DOSBox Staging 0.81: What can we expect?

Great improvements and very informative video. I was just wondering however what about 70hz content like most VGA titles back in the DOS days ran at. Any support for that yet, maybe through adaptive sync?

Love these adaptive shaders. Can they be mixed with the 3Dfx emulation or that's still a no-go?

To more convincingly emulate a CRT it's going to take a lot more than a 4K monitor. I don't know exactly what kinds of resolutions will be needed, but each individual LED is going to have to get a lot smaller and a lot more densely packed together before a convincing emulation is possible.

Even with this new emulation, it still doesn't do it for me and I just do not like it. The scanlines are still too noticeable. On a true CRT monitor you don't notice the scanlines unless you are specifically looking for them and move a little closer to the screen. At least on VGA. In EGA, they are more noticeable generally. It also tends to darken the display too much on LED screens. LED screens push the contrast ratios as high as they can to create the "truest blacks" which doesn't work exactly on a CRT. The color bleed of a CRT monitor means that scanlines were never pure black and that's why you could hardly notice them if you were sitting a normal distance from the screen.

The emulation is getting better, but it's still in sort of an "uncanny valley" effect for me. It's close, but not close enough and it looks too strange and distracting. But the day will come when it will be nearly impossible to tell the difference between a properly rendered image on an LED monitor and a real CRT. I'm glad there is such effort being put into this.

Might have been wise to mention that the video needs to be watched on a 4k screen as well, otherwise...it will not really convey what you saw on your screen. ^^
In the past I also hated artificial scanlines and I kinda still do on 1080p, because they are always overpronounced, which might have been that way on TVs, but not on proper monitors. But after I set up my retro PC here with my CRT and then switching back and forth, I would also say, that without these scanlines its missing something.
The core issue as a content creator is - like for you in this video, even though its a different case - how to "convey" the experience. Yes, an artificial scanline filter is one thing. But will not work properly on 1080p. So no matter what you do, if the viewer of the video either doesnt check the 4k version, or doesnt have a 4k screen it will not work. And until people all have 4k screens...well...
That Tomb Raider footage was kinda horrific though, the performance in regards to sound stuttering was painful to listen to. ^^

I know some people online like making games for newer OS's and using newer game engines but I do believe learning how to make a game for older systems is the best way to learn programming / game design. After I've made my small mod for Dues Ex ! I'm going to try and make a small game that will work with Dosbox thanks for making this video on the improvements in Dosbox.

I used DOSBox-X to play 3DFX Voodoo games. It has native voodoo support and more for a long time now.

Looking forward to trying this out, I think we finally have the scanline shader cracked, same on the general emulation side. It's about time.

Thanks for the information! Because of your channel, I've been able to invest in some older hardware and software (GOG has been a goldmine!). I have already shared about my Pentium 2 with the proper parts and I can't thank you enough for your tips and materials on your website. Currently, one of my "retro" rigs is an i3 4th generation with an SSD and a GTX 650 with a Samsung Syncmaster 753DF CRT monitor. I use it because - if memory serves - that is the most recent architecture to be supported in Windows XP. This is where I play all my GOG retro games. I've been using D-Fend Reloaded for some other MS-DOS stuff and loving the CRT look and feel in this machine. Mushy membrane keyboard and loud mouse clicks are also a part of the experience! I had never given much thought to how different games look on CRT x LCD/LED monitors. Guess that I now have something to tinker with next weekend since my MS-DOS (14 inch Compaq CRT monitor) Win XP (Samsung) and Win 10 (LG) machines are sitting side by side! Guess I'll be going through Flashback, Jazz Jackrabbit, Rise of the Triad, Wacky Wheels, and all that good stuff! Thank you once again for sharing this great information and serving the community!

I am razor sharp pixel myself.

I am glad to see native Glide Support in a version of DoxBox because very few versions had it out of the box as it is without the need of setting it up to get it to work and getting Glide Support to work under DosBox was a huge pain and I never bothered with it.

As an old fart who lived the old monitors, I've never been a scan line guy. My memories of the 70s and 80s screens don't have scan lines in them. All the fake scan line stuff has been so over the top I hated them. These ones look the best out of all I've seen though. Would love to see a video where you compared the before/after of the same game.

Everytime I look to DL DBS I find a remake of the game that will run on my modern machine. There are so many. I just Got IT Came From the Desert's remake on Steam, and the FFVIII remake is also on steam. For one I would usually run an Amiga emulator and for the other, DosBox, but now both are remade.

You all realize the irony in this, right? Back when DOS was a current operating system and everyone was using CRT monitors, everyone wanted to sharpen the image. Even on systems like the C64 and Amiga, we tried every trick in the book to get a better picture. "Use this type of cable! Attach a resistor between these two pins! Wrap foil around the cable!" Of course none of it worked.

Back then we would have jumped for joy at having a razor-sharp image. Now we have razor sharp images and everyone wants all the imperfections of CRT monitors back.

i hate crt shaders, they mess mess my eyes but this looks great

do you know if there will be a new update of dosbox pure?

The lack of a GUI on DOSBox Staging is a really turn off for me. I will keep using DOSBox-X

Phil, what is the model of your monitor? looks really nice. Thank you, really like your channel.

Can't wait for it to be release.

As a pixelartist. I can only say that I am thankful that both developers and users are starting to take CRT-filters seriously. There are so many pixelart techniuques that just look wrong without the proper output of the intended display. Especially for things like Amiga games, where you had a pretty extravagant selection of colors, but were often limited in terms of numbers of colors to display. In those cases, you often had to be pretty creative with color theory using blending techniques as a crucial part in both creating palettes as well as the way you color your art or game assets. On PC this isn't really that much of a case, but the authenticity of playing games "how they ACTUALLY looked" is a great development. Especially since we need to preserve "the look" as old CRTs are dying every year.

