!