Many years ago I was using DosBox to emulate old dos games but lack of official updates and save state feature make me quit. Few days ago I have discovered DosBox-X build and it mesmerised me.
I wonder is it possible to turn off ctrl + alt key functions while using it, many games do not allow to change button mapping and windows use ctrl alt arrows combination to quick rotate screen.
Also is it possible to force DosBox to display longer file names than 8?

It's usually possible to change them via the mapper (CTRL-F1 or Main -> Mapper Editor). Also look at Main -> Send Special Key / Select Host Key and see if changing anything there reduces the key binding conflict. DOS -> Long Filename Support -> Enable Long Filename Emulation. You might also want to make sure DOS -> Reported DOS version is 7.10 as Long Filenames were introduced with Win95 and that was the included DOS version that contained support for VFAT. They won't replace the 8.3 short names, but instead the Long Filenames get added to the right of the date (example) and you can CD the long-name by typing them inside "quotes" if they contain spaces. Pressing TAB after typing the first few unique letters will also auto-fill long-names as it does short names.

In DOSBox-X, the option is set to "auto," and the DOS version has to be reported as 7.x or higher. "LFN = 1" has to be set to make it work for all versions. This setting can be changed in the "dosbox-x.conf" file or from within DOSBox-X by pressing "F11 + C," navigating to "[DOS]," and scrolling down to "lfn = auto" and changing it to "1." After saving and resetting, it should work.

Thanks for quick answer. For long dos names those settings works fine :) as for screen rotation disabling hot keys in windows display settings helped me.

I wonder is there some site that would have informations how to set up dosbox for some old games. Like with cpu settings are beast for each game?

I'm not aware of a single database with DOSBox settings for all DOS games beyond PCGamingWiki. One list of perfect CPU settings for everyone wouldn't really work given the vast differences in CPU's (eg, 10% of a 5GHz 14th Gen Desktop isn't the same as 10% of a 1.2GHz 2nd Gen Pentium laptop). It's often just trial and error (e,g, speeding up / slowing down emulation cycles then feel how it plays on your system, then make a note of when it feels just right and add that to a .conf file as a default). Vogons also has a list of games that need slowing down to avoid problems in games that were hard-coded to old 16-100MHz CPU's. A lot of that though is for "retro rigs", ie, people using actual DOS on older hardware and not DOSBox. Many games often run fine under DOSBox with defaults though.

For other settings, in GOG games there's usually a pre-supplied .conf file usually with the word "single" in it in the game folder (eg, dosbox_biomenace_single.conf), that will include any tweaks GOG have made including the correct setting to IMGMOUNT a Virtual CD-ROM drive there for CD-ROM based DOS games that read data off the disc "live" whilst playing, or a simple "text menu launcher" that can select an episode to run.

There's absolutely no need for that. DOSBox standard configuration is good enough for 85% of all the DOS games ever made. And I've tried almost them all. Most compatibility issues I've had were resolved by setting different machine types or VGA cards, or by forcing a "normal" CPU core. And that's all.


For compatibility edge cases there's DOSBox-X or other third-party builds. Or a full PC emulator (PCem, 86Box). Or VMWare. Or whatever the fuck you want :-D

Is it possible to replace gog dosbox version with different one, for example dosbox-x? Or dos games from GoG are somehow additionally protected? I was thinking about playing World Rally Fever with save states.

No, they're not protected. The only issue is that for some reason, GOG's config files use old IBM codepage formatting, instead of something more sensible like UTF; and you'll have to adjust configuration accordingly to make use of features of a Dosbox build not from 2009.

Personally, I prefer DosBox Staging, and it's 0 config CRT emulation.

Yes, it's possible to do that for all GOG DOS games, there's no DRM or other protection. You simply run the new dosbox-x.exe and call the game's .exe (for many simple games). Many games will work with default settings. Others are more complicated, eg, they may need to mount a fake CD-ROM drive (from a disc that's been "ripped" to an .ISO file) and for those you'd call a .conf file which points to the game (all the information you need for those is in the *single.conf file in the game's folder under the AUTOEXEC section at the bottom).

