Check your dosbox.conf file. Edit it with notepad and search for a line containing output=
change it to output=surface.

If it doesn't work yet, try updating video drivers.

It's already set to screen 🙁

"screen" isn't a valid output mode.

appologies, I mean it's set to surface

Well you could try two things:

1s) Updating your video drivers.

For ATi cards, look here.

For nVIDIA cards, look here.

2nd) You could try replacing SDL.DLL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) for an updated (or even older) version, to see if that makes a difference. Download SDL.DLL versions here.

Good luck!

That sounds perfectly OK to me. Dosbox doesn't have any menu. What you see is dosbox working just fine. Read the readme to see what you can/must type at the dos prompt.

If you want a menu and a graphical frontend, download D-Fend, you can find it via dosbox's homepage.

Moe, I think he's saying that the whole main DOSBox screen is black and there's no text or anything.

The "MS-DOS prompt window" sounds like the dosbox window to me, while the second, black window sounds like the console window that appears with some CVS builds. Just my interpretation, hard to say what is what without details/text.

here is a screenshot of what happens, maybe this will help. I've tried typing in to both windows, and it does nothing.
http://nesian.info/dosbox.jpg

Try the "SDL_VIDEODRIVER=windib" variable to see if it works. You could use a batch file if you only want the variable temporarily.

the batch file should look like:

1set sdl_videodriver=windib
2cd "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.63"
3dosbox.exe

Still no luck 🙁

Did you upgrade dosbox and are using the same config as before?
I now recall I once had the same problem, and it was caused by some option which had changed name. No idea what it was, but after creating a completely new config file, it worked again.

I'm running a fresh dosbox install

We still don't know what videocard and/or driver version are you using... 😐

I'm not too sure. In display it says "Philips 107S on ATI 3D Rage Pro (atir3)"

Phillips 107S is your monitor, and ATI 3D Rage Pro is your video card. You never told us whether you got the newest drivers or not - you can get them here: https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.a … dge&folderID=27

It would probably be a good idea to make sure you have the latest version of DirectX installed as well.

I've downloaded/installed the latest version of Direct X and Drivers, but dosbox still does the same thing 🙁

Hmmm, some kind of incompatibility between the ancient 3D Rage and SDL.....

Have you tried any of the other output modes...well come to think of it the only other one that would apply to that video card would be Overlay, if the 3D Rage can even do that.

So try Output=overlay

According to this website: http://www.wavestore.com/graphicslist.html the chipset supports it. Where did you get the drivers for the card from?

Same Result. You may like to know, since I updated the drivers it says "Rage Pro Turbo AGP". I got the new drivers here: https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer. … questionID=1307