DOSBox Pure is a new fork of DOSBox built for RetroArch/Libretro aiming for simplicity and ease of use.
DOSBox Pure is a new fork of DOSBox built for RetroArch/Libretro aiming for simplicity and ease of use.
DOSBox Pure is a fork of DOSBox, an emulator for DOS games, built for RetroArch/Libretro aiming for simplicity and ease of use.
The easiest way to use this core is with the built-in core downloader feature of RetroArch.
Just get RetroArch and select Online Updater -> Core Downloader -> DOS (DOSBox-Pure) and you're ready to go!
You can find a binary download of the core for Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi (Arm7) under the Releases page here.
To install, locate the directory where your libretro frontend stores its cores.
In RetroArch, you can open the main menu and go to Configuration File -> Load Configuration -> Parent Directory -> cores to find it.
The release ZIP contains 2 files, dosbox_pure_libretro.dll (or .so for Linux) and dosbox_pure_libretro.info.
The .dll or .so file is to be extracted into the cores directory. The .info file goes into the info directory or into cores if it doesn't exist.
DOSBox Pure can load games directly from ZIP files without the need to extract them.
Changes made to a loaded ZIP file will be stored as a separate ZIP file into the libretro saves directory.
If a game is loaded directly without using a container like ZIP or ISO the saves directory is not used.
CD images (ISO or CUE) and floppy disk images (IMG/IMA/VHD/JRC) can be mounted directly from inside ZIP files.
The system will automatically mount the first found disk image as the A: or D: drive.
Additional disks can be loaded or swapped by using the Disc Control menu in RetroArch.
The start menu also offers the option to mount or unmount an image.
This is the first screen that appears after loading a game. It offers a gamepad controllable list with all executable files of the loaded game. In addition it can swap which floppy disk or CD is inserted.
By using the tabs at the bottom, you can view the Gamepad Mapper and while a game is running access the On-Screen Keyboard.
While a game is running, you can open the menu again by pressing L3 on the retropad (usually by pushing in the left analog stick).
While in the start menu, you can press right to set an item as the default which will skip the menu the next time the same content is loaded.
By pressing right multiple times, a number of frames can be specified that will automatically be skipped on start.
This can be used to skip over loading screens or start-up sequences.
If there is only a single choice, the menu will not show and directly run the only executable file.
To force the menu to be shown, hold shift on the keyboard or L2 or R2 on
the gamepad while selecting Restart in the core menu. You can also always
view the start menu by pressing L on the On-Screen Keyboard.
By pressing L3 on the gamepad (usually by pushing in the left analog stick) the menu will open.
Then you can use the L and R buttons to switch to the On-screen keyboard tab. It is also possible to use the
Input > Use L3 Button to Show Menu option to default to the keyboard when first pressing L3.
The cursor on the On-screen keyboard can be controlled with the controller (or mouse or keyboard)
and L2/R2 will speed up or slow down the cursor speed.
If the cursor is moved above the middle of the screen, the keyboard will move to the top.
The L3 button can be changed with the Gamepad mapper and there is also a core option to remove it.
When a game is loaded, DOSBox Pure will try to detect the game and apply a controller mapping.
To see the applied mapping, check Controller Port 1 under the "Controller Mapper" tab of the start menu.
It will show Mapping: . Additionally you can set the core option
Input > Advanced > Automatic Game Pad Mappings to Enable with notification on game detection.
Under the "Controller Mapper" screen in the start menu there are 2 mouse emulation modes available by
switching the Preset setting of any port. There is Mouse with Left Analog Stick and
Mouse with Right Analog Stick.
When choosing "left stick", the face buttons (B/A) will be used as left/right mouse buttons.
For the right stick the shoulder buttons L/R will be used as left/right mouse buttons.
The X button is the middle mouse button and L2/R2 can be used to speed up or slow down mouse movement.
There is also the core option Input > Mouse Sensitivity to increase/decrease mouse movement speed.
The behavior of a real mouse or touch screen can be controlled by the Input > Mouse Input Mode option.
In Windows 3.x it is possible to use this driver for direct controlled mouse support.
For games that don't have automated controller mappings or are not detected successfully the core will map generic keyboard keys to all buttons. Use the "Controller Mapper" screen in the start menu or the On-screen keyboard to freely customize all the mapped buttons.
There are multiple DOS era joysticks available as mappings under the "Controller Mapper" screen in the start menu.Gravis GamePad (4 Buttons), First 2 Button Joystick (2 Axes), Second 2 Button Joystick (2 Axes),
ThrustMaster Flight Stick (3 axes, 4 buttons, 1 hat) and Both DOS Joysticks (4 axes, 4 buttons).
