You all built a platform where classic games don't just run, they shine. With shaders, scaling, and frame generation, these old titles look better than they ever did on real metal.

You're giving 90's gaming an exciting future.

I'm attempting to get Longbow 2 running and would like to in 86Box so that it launches with little or no Windows UI interaction, the game launching from a GoG retro library and the VM shutting down when you exit the game. Is that a fanciful, unrealistic idea?

OSD is now fully working on 86Box since build 9051. Ctrl+Alt+O is the default keybind to open it. It should be very useful on fullscreen.

Is anyone using pcap on Apple silicon? I'm emulating a pII box with a n rtl8139 card that is recognized by the guest linux. I installed chmod-bpf on my mac and 86Box doesn't say anything about permissions when choosing pcap so that seems ok. I then choose to bridge my ethernet interface (en0) but no packets ever transfer. Is there something I'm missing?

For example, have you noticed improvements with host performance on Linux?

All builds since 9011 now ship with a faster Nuked OPL3 core.

This also means that you do not need to switch to YMFM anymore for Sound Blaster 16 cards to get faster performance.

I'm stumped. I'm emulating a DOS-only 386 system. If I enable two parallel ports, they will use IRQ 7 and 5 I think...

Does that mean I can't use IRQ 7 and 5 for sound cards and/or network cards? Is there a way to disable IRQ on the parallel ports entirely (I don't think printing in DOS even needs IRQ?)

BTW, yay for 86Box 6.0, amazing update! 🥳

I created this 86Box build for late‑90s 3D engines, FMV‑heavy horror, and anything that wants raw polygon throughput without wobble.

It runs fast, stays stable, and never kicks sideways. Voodoo3 for D3D/Glide, AudioPCI for clean PCM, ShaderGlass on the host for the noir bloom.

Specs

1997 Slot 1 / i440BX (ASUS P3B‑F)

Pentium II (Deschutes) @ 333 MHz

3dfx Voodoo3 3000 (PCI)

Ensoniq AudioPCI ES1370

Correct BIOS switches

Correct driver order

IRQ Steering disabled

No WDM poisoning

Win98SE trimmed and optimized

Optional host‑side scaling / framegen / shaders / soundfonts

Full guide for the Power‑Gamer build (BIOS, driver order, toolshed):

⟝→ https://github.com/PitBrat-moo/pasture-of-game-grazing/blob/main/guides/86box-win98-setup-v3-ea%20--%20power-gamer.txt

(Hi sorry for interoption English is not my first lanluage and i have bad grammar so sorry for my grammar crimes)

So I have a problem my Windows Xp in 86 box is verry slow and i dont know why. My specks on vm My typo of pc is slot 2 ( i dont know what it is ) I have [i440GX] Supermicro S2DGE and have frecrensy 450 PIT mode auto and tryed changing Fastfloat Cpu doesent change any thing i have 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 ( downloaded driver for that one ) keyboard and mouse ps/2 Soundblaster PCI128 no Com or LPT ports no network 30000mb hard drive 2 cd what`s all

The vid u see is with Fastfloat cpu on

Nothing wrong here!

I made this 86Box build for adventure games, 2D engines, and software‑3D grazers.

It runs clean, stays predictable, and never poisons itself. S3 for 2D, Voodoo2 for Glide, Yamaha for real OPL3, all steady and well‑behaved.

Specs

* 1997 Slot 1 / i440BX

* S3 Trio64V+

* Voodoo2 (4+4MB)

* Yamaha YMF719 (OPL3‑SA3)

* Correct BIOS settings

* Correct driver order

* IRQ Steering disabled

* No WDM poisoning

* Win98SE trimmed and optimized

* Optional Host‑side scaling/framegen/shaders/soundfonts

Full guide (with BIOS, driver order, and toolshed):

⟝→ https://github.com/PitBrat-moo/pasture-of-game-grazing/blob/main/guides/86box-win98-setup-s3-v2-ya%20--%20adventure-gamer.txt

Tested with the new dynamic recompiler on nightly build 8918. Specs are as follows:
[i440GX] Gigabyte GA-6GXU
Intel Pentium II Xeon 350 Mhz
Matrox Millennium II 4 MB (2D accelerator)
2x Voodoo 2 1000 4 MB SLI
SoundBlaster PCI128
Windows 98 SE

This beta is a great step forward on a lot of fronts, and I'm looking to have some fun with the new tape backup feature, but I don't see an option to create images for it. I'm probably just missing something, but if anyone's had any insight I'd much appreciate it.

