senrew wrote:

is there a need, besides nostalgia or that intangible yet tangible feel of real hardware, to actually use a retro machine strictly for playing DOS games?

Yes I can think of one right now: the need to create (and sometimes solve) problems. Everyone needs this in their life.

Emulation isn't perfect. DOSBox isn't accurate on the whole per-clock thing where you'll always need to adjust your cycles. It is a nice convenience though and is great for newcomers who don't want all this TSR/memory configuration bullshit to play a game they missed out on (except for rare cases where games don't actually work). Also, it is important to stress that DOSBox is not a replacement for legacy systems within the information technology sector.

No idea. I never used DOSBOX. I prefer hardware. 😀

I was thinking more along the lines of strictly for retro gaming. If the emulation was "Good enough", along with being able to get accurate sound options, would it replace real hardware for you?

No. For me the nostalgia includes original hardware. 😀 But I can fully understand why people prefer DOSBOX (my wife's cousin for instance). Aside from the space vintage hardware takes up there is a lot of $ tied up in it. Especially with various eras / MIDI / sound cards and so on.

senrew wrote:

I was thinking more along the lines of strictly for retro gaming. If the emulation was "Good enough", along with being able to get accurate sound options, would it replace real hardware for you?

Indeed it would.

For low-res (320x200), 256 color VGA DOS games, DOSBOX works fine, not to mention you can scale the otherwise low-resolution games to make them look smoother; things like 2xSAI or advinterp3x or such.

The kind of games DOSBOX just don't work well are late DOS games, with hi-res, unacellerated 3D games like Jane's ATF (not ATF Gold) or F-22 Lightning II.

I'm not a big DOS gamer, but I have yet to find a game that runs better on real hardware than in DOSBox. Give DOSBox a fast enough CPU and all performance problems disappear. Hook up a CRT monitor and you might forget you're using an emulator.

I know some of us are attached to real DOS hardware, and I totally get it. I just never developed that attachment, so I'm happy to dispense with all the headaches and just use the emulator. So yes, I would consider DOSBox a replacement. Period hardware is still fun to mess around with, though.

I use Dosbox. It's obviously not identical to running dos on old hardware but for me the emulation is fine, the slight differences are worth the huge increase in convenience.

My oldest-hardware box is for 98, to give me extra graphics capability - glide, power vr - it doesn't have isa slots though it will run dos games [as well as dosbox].

I can probably play everything else I want on my xp/vista-64 dual-boot phenom ii.

For games, Dosbox is good. No need for a clunky, smelly old dos box 😉

I would consider DOSBox to be a suitable replacement for MOST retro gaming considerations... keyword "most". There are exceptions to the rule and it typically comes down to what DOSBox can and can't handle. Certain games simply don't work nicely, if at all under DOSBox, or work but not as well as on real hardware.

The trouble with using real hardware over DOSBox is that DOS games are, in general, not very good with backwards and forwards compatibility, meaning the best hardware to run a DOS game on is hardware that was around at the exact point in time the game was made. To put this in perspective, my slowest system is 4/8 MHz (selectable through software), and my next slowest system is a 486DX2/66. This means any software designed to run on 16, 20 and 33 MHz systems will potentially run poorly on my slowest system, but too fast on my next-slowest system.

Plus you also have to consider the hardware, as DOSBox can change between various hardware supports just by changing config file settings, whereas with real hardware you either have to install both devices at once (which can create conflicts depending on the hardware), or you have to swap things in and out which would be incredibly inconvenient.

All that said, there are a few situations where the real hardware is superior to DOSBox:

* For using hardware not yet supported by DOSBox due to its lack of prevalence (such as the IBM 8514/A)
* When the border area of the CRT monitor is actually used for something (damage indication in the 3D Catacomb games)
* When you want to use actual period-specific joysticks or such
* When the games have disk-based copy protection and you don't want to hack it out (most Accolade and Sierra titles)
* If you don't have a gaming keyboard for your modern system (and thus can't hold more than a couple keys at once)
* For games that simply don't work in DOSBox (fortunately, this number is very small!)

For the most part though, I would recommend DOSBox over real hardware because it's a heck of a lot simpler to work with and less costly than hoarding a whole bunch of retro hardware. :B

For the few games I've tried in DOSbox, I'd say that yes it does replace the need for a DOS machine imo, and it's a lot simpler/neater to be able to run more things on one machine vs having 2-3-4 systems (as Gemini000 points out); saves a lot of desk space!

The answer to the question "Can DOSBox replace a real DOS machine?" is "Mostly yes".

It depends on what your objective is. If you want to "play DOS games", then yes. If you want to "experience owning a PC in 1994", then no.

Horses for courses. Everything Gemini said, everything Kreshna said, and probably more that others will say. There is no "consensus amongst Vogoners", we're all after something different.

For old games I would say yes. It also makes your life a lot easier and cheaper. Less stressful. Most that build retro machines to play games hardly play games because you end up fixing you gaming machine all the time. You also worry about having the perfect CPU, motherboard, graphics card or Sound Card and what began as a simple "I just want to play this game" ends up taking over your life 😀

So for games like Wing Commander or Space Quest 4, DOSBox together with MUNT is awesome.

For later 3D based games I believe you are better off with real hardware. You either run into performance issues, synchronisation issues, issues with sound, flickering video issues and other issues.

Personally I prefer playing on real hardware but I also fell victim to the the hobby and playing with the hardware as taken over my life 😵

He he, yeah Dosbox is for playing games, old machines are for getting the games to work 😉

Piecing together and getting the hardware to work the way you want it to IS the game though, isn't it? 😀

I spent a good chunk of the night installing my hundreds of old games on my modern machine. So far, every single DOS game has done beautifully in dosbox. Add some midi modules and it's as good as I could hope for against the real hardware. I'll need to keep around one or two Windows machines, 98/XP most likely to get the Windows games working. At least for the games that I own and would want to play, dosbox is looking like a total replacement. Your needs may vary, but I'm happy so far. Still have a few stacks of games to test out but we'll see.

I spend a lot more time playing games on my retro boxes than tinkering with them. But I realize that is the exception to the rule. 😀

PeterLI wrote:

But I realize that is the exception to the rule. 😀

Exactly. However, tinkering with them is a separate pleasure.

In a nutshell yes, DOSBox is an excellent replacement. There's one game here and there that won't be perfect, but DOSBox does the job and does it well. Emulates a variety of graphical options and sound devices, and it's flexible enough to allow you to use extra modules. It let's you play Tandy and PCjr specific titles, with a good level of emulation accuracy, machines that for someone who lives in europe is a huge problem to acquire.

Personally i prefer real hardware, 1000 times actually, but i won't piss on DOSBox either it's excellent, specially when you use it with a frontend.

Honestly, for the longest time, the hardware is where I got the most enjoyment. Lately however, I really just want to actually PLAY the games, and dosbox is letting me see a light at the end of the tunnel for being able to do that.