So... when launching DOSBOX games on my Windows 11 PC, it's pretty much a coin flip as to whether it runs as intended perfectly or just straight up crashes upon startup.

Running these games in compatibility mode just brings me to the default DOSBOX with no way to run the game.

Is there a fix for this so that all of these can run properly on my PC?

Thanks in advance.

Do some games run and some don't, or even the same game sometimes runs and sometimes not?

If the former, can you give some examples of non-working games?

(it seems the forum ate my earlier reply, unless it appears later, so don't be alarmed if I asked the same question twice)

The issue is the former. For example, the Heretic and Hexen games work perfectly. The old school Alone in the Dark and Descent games just boot up to a black screen before crashing.

EDIT: Even though the solution below allows me to run the games, something more streamlined like "Press Play" on GOG would be appreciated if there is a method like that. Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check that out shortly. EDIT: That worked!

Dosbox-Staging runs most DOS games much better than original Dosbox. Please try Staging out when you have a chance:

* https://dosbox-staging.github.io/#feature-highlights

* https://dosbox-staging.github.io/getting-started/introduction/

* https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions#where-is-the-config-file

* Dosbox-Staging - Discord Chat Channel

You could easily edit the shortcuts to do Staging by default; but you will have to convert the Dosbox.conf files into a more sensible format. For some reason GOG used Codepage formatting instead of just Unicode.

Actually, you might want to custom roll the config files; the defaults GOG chooses sometimes is baffling and Staging has new display emulation that kicks ass.

I guess the problem is that in order to update DOSBox, GOG would have to do that (manually?) for each DOSBox game, one by one. That's probably quite a lot of work, including testing that the game really works with the new embedded DOSBox.

Of course if it is widespread that e.g. Alone in the Dark and Descent now don't work on Windows 11 due to outdated DOSBox version, GOG pretty much has to update DOSBox at least for those games, at least if they want to claim they support those games also in Windows 11.

I just want to test those two games on my Windows 11 box, to see if those problems are universal and not computer dependent, or even just having to select a different renderer in DOSbox settings.

Just tried it. Works fine.
(Default settings)

Descent 1 and 2 have the DXX-Rebirth source port: https://www.dxx-rebirth.com/

Descent 3 (yes I know this is not a DOS game) has the source port PiccuEngine: https://github.com/InsanityBringer/PiccuEngine/releases

From what I've read, Nvidia removed "overlay" output support in their drivers some time ago.

To fix this, find DOSBox configuration file with ".conf" extension in game folder and open it with Notepad.

Find in [sdl] section:
output=overlay

Replace it with:
output=openglnb

It's worth trying. If it doesn't work, switch to DOSBox Staging.

You're awesome! That worked for 90% of the games that wouldn't run properly.