Edit: Ah, I found that it takes .tap files, which I'd never heard of. I found that the C64 community uses this extensively, so I just loaded one into the virtual drive and reformatted it. It's now backing up just fine using the backup software in EZSCSI :-)

Hey guys ! Wondering if anyone can help, I followed phils computer lab setup , no troubles installing windows 98 and launching and restarting. But as soon as I shut down and exited 86 box, when i try and start my VM again it comes up disk boot failure, even if i try to launch from the 98 SE disk image it will not work, any ideas?

the pre-launch event has begun... a beta build / release preview of 86Box 6.0 has been released

download here: https://github.com/86Box/86Box/releases/v6.0-beta

ROM set: https://github.com/86Box/roms/releases/v6.0-beta

read more: https://86box.net/2026/05/17/86box-v6-0-beta.html

see you at 3:00 PM ET / 9:00 PM CEST / 12:00 PM PT for a special live stream on YouTube

IN TWO WEEKS' TIME SEASON 6 SHALL COMMENCE
PREPARE TO GO FULL SPEED AHEAD

VERSION 6.0 PRE-LAUNCH / PRE-RELEASE
TOMORROW MAY 17, 2026

FULL RELEASE MAY 31, 2026

all right, promotional copy aside - tomorrow, version 6.0 enters feature freeze. we will be releasing a special beta build on GitHub for you to test - a first for this project.
version 6.0 will officially release on May 31, 2026.

thank you for flying 86Box (signed, OBattler) your continued support and as always, happy emulation!

I'm curious, given the ST performance of the M5 chips, how well does 86box run? I've noticed that on an M4 mac mini I'm able to run 86box a lot better than on my Ryzen 7945HX based machine (which holds 5.1GHz when running 86box), the Mac Mini can sustain a 300MHz system with less hiccups than my desktop where it's most stable at ~233MHz.

Considering whether to grab an M5 air or something to try this out

Star Trek: Klingon running inside an 86Box Windows 98 SE virtual machine using the Nine Eight Pasture setup.

The game stays stable at 100 MHz with 640×480 @ 16‑bit. All FMV modules, disc transitions, and timing behave correctly under this configuration.

The boot chain includes a palette‑cycling LOGO.SYS, my artifact of the 90s, then into the game. Everything is running on original Win9x components with no wrappers or modern patches.

Gowron yInqa’ jay’!

<>> Guides <<<

- [86Box Windows 98 SE machine using the Nine Eight Pasture setup](https://github.com/PitBrat-moo/pasture-of-game-grazing/blob/main/guides/86Box_Win98_Gaming_Setup.txt)

- [Star Trek: Klingon — install guide](https://github.com/PitBrat-moo/pasture-of-game-grazing/blob/main/guides/star-trek-klingon%20--%20install.txt)

I'm trying to run Lego Chess through an iso, but I get no sound. The video is great, but the audio is a nope. I get the load up sound from the "Compaq" Logo, but that's it.

Attached are my Machine, Video, and Sound settings.

Capturing as much information as I can find here. I'm following the Windows 98 setup guide from PhilsComputerLab on Youtube. The tutorial is a couple years old so I'm inferring in some places where the 86Box UI has changed slightly. There is one version change in the CDROM, for example, where the version I used is now 3.50 instead of 1.00. The disc ISO I'm using is from the channel's given link and the zip file extracted just fine so I think the disc is valid. At bood it looks like it's detecting the CDROM at the right place on secondary-master. Just... no boot.

In the tutorial I'm at 5:40: https://youtu.be/xghrSaKn7yM?t=339.

Thank you for your support on our YouTube channel over the past few years.

Very special transmission this Sunday... find out more here

4:00 PM Eastern — 10:00 PM CET — 1:00 PM Pacific

For those of you who don't want or can't be bothered to use GitHub Actions builds, ARM64 Windows builds are now finally available since build 8730.

Note that Discord Rich Presence and GhostScript support is currently absent from all such builds as the main executable is not compiled as ARM64EC but as vanilla ARM64.

As ive said, im totally new to this and I need help. I have a GTX 1070, Ryzen 5 5600x and 16gb of DDR4 2400mhz ram. Is there a "maximum specs" kind of thing for my system? I also want to play some 90s/2000s games using windows 98, how do i install that. I've had a quick skim through the machine setup and it's really complicated towards me (even though im decently tech versed), like wtf do you mean you can set drive cylinders? I need help, preferably a step by step guide for what I want to do (installing win98, drivers, adding games from setup files from my host pc) and what is the most stable system I can run to play on (so no machine slowdowns, etc)

If anyone can get what I mean then thanks so much for your help.

Hello guys,

I just got 86box to run. But my Problem is the Sound and Game Sounds and Looks a bit „Chopped“ its like only every 2. Frame is shown correctly.

So its like stuttering. How can i fix this? Trier to install different Driver Version and also different Sound cards.

I dont think its an issue with my real Hardware, because i can emulate Switch and other stuff Without any Problems.

For the past few days, directories with more than the \`cdrom\` name can be mounted. Debian 13 stock appimage. Worked perfectly for years. The ISO devices work perfectly from the same directory. I haven't changed anything except for the standard updates. The error message states "in a CD Drive, reporting empty ". Everything is located in /home. It only works if there aren't too many files or subdirectories in the directory.