Is DOSBox-X the best DOS Emulator?

DOSBox-X is another flavour of the famous DOSBox emulator. Let's take a look and see what it offers!

💙 Consider supporting me 💙

Disclosure: Below are affiliate links, and I may receive a commission if you make a purchase.

[MidnightGeek]

Hey Phil, congrats for the 800th video, it's CRAZY and amazing at the same time :D

Good luck going forward!

[redavatar]

I've changed my library over to DOSBOX-X and the ability to run games from ZIP files made my life way easier. It's a bit more work to set up but you keep a clean base install of the game and every change, savegame, etc. is saved in a separate folder which I love. While not all games can be run from a ZIP, about 90% work fine. The ability for shaders is vital for me too - I just wish we had more advanced shares such as the ones RetroArch uses. For proper CRT emulation, RetroArch with DOSBOX Pure is the only option and while it supports running games from ZIP files as well, the options are more limited and games that do not like being run from a ZIP file simply don't work.

[davidmedal]

It would be interesting to see a video directly comparing the features of DOSBox-X vs DOSBox Staging. Thanks as always for the great content!

[JoesGuy]

This is a long overdue upgrade to Dosbox. Now my stupid friends can play the classics without me having to explain Dosbox.

[axa]

The most difficult games to run right now are games from '96-'05, we really need something that runs Windows 98 properly at custom speeds from 486 to P3 and offers Glide, D3D and OGL anywhere from Voodoo 1 to GeForce 3 levels of performance and compatibility. That's the dream at least 😢

[DavidPereiraLima]

Seeing these improvements in emulation is a one of the positive patterns I've seen with archival technology, probably no more nice things will fade away and be forgotten by history, what a great accomplishment for us humans, what a great time to be here. I have no doubt people will improve DOSBox-X or similar software (forks, maybe) to perfection. It's only a matter of time, and things have been arriving earlier and earlier, I feel. I also feel bad being a bystander while people code these marvels, I'm no good at that, my forté is soft sciences, whoever reads this post can see it clearly in the enthusiastic writing in english as a second language, hahaha! Great as always, Phil!

[Dvlx]

The menu alone just makes this so much more accessible to the average person.

[MatijaErceg]

Love the pace of the video, you get right into it, no long intro, respectful of my time. Thank you!

[Damaniel]

I use DOSBox-X mainly because of their suggested use case - running DOS applications (rather than games) with maximum compatibility. That being said, I've never seen an issue with any of my DOS development tools such that they failed to work in DOSBox Staging but did work in DOSBox-X, so I'm not sure how much water that claim holds.

[billchildress]

Thank You SO much Phil! I have recently downloaded DosBox-X and have yet to try it. I remember using VDMSound with WinXP and was able to Install and play Duke Nukem 1 and 2 with no effort and since we are now working with 64 bit OSes it has been more of a problem even with DosBox alone. I'm very glad I subbed your channel and I'm working on a Win 95 board for this purpose of playing around with Dos Programs and Games! The real board I want is VERY rare and almost impossible to find but I;m not gonna give up until I find one!

[Kakariki]

Waiting for 98Box, a user friendly and easy to use W98 emulator with proper graphics and audio support 😉

[samuelbanya]

Dope look at Dosbox X, Phil!

I would be interested if you did a giant comparison between emulating the same DOS machine on this, Pcem, and 86Box

[Dwedit]

"Dosbox Staging" implemented Chorus and Reverb support for audio, which is a feature found on the Sound Blaster AWE64. When you add Chorus and Reverb to Adlib sound, it makes that seemingly come alive. DosBox X does not currently implement that feature.

[gbb]

For Windows games 86box might offer better compatibility but it comes at a serious performance hit. To be able to emulate something above a 400 MHz pentium ii in 86box you need a very fast machine. Dosbox-x is what most people need and 86box is for the purists among us. Also a shame that the Dosbox developers are not doing something like Dosbox-x themselves.

[bad.sector]

Thanks for the video, Phil! Just what I needed... I am running DosBox Staging with Borland Pascal and ran into multiple issues (including the latest release often ignoring configuration settings). This looks more like the DosBox I need for this purpose - especially mouse wheel, long file name and paste support, as well as different speed settings and MMX are welcome...

[n.stephan]

I came across this fork a few years ago, immediately loved it for the sheer convenience it's menu's offer as well as it's capabilities. I was somewhat surprised it wasn't already the de-facto standard.
It's Windows 95 support is something I messed with at the time, from what I recall it worked fine, but then again I only explored the OS itself and I did play a game on it, it would have been a DOS game.

Addendum;
If I recall correctly, it's possible to feed MIDI data to an external program such as VirtualMidiSynth, quite fun to mess around with. This may be a standard feature all DOSBox forks/flavours have though.

[rarapas]

Thank you Phil! It's been a while since I tried a dosbox fork, this looks very interesting!

[craigpilkington]

I see a new Mr Phil episode and I click without a second thought. LOVE this channel!

[Cortana_ice_fox]

As much as I like DosBox, I prefer original hardware and PCEM/86box emulation

[Sabalon]

I'm in and out of so many systems at work with so many different things to remember. It seems whenever I try to get into some old games, I'm always looking up some config option, how to mount a local directory, etc... I was there 3000 years ago, so this makes it a lot nicer for me. Am going to have to give this a spin to go back to some old classics. Thanks for the demo.