Dos games android. How to run PC games on an Android device using DosBox

DoxBox is a DOS emulator for Android. Yes Yes exactly.

Why would anyone need an application like this? For example, to run DOS games on a portable device. In general, it’s a little strange to emulate a once-desktop OS on a mobile device, but you can still try.

When launched for the first time, the user is taken to a menu with a command line. For those not familiar with MS DOS, imagine running cmd.exe on Windows or terminal on Linux. It turns out something similar. Commands are entered in text form on a line. The virtual keyboard does a great job of entering data into DoxBox. If necessary, you can emulate a regular keyboard, mouse, etc. using touch input.

To run any DOS application, you need to download it to a memory card and open it from there with the emulator. You can go to the appropriate directory using the commands on the line. The corresponding manual can be found on the Internet.

The advantages of DosBox include support for sound, various input methods, and scaling. The emulation speed is not satisfactory, although it largely depends on the power of the device.

It’s unlikely that anyone these days has a particular need for an MS DOS emulator, especially on Android. Nevertheless, this application is perfect for enthusiasts. For example, for those who like to run one virtual machine from another or surf the Internet exclusively under a proxy or VPN.

Video instructions - how to run DOS games on Android

Surely you have favorites DOS games you'll never forget but can't play on your new computer. Now they have a second chance. Thanks to apps DosBox Turbo And DosBox Manager you can give them new life Android device

DosBox Turbo

DosBox Turbo- it is optimized for Android emulator port DOSBox v0.74, which is the most complete and fastest tool of its kind on everything. DosBox Turbo You need access to an SD card and at least 50 megabytes of free memory. To run old DOS games, they must be copied to the SD card Android device on which the application is installed.

DosBox Turbo supports 4 types of input: using a touchscreen (mouse emulation); using a USB or Bluetooth mouse (using the S Pen is also possible); using the joystick and by scrolling the screen (disables the mouse/joystick). You can use the application as a virtual input tool GamePad.

On fast smartphones and tablets ( Tegra 3+) emulation possible Windows 9x games. Here is a list of some of them:

Fallout 2
Fallout 2: Restoration Project
Fallout Tactics (needs a next gen device..ie Tegra 4)
Age of Empires 1 & 2
Half-Life 1
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 (requires additional setup - ie. daemon tools)
Diablo 1
SimCity3000
The Sims
StarCraft 1
C&C Red Alert 95
Civilization II
Homeworld 1 (requires additional setup - ie. daemon tools)
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines

You can find the complete list.

DosBox Manager

DosBox Manager- this is an add-on for DosBox Turbo, which allows you to run emulated on Android device Dos And Windows 9x games, edit autoexec.bat and some other files. You can also manage various profiles through the application DosBox Turbo.

It was better before - it's no secret. And the grass is greener, and the sun is shining, and the sand is looser, and computer games are deeper. Now, because of the graphical capabilities, every second tchotchke on PC and every first on consoles resembles a crookedly made movie, there is no soul left in them, there is no gameplay! These are not my words, in fact, I have a diametrically opposite opinion. But if you like this idea, then be sure to read this article to the end. After all, I will be launching games directly on Android that were released during the golden time for PCs. MS-DOS time! I will do this through DosBox, of course.

What is DosBox anyway? This is an application that emulates MS-DOS, of course. Why is it needed if Windows has a command line that performs all the necessary functions? For games, of course! When the oak trees were young and the carrots stood strong and upright, there were huge problems with the various technical components of the PC. Dozens of companies gnawed at each other's pedipalps to stay afloat, dozens of video cards and dozens of sound cards competed with each other. The trouble is that because of this, games were often made for only one or two sets, and practically did not work on the rest.

Yes, I’m exaggerating, the situation then was not so sad, but I hope I managed to convey the essence. Modern equipment is not always compatible with old games, and you can run the new Battlefront on your monster paired with The Witcher 3, but some Dangerous Dave, released before you were even born, will send your supercomputer on a walking erotic tour . Or maybe BSOD will show it, so it’s a shame.

To prevent such troubles from happening, and to ensure that old games run smoothly along with new ones, DosBox was created. It allows you to emulate not only the MS-DOS environment itself without original files, but also old equipment. And the best thing is that the application is almost omnivorous, and there is even a port of it on Android. DosBox Turbo is the fastest MS-DOS emulator on the Android market, and if you are a lover of retro games, it is a must-buy.

Working with it is a little difficult, especially for those who have not used MS-DOS, or have used it but have already forgotten about it. I'm from the second category, if anything. And today I will look at the simplest examples of working with this application. No mounting Windows through separate images - we will only run pure MS-DOS applications.

