Author: Glenn Scrima
Method #1:
This first method is useful for someone who wants to launch dosbox automatically in full screen mode each time they use it. To do this open the directory where dosbox is located on your hard drive (example c:\dosbox).
Next: Look for the file dosbox.conf. This is the configuration file for dosbox. It essentially tells dosbox which settings are wanted each time dosbox launches.
Now: When you find the file right click on it. Click "open with" & select notepad.
Next: With the dosbox config file open find the line "fullscreen=false" under the section labeled [sdl] near the top. Change the command to "fullscreen=true" then save and exit.
Now each time you launch dosbox it will be in fullscreen mode. If you want to change back to your original setting in the future just change the command "fullscreen=true" back to "fullscreen=false".
Method #2:
This method is much simpler but must be done each time dosbox is running. Simply hold down the keys Alt and Enter and you can switch between full screen and windowed mode.
FAQ:
The config file is missing what do I do?
The game won't run on Windows Vista. What should I do?
The game runs sluggish. Is there a way to improve this?
How do I make the game launch in fullscreen mode?
How do I change the amount of RAM available?
How do I mount a hard drive or CD-ROM drive in Dosbox?
How do I change my machine type in Dosbox?
How do I capture a screenshot during gameplay?
I can't download from Abandonia. What should I do?
How do I close or exit Dosbox?
51 comments:
for some reason dosbox becomes very slow when i switch to full screen while playing uakm... any thoughts?
Hi Jacob, the most likely reason for this is that the video card is doing more work in full screen mode. When you run the game in a window the game is running in it's native resolution say 640x480. If you run the game in fullscreen mode Dosbox's rerendering engine has to kick in and this is more taxing on your system. If you haven't already you might want to check out an article I wrote on 8 steps to speeding up Dosbox. Although all of these should help to varying degree you should definatly try the frameskip section as this is probably the most related to the issue you are experiencing.
Best,
Glenn
thanks alot for this walkthrough
Thanks for visiting and have fun enjoying your old games again!
Best,
Glenn
Very cool...Some terrific memories ;)
I spent hours trying to get it setup to run properly going to random sites that came up on google search. Finally I came to your site now everything works 100% perfect dound no lag, thanks alot for the guides.
Daniel Gloyd
No problem have fun enjoying your old DOS games!
Best,
Glenn
Hi, Thanks to this site I got Tyrian to work allright... Just one thing, when I Type Fullscreen=True, and run Tyrian, the program needs more space than my screen has... How can I fit Tyrian to my screen resolution in fullscreen mode?
Hi do you know the resolution you are running your PC at? Also what error message do get?
Best,
Glenn
THANKS A MILLION!!! THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!
No problem enjoy playing your old DOS games!
Best,
Glenn
Hi Glenn,
I appreciate this walk through very much, and hate how DOS dumb i am. I have downloaded the first 3 police quest games... followed your directions step by step, and dosbox tells me that the command we put in the config file doesn't exist. then that it can't switch over to "pq" and then sierra is an illegal command. Am I missing something, or is the download it self not utilized for this procedure?
Hi,
hate how DOS dumb i am. I've downloaded the police quest from another source... very thankful to have found your walkthrough, yet the edit to the config file does not work for me. it mounts c:\ successfully, but then says that it can not switch over to cd pq. what is it I am too blind to see? Any thoughts?
thanks!
Hi Kris, it sounds like the games files didn't extract into the right folder. When it is unable to use the cd, "change directory" command it means that directory doesn't exist within the one that contains Dosbox. I'd give extracting the game files a second try and just double check and make sure the file path given on the guide is the same you use to extract the game.
Best,
Glenn
Hello. When I try to run SimCity 2000 on Vista, it simply says "This system does not support fullscreen mode. Click close to terminate the program."
What do I do?
Hi first tahnks for the guide it's really helpful.
I have some sound isses running dosbox particularly with digital speech,I run the sound setup programs (usually selecting soundblaster) but still have no sound.
Any suggestions?
greetings,
firstly many, many thanks for your hepfull walk throughs, was the first time I have ever used dosbox or anything like it and sorted it first time...well almost! I donloaded constructor, got it playing in full screen...but no sound? any ideas?
i HAVE ALREADY INSTALLED DOSBOX BUT HOW CAN I THE WORD INSTALL AFTER I TYPE D: ?
how can i type the word install after i have typed the word d:?
Hi Paul, do you mean at the command prompt in Dosbox? You just need to press Enter to add another command.
Best,
Glenn
Hi Glen,
Thanks for all the useful stuff, it's great to play ascendancy again :)
I've managed to play it fullscreen as you said, but my laptop has a widescreen monitor, so fullscreen is not very nice, default screen size is too small.
Is there a way to play it in windowed mode, but say, in double size?
P.S: Now i have tried fiddling with the config file, i have set the windowresolution to 1024x768, but it did not do anything. Then i changed the output to oplengl. After this, the window size changed, but the game did not start for some reason... Why was that?
yes i always do that but when i enter the word install it doesnt load
I'd give ddraw a try and see if that helps the image show up again. Let me know if that helps at all.
Best,
Glenn
Hi Paul, which game are you trying to run?
Best,
Glenn
Hi Kevin, which game are you running?
Best,
Glenn
what i do is just press "alt"
and "Enter" and thats it.
Ya the second method is quicker but the first is good too if you always want full screen.
Best,
Glenn
Thanks for your gift and guide on this side, now I can run the constructor game on the DOSBox system. But absolutely there is a one problem it be that I can't solve alone, I try to solve this but still can't be.....; The sound could not be running on the system so I play this game without any sound running or was detected.
