I was wondering about the accuracy of Dosbox. I think it seems like Bsnes is the gold standard as far as emulation goes so I was wondering how Dosbox compares. I imagine emulating things such as the Soundblaster and Glide are quite complex.
It isn't. DOSBox doesn't do cycle accurate CPU emulation so you can't emulate specific CPUs. Because of that, it's one of its strengths - speed. Your dusty old Pentium 4 2.4GHz can imitate an approximate Pentium 200 quite well in it, but you don't get a BIOS, proper ISA/PCI bus and other things a tight-as-nails accurate 'bsnes' emulator would expect.
If you really want something closer and akin to bsnes for a DOS, go follow MESS. They have bus simulation, bios emulation among other things. Just don't expect speed beyond 66mhz on a modern system and a good compatibility rate or a decent license.
You can also follow PCem which also targets specific CPUs but it's not that accurate either.
I'm not sure about the accuracy, but DOSBOX is soooooo goood that I'm using one my main systems dedicated to emulation, to use DOSBOX with my CM-500 connected via a USB-MIDI adapter. I've actually disconnected one of my actual classic system from this CM-500, even though I also have an MPU-IPC-T card to use with the real ISA slots. In terms of applied concept of using Dosbox - the final end point of the experience in using DOS-based games - , nothing comes close to DOSBOX.
Accurate compared to what?
Remember that every PC is almost unique (different brand and model of CPUs with different cycles timing, different motherboards, different video cards), so compared to a IBM 5150 it may be as accurate as your every day PC.
SNES (and other console emulators) has not as many hardware variations, so it can be more accurate.
I have traveled across the universe and through the years to find Her.
Sometimes going all the way is just a start...
I see dosbox is more in the mould of a simulator than an emulator, as dosbox simulates just enough of dos to make dos games run, else one would have needed a bios for every piece of hardware that dosbox simulate. Bsnes on the other hand emulates every piece of hardware
to compare dosbox with bsnes is like comparing banana's and chickens
wrote:If you really want something closer and akin to bsnes for a DOS, go follow MESS. They have bus simulation, bios emulation among other things. Just don't expect speed beyond 66mhz on a modern system and a good compatibility rate or a decent license.
You can also follow PCem which also targets specific CPUs but it's not that accurate either.
I would have thought Bochs would be the way to go.
