Sound

SOUND: What sound hardware does DOSBox presently emulate?

DOSBox emulates several legacy sound devices:

• Internal PC speaker/Buzzer
  This emulation includes both the tone generator and several forms of
  digital sound output through the internal speaker.
• Creative CMS/Gameblaster
  The is the first card released by Creative Labs(R). The default configuration places it on address 220. It is disabled as default.
• Tandy 3 voice
  The emulation of this sound hardware is complete with the exception of the noise channel. The noise channel is not very well documented and as such is only a best guess as to the sound's accuracy. It is disabled as default.
• Tandy DAC
  Some games may require turning off sound blaster emulation (sbtype=none) for better tandy DAC sound support. Don't forget to set the sbtype back to sb16 if you don't use tandy sound.
• Adlib
  This emulation is almost perfect and includes the Adlib's ability to almost play digitized sound. Placed at address 220 (also on 388).
• SoundBlaster 16 / SoundBlaster Pro I & II / SoundBlaster I & II
  By default DOSBox provides Soundblaster 16 level 16-bit stereo sound. You can select a different SoundBlaster version in the configuration of DOSBox. AWE32 music is not emulated as you can use MPU-401 instead (see below).
• Disney Sound Source and Covox Speech Thing
  Using the printer port, this sound device outputs digital sound only. Placed at LPT1
• Gravis Ultrasound
  The emulation of this hardware is nearly complete, though the MIDI capabilities have been left out, since an MPU-401 has been emulated in other code. For Gravis music you also have to install Gravis drivers inside DOSBox. It is disabled as default.
• MPU-401
  A MIDI passthrough interface is also emulated. This method of sound output will only work when used with external device/emulator. Every Windows XP/Vista/7 and MAC OS has got a default emulator compatible with: Sound Canvas/SCC/General Standard/General MIDI/Wave Blaster. A different device/emulator is needed for Roland LAPC/CM-32L/MT-32 compatibility.

      +---------------------------------------------------+
       |   MIPS v1.10 CPU Benchmark and Performance Test   |
   +-----------------------------------------------------------+
   |          |   Million Instructions Per Second   | 10:10:00 |
   +-----------------------------------------------------------+
   |      BENCHMARK:      |  IBM/XT   IBM/AT   COMPAQ  |       |
   |                      |  4.7Mhz    8Mhz      386   |  MIPS |
   |----------------------|----------------------------|-------|
   | General Instructions |    0.85     0.25     0.12  |  0.14 |
   | Integer Instructions |    1.48     0.23     0.10  |  0.24 |
   | Memory to Memory     |    1.02     0.31     0.18  |  0.24 |
   | Register to Register |    1.35     0.18     0.07  |  0.24 |
   | Register to Memory   |    0.79     0.24     0.13  |  0.24 |
   |                      |                            |       |
   | Performance Rating   |    1.00     0.24     0.12  |  0.22 |
   +-----------------------------------------------------------+

[sdl] 
fulldouble=true 
fullresolution=800x600 
windowresolution=800x600 
priority=highest,pause 

[dosbox] 
machine=vesa_nolfb 

[mixer] 
ultradir=C:\Program Files\DOSBox-extra\ULTRASND411 
sbtype=sb16 

[midi] 
ultradir=C:\Program Files\DOSBox-extra\ULTRASND411 
sbtype=sb16 

[gus] 
ultradir=C:\Program Files\DOSBox-extra\ULTRASND411 
sbtype=sb16

Under Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and DOSBox 0.74 the following configuration produces excellent results. Other configurations resulted in lagged, slow, noisy audio and choppy in-flight video.


[sdl] 
fullscreen=true 
fulldouble=false 
fullresolution=desktop 
windowresolution=original 
output=direct3d 
autolock=true 
sensitivity=100 
waitonerror=true 
priority=highest,pause 
mapperfile=mapper-SVN-Daum.map 
pixelshader=none 

[dosbox] 
language= 
machine=vesa_nolfb 
vmemsize=4 
captures=capture 
memsize=16 
usescancodes=true 
overscan=0 

[render] 
frameskip=0 
aspect=true 
linewise=false 
char9=false 
multiscan=false 
#hardware3x made the video and emulation run exceptionally well. 
scaler=hardware3x 

[cpu] 
core=auto 
cputype=auto 
cycles=auto 

[mixer] 
nosound=false 
swapstereo=false 
rate=44100 
blocksize=1024 
prebuffer=12 

[midi] 
mpu401=intelligent 
#for mt32 requires other configuration steps outside the scope of this page 
mididevice=mt32 
midiconfig= 
mt32ReverseStereo=off 
mt32DAC=0 
mt32reverb.mode=0 
mt32reverb.time=5 
mt32reverb.level=4 

[sblaster] 
#sbpro1 is the only stereo solution that worked under my configuration. 
sbtype=sbpro1 
sbbase=220 
irq=3 
dma=1 
hdma=3 
sbmixer=false 
oplmode=auto 
oplemu=default 
oplrate=44100 
hardwarebase=220 

[joystick] 
joysticktype=2axis 
#timed to false for the Gravis Gamepad. Change it to true if your joystick or gamepad is acting funny. 
timed=false 
autofire=false 
swap34=false 
buttonwrap=false