So can you help & give me a guide about this one?!
when i try to run commander keen 6, dosbox tells me:
"improper video card! if you really have an EGA/VGA card that I am not detecting, use the -HIDDENCARD command line parameter!"
any thoughts?
Hi Brant, is this only in fullscreen mode?
Best,
Glenn
Hi Glenn,
It wasn't in fullscreen mode. Something similar happened to me with another game, and it called for me to switch to mcga video mode. I tried it for this, and it solved the problem! Thanks anyways,
Brant
Awesome instructions. Even I, a computer illiterate, found them easy to follow. Yay I am playing dune 2 again. Thanks for your time and effort putting them together
Hi Glenn,
really thank you for this guide so well written and explained. I can finally play Constructor with my brothers! But I get one problem with the fullscreen mode. When changing from one menu to another, and in the introduction with Acclaim and all this things, they get like 100 times slower than it should be (from a transition that should take 0,2 between 2 menus, to more than 20 secs). I've tried changing the config file parameters, such as fullscreen, fullresolution, aspect, frameskip, cycles, the memsize, fulldouble, scaler... And I get nothing better.
Another way would be in window mode, a bigger window, but I don't know how to do it, even changing the windowresolution to something like 1024x768, nothing happens.
It would be great if you or someone with the same problem could help me with this issue.
Thank you again and enjoy you too all this great DOS games!
Sergio
Charlie and Parabola thanks for your kind compliments. Parabola it might be worth trying a slightly older version of Dosbox to see if this happens again. Sometimes new issues can come up when updates to older editions of Dosbox are made.
Best,
Glenn
Hey Glenn,
Many thanks for the cool opportunity to reconnect with my 5th grade self. Quick question about the DOSbox bizz...Is there any way of changing the keyboard controls so I can make different keys control different functions? For instance...I would like the directional("up" and "down")arrows to control the icons and character movements.
Thanks so much.
Very good guide, realy helped me!
I'm not sure if there is a key mapping feature within Dosbox. Is there any options in the game setup menu that gives this option?
Best,
Glenn
No problem enjoy playing your old DOS games!
Best,
Glenn
Glenn, thanks for the fantastic guide! Dune 2 fires up perfectly, and runs with no hiccups. I do have an issue when attempting to switch to fullscreen.. it disappears! I've tried both editing the code and the key command with the same result. any thoughts?
Hi nihmx, when you say disappears is it crashing/closing or just going back to a window mode?
Best,
Glenn
It's crashing/closing when I hit alt/enter, and it crashes/closes on open if I re-write the config file.
Hi Glenn, my name is Miguel. Is nice to have back those old-full-of-dust-games of our past to remember THE nice days :D BUT, i have a problem...
I'm running DOSBox on Vista Basic on laptop, inspirion 1525 (if it works the info i'm givvin you...) and the problem that promps is this:
"SC2000
This system does not support fullscreen mode. etc" <-- you know the drill...
And my problem is that. I tried to run as your guide said, by putting the fullscreen ON always, but no...
I have the config at 1440x990 pixels and quality color at 32bit. Any help? Plz? Would like to play old games again, but it seems almost all people have this problem. How can be solved? Thanks again for the support ond the will to read our comments :P Have a nice day.
Hello, Greetings.
Now, I don't particularly know exactly how to word my question but here goes.
I can load up games and what-not in full screen and have them perfectly run without any problems; however, the color or contrast, I dunno which; goes haywire whenever I play a game in full screen. Any clues as to what might be happening? I mean, I had windows XP before and I never had any such problem, so it MAY be that I'm running windows 7 now. I Also auto execute most of my games out of habit.
Any aid would be appreciated if it doesn't bother you.
hey, im having trouble actually seeing the game. i followed to instructions and when i click "war" to load the game. it will keep saying" it does not support in fullscreen", and i will hear the game start up and hear arrows and what not but not see anything???
thanks
-ryan
Hi, I bought the cd rom to warcraft orcs and humans, tryed to install it, and it just keep wanting to play it as an audio cd. I have windows 7 and I followed your directions and still can't get it right. I dont know where im going wrong...can you please help me?
Lacey
Hi Glenn. Thank you so much for this informative, (and more importantly, incredibly clear) walk through. Got it working for Kyrandia the first time. Only trouble is I can’t hear the character’s voices in the game (funny, narration works in the intro). Any advice?
Sincerely,
Susan
Hello,
I am running Dune II on wide screen (1366x768 resolution)laptop. As per you instruction I have modified "dosbox config file" and change to "fullscree=true". game work great, only problem is whole screen is "Streched" (did not maintain aspect ratio).
So i modify my disply setting to maintain "Aspect ratio"
and run game. This time it maintain aspect was maintained but top and bottom of screen has big space (left and right side is normal).
Can you help so I can get a maximum viewing area is covered (ie. no spaces at top and bottom).
Thanks in advance
Peter Cotton
Hi, unfortunately since you have a widescreen display (16:9) and the game runs at a conventional 4:3 aspect ration you will either need to run the game stretched or leave black borders to maintain the correct framing of the game. This wasn't really an issue when the game was released since 99% of displays were 4:3 ratio display's but now with most displays being widescreen this issue comes up for most older games.
Best,
Glenn
Hi Glenn, tremendous work keeping us informed. When using dosbox upon upload it says "the system does not support full screen". I know other have posted with htis issue .I am trying space crusade via dosbox on a dell laptop, i have read the forum here and following your instruction, changing to 16bit display, adjusting the aspect ratio, changing the config and the settings of the program itself but I am at a loss. Your advice would be much appreciated
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