For DOS Stuff, if I use emulation, it's usually going to be DOSBox.

For Windows or anything else, I use Oracle Virtualbox. Sometimes I even do DOS on that using FreeDOS 2.1.

creepingnet wrote on 2021-05-07, 16:57:

For DOS Stuff, if I use emulation, it's usually going to be DOSBox.

For Windows or anything else, I use Oracle Virtualbox. Sometimes I even do DOS on that using FreeDOS 2.1.

Still love DOSBox, too. It's more like a slick runtime, than a traditional emulator IMHO.
Many DOS programs run better in DOSBox than they used to run on real MS-DOS 6.x in the 90s.

For OS/2 and Windows 3.1x, I used to use Virtual PC 2007 for a long time.
- Unfortunatelly, Windows 8.x and 10 refuse to run VPC 2007 for whatever reason..

VPC 2007 with older VPC 3/VPC 2004 virtual additions was nice, because it could run them with GUI acceleration, networking and hardware virtualization.
And with Intel-VT or AMD-V enabled, the hacky Win32s worked fast and stable. Win 9x .., not so much. That one worked better without them.

By comparison, even PCem still has some trouble here. Because, the official x86 documents are not always honest.
The real silicon does things different sometimes, than documented. So a hardware-based x86 virtualization comes in handy in tricky situaitions. 😉

Also, VirtualBox sadly doesn't emulate a Trio 32/64, only a synthetic VGA/VBE device.
On the other hand, VPC does support 2D graphics only. Not even an S3 ViRGE emulation. PCem is best here. Edit: That includes 86Box, too.

Edit: That's what I was thinking of: https://www.os2museum.com/wp/sgdtsidt-fiction-and-reality/

mgtroyas wrote on 2021-05-06, 20:44:

I also ended using 86box over PCEm for the better interface, but v17 brings optimizations that make it run much faster, and don't seem to be applied on current 86box builds. On my PC 86box can run POD on Windows 98 without CD music skipping on a P166MMX... PCEm v17 can do it on a P233MMX. Same with Dungeon Keeper 2 and any other games I've tested.

That's because PCem got the new recompiler, while 86Box is still compiled with the old one by default. And 86Box further loses some more % to the greater accuracy of the emulation. The -Dev builds of 86Box do have the new recompiler, but they are compiled with debug flags, so they're a bit slower because of. Also, the new recompiler has quite a few currently reported but still not fixed regressions, such as Windows 9x being slower than on the old recompiler, and MapEdit v8.x for Wolfenstein 3D going down to 15% on it while running at solid 100% on the old recompiler. This is why I'm eventually considering just writing my own recompiler entirely, but it's not going to be that soon, and it's going to need an entire version of 86Box just for it.

DOSbox all the way for DOS programs, and virtual machines for Windows programs (no preference between Virtualbox and VMware; they both have their unique drawbacks).

I tried the full-blown "simulate the movement of every single electron in every clock cycle of the guest machine even when there's no work being done" approach and found it to be the worst imaginable option.

At the past i used DOSBox but nowadays i prefer 86box whenever possible, unless i really need the extra performance or need to easy access for files or want to script some stuff. Even then i do not use vanilla DOSBox much, i prefer DOSBox-X as it provides better compatibility (e.g. i had an issue with my use of RDTSC for timing that only showed up in vanilla DOSBox but never on real hardware nor DOSBox-X) and more features.

In terms of PCem vs 86box i prefer the latter mainly because i like the UI more.

This is wholly dependent on the task at hand, but it's nice to have so many options to choose from.
My hw is woefully slow judging by modern standards, so I do have to resort to Wine and/or virtualization whenever I can to get the performance...
For DOS stuff DOSBox (or some variant) does the job.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-02-10, 23:27:

Obviously, there are things that mainline DOSBox does not do, like GLide emulation.

There is a fork of DosBox called; DOSBox-X that has GLide emulation! Here is it's setup guide: https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3ASetti ... E2%80%90X

Closed. Please do not revive old threads.
Thanks