LANCommander.Redistributables.DOSBox-X

Automatically built LANCommander redistributable import package (.LCX) for DOSBox-X.

DOSBox-X emulates a PC from the IBM XT through to the late 1990s, and runs an MS-DOS game inside it. Unlike most redistributables this is not a compatibility improvement — a 16-bit DOS executable will not start at all on 64-bit Windows, so without an emulator a DOS-era title in your library is simply unlaunchable.

It also matters for LAN play specifically. Doom, Doom II, Descent, Duke Nukem 3D, Heretic, Hexen, Warcraft II and most of their contemporaries only ever spoke IPX, a protocol no current operating system carries. DOSBox-X tunnels IPX over UDP, so those games find each other on an ordinary modern network. Enable IPX in the options below, then use IPXNET inside DOSBox-X to point every client at one host.

Attach it to any game whose primary action runs a DOS program.

Install it

Download the .lcx asset from the latest release and import it through your LANCommander server's Redistributables page, or from the CLI:

LANCommander.Launcher.CLI Import --Path LANCommander.Redistributables.DOSBox-X-v<version>.lcx --Type Redistributable

Then assign it to the games that need it, either from the game's Redistributables field or from this redistributable's Games field.

Re-importing a newer release updates the existing entry rather than creating a second one, because the identifiers in redistributable.yml are stable across releases.

Alternatively, import once and let it update itself: the package ships a Package script, which a LANCommander server runs on a schedule to pull new versions straight from this repository's releases.

What is in the package

Path
Manifest.yml	Redistributable metadata, including the embedded option schema
Archives/{guid}	A ZIP of the payload, extracted into the game's .lancommander metadata directory
Scripts/{guid}	One entry per PowerShell script

The payload is the official Windows x64 portable build (Release, the SDL1 variant), narrowed to about 25 MB: the executable plus the shaders, GLSL shaders, language files, default TrueType font and PC-98 character generator that its options can reach. Upstream's documentation, the Explorer shell integration scripts, the duplicate SDL2 build and the CJK fonts are not packaged. If you need CJK text under output=ttf, point [ttf] font at a font on the host.

How it runs a game

Nothing about the launch is a CommandTemplate. Scripts/RunWrapper.ps1 takes over the launch entirely and, on every start:

1. Resolves this game's option values.
2. Rewrites dosbox-x.reference.conf into <game>/.dosbox/dosbox-x.conf with those values, preserving upstream's comments and layout so the generated file still reads like the documented one.
3. Appends an [autoexec] block that mounts the action's working directory as C:, changes into the executable's directory, runs it with the action's arguments and exits. A .BAT or .CMD action is invoked through CALL, because DOS batch semantics otherwise transfer control away and never return, leaving the emulator at a DOS prompt.
4. Runs dosbox-x.exe -fastlaunch -exit -conf … and waits for it to close.

Two consequences are worth knowing about:

• Attaching this to a game that is not a DOS program will break that game. The wrapper applies to any game it is assigned to, and there is no platform check that could tell a DOS executable from a Windows one.
• Everything lands in the game's own <game>/.dosbox directory. Nothing is installed system-wide, no PATH is changed, no elevation is requested, and uninstalling the game removes the emulator with it. The cost is one copy of DOSBox-X per DOS game rather than one per machine.

Options

Every option upstream documents in dosbox-x.reference.conf is exposed — 378 of them, with upstream's own descriptions and valid-value lists harvested from the file rather than retyped, so an option added upstream appears here automatically.

That is a lot of surface. The defaults are upstream's own and run most games as-is; the settings that actually decide whether a given game works are [dosbox] machine, [cpu] cycles, the [sblaster] addressing, and [ipx] ipx for LAN play. Sections like [ttf], [pc98], [dosv] and [log] are there for completeness and will not improve an ordinary DOS game.

Section	Shown as	Options
[sdl]	Display and Window	30
[log]	Logging	2
[dosbox]	Machine and Emulation	32
[render]	Rendering and Scaling	11
[pc98]	NEC PC-98	11
[dosv]	DOS/V	17
[video]	Video Memory and VESA	8
[vsync]	Vertical Sync	2
[cpu]	CPU	13
[keyboard]	Keyboard Hardware	4
[ttf]	TrueType Output	23
[voodoo]	3dfx Voodoo	5
[mixer]	Audio Mixer	7
[midi]	MIDI	10
[sblaster]	Sound Blaster	19
[sblaster2]	Sound Blaster (Second Card)	19
[gus]	Gravis Ultrasound	10
[innova]	Innovation SSI-2001	4
[speaker]	PC Speaker and Tandy Audio	7
[joystick]	Joystick	5
[mapper]	Joystick Deadzones	16
[serial]	Serial Ports	10
[parallel]	Parallel Ports	10
[printer]	Printer Emulation	14
[dos]	DOS Environment	40
[ipx]	IPX Networking	1
[ne2000]	NE2000 Ethernet	5
[ethernet, pcap]	Ethernet (pcap backend)	2
[ethernet, slirp]	Ethernet (slirp backend)	5
[ide, primary] … [ide, octernary]	IDE Channels 1–8	2 each
[fdc, primary]	Floppy Controller	3
[4dos]	4DOS Shell	1
[config]	CONFIG.SYS	16

The full list, with every description, default and choice list, is OptionSchema.yml. Upstream's own reference for the same options is dosbox-x.reference.conf and the DOSBox-X wiki.

Administrators can override any of these per game from the game's Redistributables page. Values resolve as schema default, then per-game value, then per-action override.

Two quirks in the generated names are deliberate. Option keys are sanitised to letters, digits and underscores, so [mapper]'s joy1deadzone0- and joy1deadzone0+ collapse to one Joy1deadzone0_ that sets both directions of the axis, and section names containing a comma become Ethernet_pcap or Ide_secondary. The friendly headings come from Schema.Overlay.yml; the underlying keys are what per-game values are stored against and must not be renamed.

How this repository works

File	Purpose
redistributable.yml	Identity, payload source, config paths, stable script GUIDs
source.ps1	Resolves and downloads the upstream release, narrowing the payload
Parse-Config.ps1	Reads dosbox-x.reference.conf, whose layout the shared INI parser cannot follow
Schema.Overlay.yml	Hand-written curation: section headings, and the one option upstream mis-documents
OptionSchema.yml	Generated from the upstream config, then curated. Do not edit by hand
Scripts/*.ps1	Client-side and server-side scripts
LICENSES/	Upstream attribution and license text

OptionSchema.yml is generated, and the build fails if the committed copy does not match what the upstream config produces. To regenerate it locally:

Import-Module <path-to>/LANCommander.Redistributables/module/LANCommander.Redistributables
Invoke-RedistributableBuild -RepositoryPath . -UpdateSchema

Edit Schema.Overlay.yml to change how an option is presented; never edit OptionSchema.yml, since the next rebuild overwrites it.

Staying current

A scheduled workflow checks DOSBox-X for new versions. Upstream releases on roughly the first of each month. When one appears the workflow re-parses the config, regenerates the option schema through the overlay, and opens a pull request listing exactly which options were added, removed or had their defaults change. Merging that pull request publishes the release.

Options that upstream adds are picked up automatically and ship uncurated; the pull request calls them out so a description can be written for them.

Licensing

The scripts and workflows here are MIT licensed. DOSBox-X itself is GPL v2 and is redistributed unmodified — see LICENSES/NOTICE.md for attribution, the obligations that carries, and where to get the corresponding source for any version this package has shipped.