So, after launching the program, you should see a scary black screen with letters. There is no mouse cursor, there is no on-screen keyboard. Everything is fine, as it should be! A line with text a la “Drive C is mounted as local directory /storage/emulated/0/Download” should also appear. This means that DosBox considers the main drive to be the Downloads folder. If you plan to put games in this very folder, then everything is fine, but if they are in the root directory, then it is better to redo this moment.

“Settings” > “DosBox Settings” > “Autoexec.bat”, in the line “mount c: /storage/emulated/0/Download” remove “Downloads”. Next, add the game folder to the root directory. By the way, it’s better to immediately rename it to something short. Let's say Warlords 2 Deluxe became W2D for me. The main thing is not to forget what is what and where it goes.

The most important command at this stage of emulation is “cd”, also known as “change directory”. The command is written according to the principle “cd *folder name*”. To return to the directory above there is the command “cd ..”. Files in folders are launched by simply entering their name in the line. That is, if there is a file in the folder XCOM.BAT or XCOM.EXE, then just enter its name without the extension.

Basically, that's all a beginner needs to know. Calling the keyboard in DosBox Turbo works in portrait mode, just like the joystick. Now regarding games. Apparently, my streak of misfortune will haunt me for a long time, because some digital games intended for DOS decided not to run on DosBox. TES Redguard showed a lack of video memory, Warlords 2 showed a sound error, the demo version of Heroes of Might and Magic crashed without declaring war... But Bard's Tale and UFO: Enemy Unknown launched quickly and pleasantly. The screensavers are skipped, the keyboard works, but the mouse doesn't work In both cases it's a bit clunky and needs some tweaking.

We can finish here. With the article, but not with the topic, of course, since for discussion there is also DosBox Manager, mounting images and games that will not launch without mounting, as well as launching through a Windows emulator. I will focus on step-by-step strategies that do not require the user to react quickly and sharply. After all, smartphones most often do not have a keyboard and mouse.

Quite a lot of programs have been released for the Android platform, including various emulators, for example, NESoid (Dendy), Ataroid (Atari 2600), ZXoid (Spectrum). There is also currently an alpha version of the aDosBox emulator, the capabilities of which we will now consider.
So, what is aDosBox? To do this, you need to understand that the Android OS itself is an emulator, namely, the Dalvik virtual machine. Therefore, aDosBox is an “emulator within an emulator” type system. Accordingly, the emulation speed, whatever one may say, will be quite slow and directly depends on the phone model.
For example, on my aPad ZT-80 tablet computer with a frequency of 1 GHz, a 15 MHz processor is emulated.
There is a problem with the keyboard.
The fact is that the emulator does not create a virtual keyboard; you need a real one. And most smartphones do not have it, so it will be impossible to work. It will not be very convenient to work with a small numeric keyboard, as well as a small QWERTY keyboard. The best thing is if your smartphone has a USB port into which you can connect a full-fledged USB keyboard.
True, the F1-F12, Shift, Alt, Ctrl buttons will not work on it, but this is not so scary.
Also a problem with the mouse. To move it to the right place, it is not enough to simply point your finger at the desired area of the screen; you need to press where the pointer is located and, without releasing it, move it to the right place. In this case, the left mouse button will be constantly pressed, which leads to great difficulties when working with programs where operation occurs when the button is pressed and not when the button is released.
Let's look at how the emulator works using specific examples.
Volkov Commander

It is inconvenient to work with it, since the Alt and Ctrl buttons do not function. The mouse is also awkward to move. There is also one strange glitch: when you press any arrow, it is pressed twice. And if you press several times, a cycle of constant clicks will begin, so sometimes it is simply impossible to open some files. The best way to work with files is Command.com
Civilization 1

The results are also not very good.
The game is hampered by a glitch with arrows, lack of Shift and a bad mouse.
The Incredible Machines
You can play, even quite well. It's a pity that the processor slows down.
Gw-Basic
BASIC works very well. Programs run fairly quickly, without delays. And all because it has low system requirements and does not need function keys.
Ameoba
Amoeba is a minimal Spectrum emulator for DOS (3 KB). In this case, it works according to the principle: “an emulator in an emulator in an emulator,” so the speed of operation here is appropriate: the emulator loads for about a minute, and then the screen is updated about once a second. You obviously can’t play at such speeds...
Concluding the article, let’s summarize: is it necessary to download aDosBox, since it has so many shortcomings? No, you can download it, although you cannot work on it in powerful programs, you can program on it in GW-Basic, which runs without problems.
Still, this is an alpha version of the emulator, so we hope that in the future the developers will fix these errors and add many new features.

Alexander Zavgorodniy (Kakos_Nonos)
http://kabardcomp.narod.ru/

DoxBox is a DOS emulator for Android. Yes Yes exactly.

The advantages of DosBox include support for sound, various input methods, and scaling. The emulation speed is not satisfactory, although it largely depends on the power of the device.