This is a guide on integrating modern variants of DOSBox, like DOSBox Staging or DOSBox-X with the Playnite game launcher.
I'm not a Playnite plug-in developer or expert so there may well be a better way of integrating DOSBox Staging or DOSBox-X but this method seems to work well (at least it does for me).
I've been using it for a while now, so hopefully it's at least an acceptable way of doing things. This process won't be changing existing emulators or settings but adding new ones.
This guide assumes you have already installed your preferred modern variant of DOSBox.
Note: I'm not an expert, so you may encounter issues I didn't. You do this at your own risk, so make sure you're comfortable with all the steps involved before you start making changes!
If you have any suggestions or alternative methods, feel free to get in touch!
What is Playnite
The Playnite website says it best (far better than I could):
Playnite is an open source video game library manager with one simple goal: To provide a unified interface for all of your games.
Well worth having a read of this website to discover more about what Playnite can do! The ones we are most interested in are:
Integration with game libraries
It provides 'out of the box' integration with a wide variety of existing game libraries. I use it to link to my Steam and gog libraries. Games can be automatically imported and added to Playnite.
Integration with DOSBox
The Playnite website says it supports a wide variety of console emulators, which although true, is very modest of them. It has 'out of the box' support for a huge number of emulators including vanilla DOSBox and can automatically import DOSBox games.
I tend to not use that feature as I have many configuration files for each game due to testing and trying things out, and don't want to create lots of spurious game entries but it is available if you wish to try it.
As for modern DOSBox variants, this article will be covering those!
Before we begin
It's useful to cover a few points before we begin.
Where can Playnite be obtained?
The latest version of Playnite is available from the Playnite website. Installation should be straightforward and complete without issue.
Where is Playnite installed?
After installation Playnite can be found in the:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Playnite folder, where <username> is your Windows username. The AppData folder is hidden by default so you'll need to unhide this in File Explorer to make the changes described below.
A note on the YAML file format
The process involves editing YAML configuration files. With YAML files the indentation is meaningful which means you should use spaces instead of tabs for indentation. Tabs aren't allowed for indentation. You can read more about YAML on Wikipedia.
Integration with DOSBox Staging
Adding a new emulator spec
The first thing we need to do is add a new emulator spec for DOSBox Staging, to do so:
Go to the Playnite emulators folder at:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Playnite\Emulation\EmulatorsCopy the existing DOSBox emulator folder and rename the copied folder to something appropriate, I chose DOSBoxStaging.
Inside the new DOSBoxStaging folder there should be a single emulator.yaml file. Using a text editor, edit the file so it reads:
Id: dosbox-staging
Name: DOSBox Staging
Website: 'https://dosbox-staging.github.io/'
Profiles:
- Name: Default
StartupArguments: '-conf "{ImagePath}" -noconsole'
Platforms: [pc_dos]
StartupExecutable: ^dosbox\.exe$
ImageExtensions: [conf]Save the file and close your text editor.
Adding the DOSBox Staging emulator
With a new DOSBox Staging spec, a DOSBox Staging emulator can now be added:
Open Playnite and go to the Playnite menu (looks like a console controller icon) and select 'Library' and 'Configure Emulators...'
Add an emulator, I called it 'DOSBox Staging' and set it up as shown below in the screenshot. You will have to specify your own DOSBox Staging installation folder. Make sure you choose the new DOSBox Staging emulator spec.
Integration with DOSBox-X
The process is very similar to the integration with DOSBox Staging process.
Adding a new emulator spec
The first thing we need to do is add a new emulator spec for DOSBox-X, to do so:
Go to the Playnite emulators folder at:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Playnite\Emulation\EmulatorsCopy the existing DOSBox emulator folder and rename the copied folder to something appropriate, I chose DOSBox-X.
Inside the new DOSBox-X folder there should be a single emulator.yaml file. Using a text editor, edit the file so it reads:
Id: dosbox-x
Name: DOSBox-X
Website: 'https://www.dosbox-x.com/'
Profiles:
- Name: Default
StartupArguments: '-conf "{ImagePath}" -noconsole'
Platforms: [pc_dos]
StartupExecutable: ^dosbox-x\.exe$
ImageExtensions: [conf]Save the file and close your text editor.
