DOSBox (SDL2 fork)

DOSBox (SDL2 fork) emulates MS-DOS.

About this profile

Detail	Value
Type	standalone
Classification	Other
Source	https://github.com/duganchen/dosbox
Upstream	https://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/
Version	0.74-2
Revision	duganchen/dosbox@e6b88ad03202
Profiled	2026-10-20
Profile	YAML, JSON
Cores	dosbox-sdl2, DOSBOXSDL2
Systems	MS-DOS

Technical notes

Dugan Chen's port of DOSBox SVN to SDL2, kept in sync with SVN revision 4250 (README.md:3), with a FluidSynth MIDI driver added (src/gui/midi_fluidsynth.h). RetroPie builds the master branch, renames the configuration directory to ~/.dosbox-sdl2 and points fluid.soundfont at the FluidR3_GM.sf2 that the distribution's fluid-soundfont-gm package installs.

No BIOS or ROM is read. The machine BIOS is emulated in code. Keyboard layouts and EGA code pages are looked up as files first, through the mounted drive and then the host path (keyboard.sys, keybrd2.sys, keybrd3.sys, <layout>.kl, EGA*.CPI), and fall back to the copies compiled into the binary (src/dos/dos_keyboard_layout.cpp:40-58,271-304,759-783, src/dos/dos_codepages.h). The PCjr cartridge loader reads system.rom from the drive of the cartridge being booted, which is user content (src/dos/dos_programs.cpp:803-811).

The FluidSynth driver loads the soundfont named by fluid.soundfont, any path, and starts without one when it is empty or fails to load (src/gui/midi_fluidsynth.h:116-136). A MIDI device that fails to open is replaced by the first handler that opens (src/gui/midi.cpp:189-213).

No BIOS or firmware files required.

Next steps

• Get your files, for the setup you play on
• Every system, and the files each one needs
• When a game does not start

Data as of 24 October 2026.