Want to run an old DOS game, but don’t have an old computer to run it on? You’ll have to be familiar with DOS to do this, or be willing to learn some command line, unless you use the trick at the end of this article.
DOSBox is an Open Source DOS emulator to run old DOS games.
DOSBox runs on multiple desktop/laptop operating systems.
Install DOSBox on Linux Mint
Click the Menu button, click Administration, then click Software Manager.
In the pop-up window upper-right, search for DosBox. Choose Dosbox, with Package in the lower-left, not Flathub, and click Install then Continue. Put in your password, and click Authenticate. Let it install.
Go to Menu > Games > DOSBox Emulator. You now have DOS on Linux Mint.
Install DOSBox on Windows
Click the link below.
https://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1
Then click the link for Windows and download for Windows.
Open your Downloads folder/directory, and double-click on the DosBox Windows installer and install. Mine was named DOSBox0.74-3-win32-installer.exe.
Double-click the desktop shortcut to start. Now you have a DOSBox.
Configure DOSBox
Use it like you used to use DOS. But first, you will need to mount some drives, like a virtual hard drive, and a virtual CD-ROM drive with your game. Read the instructions to see how to do this. Go to https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/MOUNT.
Now You Need DOS Games
Do you now need a game to run on DOS? You can find many old DOS games for free at https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games. (At this writing, that website is temporarily down.)
Is your DOS game compatible with DOSBox? Check the compatibility list.
DOS Game – Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares
I run Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares (1996) on DOSBox. (You can try out the game in this browser at that same link.)
Here’s the trick I promised you above. If you’re going to run that game, then be sure to add the fan patch 1.50 from https://moo2mod.com (latest version as of this writing was released April 26, 2024). The website is run by Rocco. The install instructions are here. It includes a MOO2 Launcher with eight different mods to play the game. More mods from that website are available in Lua script, and can be downloaded for use with this launcher. This is easier to configure than DOS.
The manual for the fan patch 1.50 is available here as a PDF download. This also includes information on Lua scripting so you can make your own mods, and add them to the launcher.
This fan patch changes the switch to support multiplayer over the Internet using IPX over UDP/IP emulation. This just means that you can use the Internet for multiplayer with a game that didn’t support Internet.
For those of you on Discord, Rocco himself sends you an invite to their Discord server. There are over two dozen different channels with different topics, even a channel for DOSBox (under the category Space Academy). Just click https://discord.com/invite/45BnvY4. That will give you the invite. If you don’t have Discord, that link will prompt you to download Discord and create a free account. Then it will give you the invite and direct you to the Discord server.