Eg, say for "The Humans" which needs a CD-ROM mounted, you'd call:-

"C:\Program Files\DOSBoxX\dosbox-x.exe" -conf "C:\GOG Games\The Humans\The Humans.conf"

Then inside that .conf file at the bottom it would automatically run commands like:-

MOUNT C "C:\GOG Games\The Humans"
IMGMOUNT D "C:\GOG Games\The Humans\game.gog" -t iso
C:
HUMANS.EXE

^ GOG has already included information that games need in its *single.conf files inside the game folder and it's just a case of pointing to the location where you have the game installed. Not all games need this, but personally I prefer to create 1x .conf file per game anyway as that also lets you setup custom keyboard / controller binds per game without changing them for other games. The file for this is "mapperfile" (a .map file is where custom keybinds are stored).

The reason you may be interested in this is since you want to use DOSBox-X specifically for SaveStates and also for racing games, you can bind two spare keys / controller buttons to QuickSave & QuickLoad function. Eg, if you go into Main -> Mapper Editor and look in the bottom right, and scroll to pages 4 and 7, you'll see "Load State" and "Save State". By default they're set to S and L, however many games use these keys. If you click on one of these, you can delete that existing S / L key then "Add" a custom key of your own (which can also be a controller button), so if you were to setup a controller to use with World Rally Fever, you could bind a "QuickSave" and "QuickLoad" to say L & R D-Pad buttons and seamlessly save / load at will whilst using a controller without having to put it down to use the keyboard to save / load in the middle of a race.

Actually it looks like World Rally Fever do not works in dosbox-x. I have error "cd player error #2" and "child error #22". I try to mount it with same configuration files from gog version, and I try to just mount cd image and install it. I noticed that cue and bin files are renamed to gog and dat.

1. Go into %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\DOSBox-X and copy the dosbox-x.conf file into "C:\GOG Games\World Rally Fever"

2. Rename that "C:\GOG Games\World Rally Fever\dosbox-x.conf" file you just copied to "World Rally Fever.conf"

3. Edit that "World Rally Fever.conf" file and make sure you have the following lines under the AUTOEXEC section in the bottom of the file:-

MOUNT C "C:\GOG Games\World Rally Fever"
IMGMOUNT D "C:\GOG Games\World Rally Fever\wrf.dat" -t iso
C:
rally

4. Create a shortcut link anywhere with the line:-

"C:\Program Files\DOSBoxX\DOSBox-x.exe" -conf "C:\GOG Games\World Rally Fever\World Rally Fever.conf"

^ (replacing "C:\GOG Games\World Rally Fever" in all the above with wherever else you put the game if you installed it somewhere else). Remember GOG's included DOSBox is run from a \DOSBox sub-folder from within the game folder and its "path" to the game is a simple ..\ (which means "look for the game one folder up"). If you're running DOSBox-X from "C:\Program Files\DOSBoxX" but your games are installed in say "C:\GOG Games", then you need to spell out to it exactly where the game is installed using a proper full path like above.

You and IceMage should work for GOG ;-) Seriously though, you're saying DOSBox-X can add Quicksaves to ANY DOS game, even ones that never had them? Then set any two keyboard / controller buttons you want and they'll work like F6 / F9 in Doom? In any DOS game? That's hugely awesome.

Thanks. Yes that's how it works, just like save-states in various Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, etc, emulators. Now if only there were an equivalent to add quicksaves to all those Windows "checkpoint only" games... ;-)

It do not work. Still got error "cd player error #1 need mscdx" or #2 cdrom device not found.
I create shortcut to dosbox-x and add my extra configuration file. It starts and use that configuration, mount drives, run rally.exe
I belive I should type some extra parameters in imgmount line.
Depending from what I type, -t iso, -t cdrom, -fs iso I got error #1 or 2.