Tweaking game emulation settings

To adjust the settings for a single game, look inside the gamebox (ctrl-click and choose “Show Package Contents”) and open its DOSBox Preferences.conf file. This file contains performance and compatibility settings with tips for what each setting does.

To adjust the settings for all games, open <home folder>/Library/Preferences/Boxer/Shared Preferences.conf. The settings here affect every game but can be overridden by individual gameboxes.

Choosing a program inside a gamebox

• Hold down ⌥ while launching a gamebox to choose from a list of programs inside it.
• Or, ctrl-click on the gamebox and choose “Show Package Contents”, then double-click on the desired program.

Starting a multiplayer network game

Boxer can create on-the-fly IPX networks for multiplayer DOS gaming. To start a network in Boxer, each player should do the following:

1. Hold down ⌥ as you launch a gamebox and choose to start up at the DOS prompt.
2. Type network at the DOS prompt to bring up a menu of networking options:
   • One player should choose to host the network. The hosting player must have port 2130 open and forwarded in their router.
   • The other players can then join the network by entering the IP address of the hosting player.
3. Once all players are connected, start your game program from the same DOS window and follow the game’s instructions to play.

If you play over the network often, edit the game’s DOSBox Preferences.conf file and add call network at the bottom under the [autoexec] heading. This will show the network menu every time you launch the game.

Installing patches or expansions for a game

Many DOS games received patches or expansion packs which modify the original game files. To install these add-ons into an existing gamebox:

1. Open your gamebox in Finder by ctrl-clicking on it and choosing “Show Package Contents”.
2. • If the add-on is a single DOS program, drag the program into the game’s folder.
   • If the add-on is a folder of install files, drag the contents of the folder into the game’s folder, overwriting existing files if necessary.
   • If the add-on is a CD-ROM, follow the instructions below for importing the CD-ROM into your gamebox.
3. Double-click on the add-on’s installer program to launch it and begin updating your game.

Adding a custom icon for a game

You can give any file a new icon with img2icns, an excellent free icon tool:

1. Launch img2icns and drag an image onto the dropzone.
2. Drag files, folders or gameboxes onto the dropzone to apply that image as their icon.

Game covers make great icons. You can download cover art for your games from Abandonia or Mobygames.

Playing a game without its CD-ROM

Some DOS games require their CD-ROM in the drive when you play. If you don’t want to dig out the CD every time, you can instead import the CD into the gamebox and Boxer will treat it as the real thing.

Boxer will offer to import the CD for you when installing games, but to do so by hand you can:

1. Open the gamebox in Finder by ctrl-clicking on it and choosing “Show Package Contents”.
2. While holding down ⌥, drag the CD-ROM’s icon from your desktop into the gamebox to copy it.
3. Rename the new folder this creates and add .cdrom to the end.

If you have an .iso, .cdr or .cue+.bin CD-ROM image instead of a physical CD, just copy the image itself into the gamebox. No renaming is necessary.

Mounting folders as extra drives

If you need additional floppy, hard-disk or CD-ROM drives for a gamebox, then simply make folders inside the gamebox for each new drive. Name the folders by what kind of drive you want them to be:

• Add .floppy to the end of the folder name to make it a floppy drive.
• Add .cdrom to make it a CD-ROM.
• Add .harddisk to make it a hard disk.

When you launch the gamebox, Boxer will mount those folders as drives of the appropriate type. The name of the folder will be used as the volume label: e.g. MW2.cdrom will be given the label MW2. This can be important for some CD-ROM games, which look at the label to determine whether the right CD-ROM is in the drive.

How Boxer chooses drives and assigns drive letters

Boxer automatically discovers and assigns DOS drives one by one, as follows:

1. If you’re launching a gamebox, the base folder of the gamebox becomes drive C. Otherwise, your DOS Games folder becomes drive C.
2. Then, any disc images and specially-named folders in your gamebox become drives starting from D (.floppy folders are mounted at drives A and B instead.)
3. Then, any DOS CD-ROM in your Mac’s DVD drive becomes the next free drive letter starting from D.
4. Finally, if you opened a program that isn't already accessible on one of the above drives, the program’s folder becomes the next free drive letter starting from D.