If you want a 320x200 text mode,

1) use machine=cga / tandy / pcjr.
2) change to 40 columns like you would in real DOS. The FreeDOS "mode.com" might be handy.

Oh man that worked! Downloaded mode.com from freedos and used "mode CO40" with machine=cga and it worked like a charm! Exactly what i needed! Thank you a lot!

You can use 40 column text mode with ega and vga machine types; cga is not necessary, unless you insist on the 8-line font (which can be used in vga with lines emulation). I don't think 40 columns will be very useful, though, because most apps won't properly adapt to it, and many commands like DIR will wrap around and be hard to read.

I am running dosbox ( 0.73 - ported to Symbian platform ) on my Nokia smartphone ( E72 with qwerty keyboard ) and i just wanted to play Nethack MS-DOS version. My screen size is 320x240 and with 80x45 mode everything was to small and unreadable - it was like the resolution of the window was 640x480 and was shrank to fit my screen size, but now it is just perfect ( almost, since 40x25 = 320x200 px. So I'm either loosing 40 px or the image is just stretched a little bit. But i'm fine with that ). With machine=VGA the actual resolution stays the same ( 640x480 or something like that ).

Ah, for fullscreen native 320x200, I see why cga is needed. EGA is 350 lines, VGA is 400 lines, usually. The version of Nethack I have wants to display 80 columns, and clips the screen in half in 40 column text mode; but there might be some screen size option in the docs that isn't mentioned in its config file.

personally, I find VGA 40-col text almost unreadable even at its native resolution (640x400)... the stretchiness just hurts to look at with the default character set. I always use CGA for 40-column text games, much easier on the eyes.

I downloaded nethack ms-dos version from official site. It runs pretty well in 40x25 everything fits to the screen, the map just pages when i come 2 or 3 symbols close to the edge of it. The hud and other stuff works just fine! There is only one clipping occurence, i don't see the status like "Burdened" or "Weak" - just not enough place for it, but it's not so important since it's said in the messages 😁

PS: But the font still could be a little bit bigger...

But the font still could be a little bit bigger...

No it can't. The font is tied to the video mode.