Adding the DOSBox Staging emulator
With a new DOSBox-X spec, a DOSBox-X emulator can now be added:
Open Playnite and go to the Playnite menu (looks like a console controller icon) and select 'Library' and 'Configure Emulators...'
Add an emulator, I called it 'DOSBox-X' and set it up as shown below in the screenshot. You will have to specify your own DOSBox-X installation folder. Make sure you choose the new DOSBox-X emulator spec.
You may notice I've also added a couple of custom profiles, these are profiles I used for testing and don't need to be added.
Configuring a game
This section won't cover all the steps of adding a game, just those steps necessary to configure a game to use the modern DOSBox emulators.
If fairly new to Playnite, when setting up a game I would recommend getting it configured and working in DOSBox first and then configure it in Playnite. With a little experience it becomes a pretty simple process and normally I will configure DOSBox and Playnite at the same time as I setup a new game!
Manually added game
In this example the game F-15 Strike Eagle III has been manually added. It uses my DOSBox game management strategy, so the game installation folder is D:\Games\Dos\F-15 Strike Eagle III. When configuring the game manually this installation folder should be specified as shown below:
We can now create the actions to run the game from either DOSBox Staging or DOSBox-X using the actions tab shown below. We can also use the Playnite variable {InstallDir} as the installation folder has been specified, so we don't have to specify the entire path to the relevant DOSBox config file.
Library imported game
In this example F-19 Stealth fighter has been imported from my gog library. In this case the installation folder is the gog installation folder.
We can now create the actions to run the game from either DOSBox Staging or DOSBox-X using the Actions tab shown below.
Even when the game is installed via Steam or gog, I use my DOSBox game management strategy to store DOSBox configs, TM Target configs, patches and additional docs not provided by Steam or gog. So in this case all my F-19 Stealth Fighter files not provided by Steam or gog will be under the D:\Games\Dos\F-19 Stealth Fighter folder.
The DOSBox config files sit in a conf folder, so this time the entire path to the DOSBox config file must be specified.
Integrating 'DOSBox-X with Glide wrapper' (Advanced)
This is a bit of an advanced topic so if you're just starting out with Playnite you may wish to skip it for now and return later when you've got a bit more experience with adding games. It also requires an understanding of the concepts covered in the earlier 'Glide Wrappers: Last Man Standing or Peace and Harmony?' article.
Adding 'DOSBox-X with Glide wrapper'
This section assumes you've created a DOSBox-X folder and added a local Glide wrapper as described in the earlier 'Glide Wrappers: Last Man Standing or Peace and Harmony?' article, specifically the 'Can DOSBox-X use different versions of nGlide?' and 'How would DOSBox-X use dgVoodoo2?' sections.
As DOSBox-X is still being used, the existing DOXBox-X emulator spec can still be used, so there is no need to create a new spec. However a new emulator is required and can be added with the steps:
Open Playnite and go to the Playnite menu (looks like a console controller icon) and select 'Library' and 'Configure Emulators...'
Add an emulator, I called it 'DOSBox-X with <wrapper>' and set it up as shown below in the screenshot. You will have to specify your own 'DOSBox-X with wrapper' installation folder. Make sure you choose the DOSBox-X emulator spec.
As you can see the process is very similar to adding the DOSBox-X emulator. In the above example the '-noconsole' custom argument was omitted for testing purposes, but can be added back in once confirmed to be working.
Configuring a game
In this example the game JetFighter III Classic has been manually added. It uses my DOSBox game management strategy, so the game installation folder is D:\Games\Dos\JetFighter 3. When configuring the game manually this installation folder should be specified as shown below:
We can now create the actions to run the game from 'DOSBox-X with Glide wrapper' using the Actions tab shown below. As we have specified the installation folder the {InstallDir} variable can be used, similar to the F-15 Strike Eagle III example earlier.
Finally...
Hopefully this guide leaves you with your chosen modern variant of DOSBox configured and ready for use within Playnite, now start adding those games!
Good configuring!
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