Both.

That's the general answer, because some things are easier to get working in DOSBox, others are easier to get working on real old hardware, and there are differences in the experience.

For more specific advice you need to tell us which games you have in mind.

This is more appropriate for the Milliways forum. This forum is for DOS games on newer systems.

Moved.

Hooray yet another simple question thread. (check post history)

Nothing wrong with a simile question.

For me a dos system is better, I find for me that Dos box is to much hassle. I have not used dos box much and don't know its in's and out's unlike a retro PC.
However Dosbox is very useful if you own a new system and not a old one. Plus you don't have the same problems you do with old hardware like bad caps, hissy sound cards and having to use older mice/keyboards and monitors.

Jade Falcon wrote:

I find for me that Dos box is to much hassle. .

what

dosbox is the LEAST hassliest way for playing dos games these days. No memory fiddling EVER, no need for a disk cache driver and no crazy irq conflicts and PCI sound crashes/inabilities. All one really needs to fiddle with are the cycles, generally

For all these "simile questions" post-and-run threads i'd recommend only DOSBox at this point.

leileilol wrote:

dosbox is the LEAST hassliest way for playing dos games these days. No memory fiddling EVER, no need for a disk cache driver and no crazy irq conflicts and PCI sound crashes/inabilities. All one really needs to fiddle with are the cycles, generally

So much this.

leileilol wrote:

a disk cache driver

Hm, why do I need a disk cache driver? Just curious

jheronimus wrote:

leileilol wrote:

a disk cache driver

Hm, why do I need a disk cache driver? Just curious

This. I never needed one.

But to be honest I never had much luck with dos box. Maybe its just the games I play or I'm too lazy.
But I find it much simpler to put a disk in a old system, install the app set the sound cards IRQ/DMA and play the game then fiddling with DosBox config's.

I never once had to deal with IRQ conflicts on a old system or ran into memory problems, in fact I had more memory related problems with DosBox then I have with a dos system. And the only time I ever had any IRQ problems was on a newer dual 6-core Opteron system.

I guess I don't put 3 sounds cards or try putting new parts in a much older system like some folks do. I keep it simple.

jheronimus wrote:

Hm, why do I need a disk cache driver? Just curious

For when the disk is too slow.

As per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartDrive , Microsoft even recommends using Smartdrv when installing Windows 2000 or XP from DOS.

DOSBox for me. I don't have too much space at home for another PC, plus I can use DOSBox on my laptop which accompanies me when I'm working away from home, so DOSBox plus a good front-end (to handle all of DOSBox's settings) suits me exactly. I think some old games don't work perfectly on DOSBox (is that right?), but every game I play on it works fine.

86box

oeuvre wrote:

86box

That looks like a neat app.

It's fantastic but it does require a fair amount of power. Runs fine though on my main desktop and runs okay on my laptop as well

oeuvre wrote:

86box

How does that differ from DOSBox, gaming-wise, please?

Kerr Avon wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

86box

How does that differ from DOSBox, gaming-wise, please?

I haven't used it, but it looks more like a emu for old hardware. Where DosBox is a Dos emu with a small library of hardware being emulated.
If I'm reading it right 86box can emulate a wide range of retro hardware and run just about any 80's or 90s OS. Even voodoo1 and 2 is supported.

It's based off PCem.

86box and PCem are good for what they do, but have major bug which makes the emulator stutter whenever the emulated IDE HDD is accessed.

James-F wrote:

86box and PCem are good for what they do, but have major bug which makes the emulator stutter whenever the emulated IDE HDD is accessed.

That's definitely a major bug