These can be assigned to any port and the button layout can be freely remapped.
If you need even more customization of the controls than provided by the Automated controller mappings, or the various presets for mouse, keyboard and joysticks you can use the gamepad mapper.
To open it, select "CONTROLLER MAPPER" in the start menu or click the "PAD MAPPER" button in the On-screen keyboard.
It is available any time in-game and changes are immediately saved and applied when closing the mapper. Up to 4 functions can be mapped for any button/direction of the gamepad. A mapping can be to any function of the 3 emulated input devices: keyboard, mouse or joystick.
The mapping is saved to a DOS file named "C:\PADMAP.DBP" which will be stored in the save file or next to the loaded program (when running without ZIP/DOSZ).
When loading a content that contains a bootable CD-ROM image, the start menu will show an additional option
[ Boot and Install New Operating System ]. Additionally it will also show when both a CD-ROM image and a
floppy disk image are loaded, so non-bootable install CDs can be used as well.
With this option a hard disk image of selectable size (between 8 and 1024 MB) can be created after which
the CD-ROM or floppy disk image will boot to install the operating system. Once the installation has completed,
loading any content (for example a ZIP file) will have the option [ Run Installed Operating System ] to boot
the created hard disk image as the C: drive and with the loaded content becoming the D: drive. If there are
any CD-ROM images available they will appear as the E: drive.
There are two core options related to this feature:
System > Advanced > OS Disk Modifications: When running an installed operating system, modifications
to the C: drive will be made on the disk image by default. Setting it to 'Discard' will never save any
changes made on C: but allows the content to be closed any time without worry of file system or registry
corruption. The third option 'Save Difference Per Content' will store any changes made to the C: drive
into a file in the frontends save directory, but the OS disk image must never be modified
again once used, otherwise existing differences become unusable.System > Advanced > Force Normal Core in OS: If you encounter program errors or crashes inside the
installed operating system, this option can be used to switch to a more compatible but slower
mode. The option can be toggled on and off as needed.The operating system will detect a NE2000 networking card which will not be able to connect to the real internet.
To avoid slow boot times, make sure to configure it to use base address port set to 0x300 and base IRQ set to 10.
In Windows 95 or 98, the keyboard gets detected as "PC/AT Keyboard (84-Key)" which can lead to some issues with arrow keys and others. To fix it open the "Device Manager", go to the keyboard and run "Update Driver". Then by using "Display a list of all the drivers" and "Show all hardware" you can find and install the full keyboard driver "Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard" which is compatible. Make sure to reboot after installing it.
It is also possible to create save states while running an installed operating system. This can be used to skip the startup sequence or even jump directly to the title screen of a game. Make sure to load the same operating system and do not modify the loaded ZIP file in any way otherwise the operating system will be very confused and most likely crash. To make things easier, set the operating system to auto start so it starts together with the content, skipping the start menu.
The core includes emulation of a 3dfx Voodoo PCI card. Compatible DOS games should work out of the box. If running an installed operating system like Windows 95 or Windows 98, you can get the required drivers from this site. Download "3dfx Voodoo1 V3.01.00" and launch voodoo1-30100.zip with the core, then run the operating system and install the driver via the control panel from the files on the D: drive.
There are a few core options related to this feature:
Video > 3dfx Voodoo Emulation: By default a compatible 8 MB memory card with one texture mapping unit is emulated.
It can be changed to an experimental 12 MB dual TMU card, a 4 MB card or support can be disabled entirely.Video > 3dfx Voodoo Performance Settings: By default the core will use fast OpenGL hardware acceleration to render 3dfx graphics.
This setting can be used to switch to software rendering with a more faithful emulation but at much higher CPU cost.Video > 3dfx Voodoo OpenGL Scaling: Use this setting to increase the render resolution of the OpenGL rendering.The core emulates an IPX DOS driver and a serial modem (configurable to be a null modem or dial-up modem) as well as a NE2000 network card to be used in a booted operating system. To use it, just host or connect a multiplayer game with a supported frontend (RetroArch 1.16 and newer).
To use the NE2000 card make sure to configure the Windows 95/98 driver to use base address port set to 0x300 and base IRQ set to 10.
If DOSBox Pure finds one or more .SF2 sound font files in the system directory of the frontend, one of them
can be selected via the Audio > MIDI Output core option. This sound font will then be used to play General Midi and Sound Canvas music.
If the system directory contains a pair of _control.rom and _pcm.rom files, an MT-32 synthesizer can be em
No open issues yet, or sync has not completed.