Boxtron, the Steam Play compatibility tool for DOSBox brings more improvements in another update

Can someone please explain to me, how is this better than running Windows version of DOSBox with Proton?

Performance is not an issue in majority of DOSBox titles on modern systems. What can native DOSBox possibly offer me opposed to DOSBox in Wine/Proton?

Quoting: hardpenguinCan someone please explain to me, how is this better than running Windows version of DOSBox with Proton?

Performance is not an issue in majority of DOSBox titles on modern systems. What can native DOSBox possibly offer me opposed to DOSBox in Wine/Proton?

It's all there in the readme on GitHub.

QuoteLower input lag (compared to DOSBox inside Proton)
Steam features working as expected (e.g. Steam Cloud, Controller settings or recording of time played)
Better fullscreen support, especially on multi-monitor setups*
Steam Overlay working out of the box*
More configuration options and better defaults*
Automatic detection of MIDI hardware, with software synthesiser used as fallback
Automatic MIDI setup for supported titles (click Play and enjoy pre-configured MIDI music)
* - compared to vanilla DOSBox

I imagine plenty of DOSBox powered games on Steam will never upgrade the version used, so no matter what this would give you a better experience overall with newer features and support.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 21 October 2019 at 5:00 pm UTC

Quoting: hardpenguinPerformance is not an issue in majority of DOSBox titles on modern systems. What can native DOSBox possibly offer me opposed to DOSBox in Wine/Proton?

Well, to give an example from the changelog, Lords of the Realm wouldn't even launch with proton, presumably because it uses a wrapper rather than calling the Windows dosbox executable directly. It also ships with dosbox 0.74, but config files for dosbox 0.72, which caused some audio stuttering. In cases like this, telling Steam to open the game with Boxtron will make the game automagically Just Work™ (assuming you have dosbox installed).

Quoting: hardpenguinPerformance is not an issue in majority of DOSBox titles on modern systems.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. During development, I had a chance to compare ~70 DOS games (65 games in my library and several GOG titles), and see how do they work through Boxtron vs Protonized DOSBox or Native DOSBox included with the game. In the slight majority of cases, the performance via Proton suffers… sometimes a lot… and that's not all. Some examples of games and issues they had:

• X-COM series - performance in Proton 4.11 is so bad, that game is unplayable; in the past game was "playable" but crashed with Steam Overlay on. Bad performance is actually caused by DOSBox config bundled with the game - Boxtron fixes that by ignoring some bad options picked by the game distributor… and turns on MIDI music by default.
• Descent 3 2 - game refuses to start and hangs at "black screen". With Boxtron it runs perfectly.
• Tomb Raider I - game does not work via Proton at all - Boxtron starts game in software mode (but it still suffers from DOSBox bugs); Boxtron + dosbox-staging fixes those bugs and is able to play the music in-game as well (via bundled mp3 decoder)
• X-Wing, Tie-Fighter - both suffer from DOSBox being misconfigured - in Proton the games have maybe 15-20FPS during flight, in Boxtron it is smooth 70FPS during flight
• Stargunner - the game suffers from DOSBox problems (on Windows and Linux), causing the game to run too fast - by changing cycles you can make the game run at ~30FPS, but it won't be smooth experience. Boxtron + dosbox-staging offer smooth 70FPS.
• Alone in the Dark series - input issues, Boxtron + dosbox-staging resolve it
• Larry games - do not go fullscreen properly, they work perfect in Boxtron
• Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel - game is missing music because distributor uploaded unpatched version to Steam, Boxtron applies patch on the first run
• Retro City Rampage DX - this is NOT a DOS game, but it includes DOS prototype version (except you would need to unpack it manually and run outside of Steam). When you'll select Boxtron, it will run DOS prototype for you
• Fallout - Boxtron downloads an official game patch and brings back DOS version removed by Bethesda
• Megarace 2 - distributor uploaded broken, untested files as "Linux version" - Boxtron makes the game playable (but it suffers from DOSBox bugs), Boxtron + dosbox-staging makes the game perfectly playable
  

etc, etc…

Interestingly, GOG games can also be improved - e.g. GOG version of Mortal Kombat 3 does not have Linux version (I suspect because there are severe performance issues in DOSBox - they are visible between fight rounds). With Boxtron and dosbox-staging it is perfect - the game is as responsive as it was on my 486DX2 in 90s :).

Out of my 65 Steam DOS games, only 3 are not playable out of the box (2 games from mid-80s, which work too fast and 1 game, which refuses to start (The Dame Was Loaded) - but this one works in Proton, I hope to address this for future Boxtron version.


Last edited by dreamer_ on 22 October 2019 at 1:42 pm UTC

Quoting: Liam Dawe(...)

Quoting: WorMzy(...)

Quoting: dreamer_(...)

These are all great answers, thanks!

Shouldn't dreamer_ get a dev tag or something Liam ?
Since he seems to be running the project.

How do I know that a certain game is better to run with Boxtron? Is there some indicators that suggest us to check a specific title on some list?

Quoting: michaldybczakHow do I know that a certain game is better to run with Boxtron? Is there some indicators that suggest us to check a specific title on some list?

I hope any DOS game will work a bit better via Boxtron than other methods ;)

Here's a list of all DOS games we found on Steam: "Powered by DOSBox" curator page.
You can also check our compatibility reports list.