I'm sorry, but f**k this crt magic, it was a terrible time.

And what about SCUMMvm?

Where is AWE32 Support??

Phil, if you want mindblowing shaders, try Retroarch. For PC games you can try DOSBox Pure core, with "Mega Bezel Reflection Shaders" or even "Cyberlab Megatron Death to Pixels" with HDR enabled . That's a game changer. Those new shaders are able to "emulate" the physics of the mask and phosphor of CRT, mostly for 4K monitor like yours.

Great video 👍 I'm very glad to learn about these new graphics features, as still I love old Dos games very much, and have been meaning to play them again. Now it seems they will look better than ever on my LCD. This fantastic visual enhancement seems similar to the amazing HLSL effects that have been a part of Mame for quite a few years now and it's awesome to see DOS games get the same kind of love. Thankyou Phil 🏆

This is wonderful stuff. As for these days, I have recently hooked up a CRT monitor as a 2nd screen to my system and just play on that again. I still will add shaders to the CRT to make it look the absolute best. The 3dfx addition is great when I don’t want to have to pull out my real Voodoo2 setup.

Makes sense that they include roland support now that I bought an original one :D Thanks for a good overview of coming features!

There is something screwy with this video. I'm seeing wide vertical banding,thought it was a shader artifact but then you cut to camera and it's there too.

Hi, thx for video! Just want to ask, what do you thing is better PCem or new DOSBox with Voodoo 1 support for early games, does it supports windows 95 and glide? Again thx for video 🙂

the old CRT filters were just basically a layer on top of the graphics. Emulating the actual subpixels and geometric arrangement of pixels is totally different! Looks great!

There where also DOS 3Dfx patches for Shadow Warrior and Screamer 2 (Bleifuss 2)

I've started using seriously the builtin dosbox debugger working on oldgame translation project and it was a blast, very well done, I think it should worth a video phil!

Currently, on linux, stock Dosbox is no match for Dosbox-X

Thanks for the heads up Phil, this is looking great!

What we retro people need is actually a monitor/display/screen driver/program that is totally independent of whatever emulator program is making use of it regardless if it is DOSBox, VICE, UAE, or whatever. E.g. a program that just emulates one or more CRT's depending on what program connects to it. That way a user could have their size, scaling and colors set up exactly like they want all the time without having to fiddle with different setups for ScummVM , VICE, UAE, DOSBox, and you name it!

DOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a very nice new option having adaptive resolution CRT shaders.
LHX, Epic Pinball...man I love the old games so much.

Which reminds me there's a new emulator for C64 and Amiga called Denise, which has the most complex CRT and Floppy sound emulation I ever saw.
It would be nice if you could test it. Bruce Lee 1-2 (the new game is even better), Saboteur 1-2, Uridium, Trailblazer on C64; Gods, Wings of Fury, Gobliiins III on Amiga...there's so much fun.

Which reminds me that I saw different colors playing Indy 4 in ScummVM using the Amiga version vs. the DOS version.
I like to discover different stuff just because we can. Indy 3 FM Towns also is interesting having CD music.
Or Hard Drivin' on Arcade/MAME, 4D Sports Drivin' on FM Towns / PC 98.

Btw., there's also DOSBox-X / ECE / SVN Daum, Boxerapp on Mac and some more apps.
And the community profits from all those ideas, being backported to other DOSBox forks sooner or later.
Like WINE - CrossOver - ReactOS - Steam Beta all profit from each other.
Or like DXVk doubles FPS for old games.

The last 5-10 years did bring more advantages into emulation world then never before.
When you look at how much Lakka, RetroArch, RetroPie, RecalBox, RecalBox Remix aka Batocera, RetroBat, Dig, Lemuroid changed over the last years.
They had like 70 emulators some years ago, now it's like 120+ and raising, including multiple cores per emulated machine even (like 3+ different DOSBox versions), runahead for controllers, Floppy/HDD sound emulation, new CRT shaders, bezels to use the black borders of pixel perfect integer scaling, scraped video previews.

Hi Phil. Could you please take macro photo of crt mode differences for the next vidéo? Thank you.

Nice review, can you recommend a good front end support DOSBox Staging ?

Just, tried it out myself and it works great, even though I didn't compare it to my CRT yet. Also didn't try 3Dfx yet, how it compares to other SVNs.
Would be nice if Staging would offer stuff like a menu bar and save states, just like DOSBox Daum had already many years ago.

I like this version of Dosbox, I want to migrate to it. Is the CRT shader already available or is it on the unstable versions only?

It's useless to play adventure games in DOS emulators, ScummVM does a much better job.
Best wishes.

I can't type / : and the lot in it. Am I doing something wrong?

I love the features but unfortunately the games don't run as smooth as they used to in regular DosBox.

Absolutely incredible CRT emulation, love this version!

How can I stretch the image to a 2560x1440 without borders? So that the whole monitor is filled up?

I have zero luck with setting up DOSBOX flatpaks on Linux. Not only can I not find the directory it's installed in to search for a config file, but I can't for the life of me work out how Linux directories translate to MS-DOS directories for mounting (both C drive and D drive). Every time I try, I end up giving up and just sticking with RetroArch. Keep in mind this is only an issue for me when using Linux and not Windows.

Nice video! is it possible to get a fullscreen image witouth the black borders on top and bottom?

Adaptive shaders is such a good idea, makes me wonder why wasn't it implemented before, at least as a mod.