Vanilla Doom DOSBox Tutorial: Setup, Playing WADs and DEHs

How to set up DosBox and the Vanilla Doom EXEs for modern OSes! Includes instructions on playing wads, mods and dehacked files.

(Sorry for my croaky voice here, getting over a bad cold..)
0:20 Configuring DosBox
2:49 Running DosBox and setting Doom up
5:18 Setting mouse sensitivity and "always run" (joyb_speed 29 or 31)
6:13 Running custom Wads and Dehacked files in Vanilla Doom
9:08 Using DEUSF for Wads with custom sprites (crashing on Playloop State)

Check out my Doom Mods!
Single Player/Cooperative Wads:

Graphics & Gameplay Modifiers:

Deathmatch Wads:

[ClassicDOOM]

Nicely done. This video's now linked from the classicdoom site in the 'news' section, for at least a couple weeks. :)

[DoomKid]

0:20 Configuring DosBox
2:49 Running DosBox and setting Doom up
5:18 Setting mouse sensitivity and "always run" (joyb_speed 29 or 31)
6:13 Running custom Wads and Dehacked files in Vanilla Doom
9:08 Using DEUSF for Wads with custom sprites (crashing on Playloop State)

[thedoominator]

Just the thing I need. I'm making a strictly vanilla wad, but never knew how to setup a dosbox & play custom stuff on it or test it. Thanks!

[alexh]

I'd add that novert is nice to have too, it disables the vertical movement of the mouse so you're not going forward/backward while looking left and right.

[Nikku]

When Chocolate Doom isn't accurate enough.

[domukaz]

Thanks a lot for making this video and keeping up with new information in the comments. I recently started digging into your Vanilla Megapack from Doomworld and have been wondering about testing Down the Drain, Scythe, etc. in the original .exe files.

[MartinJungblut]

In addition to being super informative, this video also has a certain ASMR feel to it. Thank you very much!

[asais]

You may use DOSBox-X instead of the main DOSBox branch due to one massive feature:
DOSBOX-X support GL shaders, which means you can emulate a CRT monitor using those shaders (the one I personally use is CRT-Easymode, albeit there are more included) so DOOM will look more intended as it was in the 90's, the scanlines blend those pixels together and mask the rather very low internal resolution of DOOM.
For the people that don't want to use DOSBox-X but still want the darker look of DOOM that CRT's scanlines cause, there's the Jovian Palette.
You can set fullresolution=desktop which is faster than setting fullresolution=2560x1440 or whatever resolution your monitor has.

[RK_LEO]

Thank you so much sir, runs well and no lag also run wads and a tutorial that are less complicated than the others. Agian, thanks😁

[coderpenguin]

Thanks for the tutorial! Been wanting to stray a bit from sourceports and go a pure as I can without lashing tons of money on old hardware. Also I had bought the Steam version of Ultimate Doom, the utilities were missing as Bethesda decided not to include them with the Steam Version, but you so happen to have the download link for it plus the other EXEs for other DOOM games I may buy in the future, along with some other goodies for setup. Just a big thanks overall, got me set up for old school slaying!

[MondySpartan]

Somehow, I also want the experience of installing DOOM itself from DOSBox, this one already has stuff aside from the IWADs prepared. Is there any way?

[fornaza-nq]

Hey! Can you answer me a question? How to i only look with the mouse? Because i can normaly turn my camera left and Right normaly with the mouse, but i walk with It, i dont want to walk with mouse, How can i disable the mouse walk option? I Just want to walk with the keyboard look with mouse not walk with It.

[Lippeth]

Thanks so much for this, I always forget how to load custom sprites with Deusf and keep having to come back. See you in a month.

[benrichardson]

Hi, Doomkid! Nice tutorial.
I have some questions for you:
- I put an higher resolution, I put true after fullscreen but when I run DOSBOX and Doom it's just a tiny screen. How do I resolve this? (EDIT: Nvm, I solved this thanks to the comment above)
- After I alredy put a wad inside the DOOM2 directory can I put another one? Does this operation confuses the program when I type "dehmake"? Can it recognize multiple wads in one directory?

[Bytefyre]

Thanks for the very informative video! I have a question…I’ve tried using Doom32 to run BtSX in DOSBox, but it always seems to get stuck when it tries to load the a and b WAD files together. Considering Doom32 came into existence because of BtSX, can you think of any reason why this would happen?

[Ike]

dude thank you i have been wanting to play on dosbox since I got doom II

[asais]

Chocolate DOOM is also an alternative to DOSBox for people looking for the vanilla experience but with an easier setup. Albeit DOS edition objectively has it's charm.

[PSIBoredomOmega]

Hey, this is a really great tutorial, even in 2021, but I have a slight issue, as my games framerate shits itself when I make a single sharp turn with my mouse. Is there a way to fix this so that way it is at least less impactful on the experience?

[Hayden]

6:46 how do I get those dehacked exes? I've got dhe31 downloaded but there isn't all those exes.

[RedHelix]

Hey Mr. Doom Kid thanks for all your hard work and contribution to the doom community. I've been inspired to use dosbox to play through doom thanks to you but I have a weird bug and cannot find anything else on the internet about it. When I use the -fast command, and reload a save as soon as there's a big moment of action and i fire my gun it freezes and I just cannot figure out why this happens. Have you heard of anything like this? it doesnt happen with sourceports only dosbox. My settings are exactly as you outlined in this video.