Hello,

i started out using dosbox with games in a single folder. However, I started getting games (steam/origin) which bundle theirs. meaning my games have actually become scattered. However, I am thinking these games don't actually have drm. As long as I have the DOS game data, i could theoretically re-centralise the games since DOSBox itself can be downloaded DRM-Free. Cutout the unneccessary middle-man (origin/steam) as it were.

Do you guys prefer centralizing or scattered?

I keep them centraized in a dos folder, with a separate folder containing each game's config file. Dosbox itself is in the program files directory.

It's very annoying that GOG installers all reinstall Dosbox, and usually an outdated version at that. Not to mention the suboptimal settings...

scattered
all my gog games have their own version of dosbox
and i cant be arsed to centralize it all and do al the jumping through hoops required to get the games to work

I either click on the installer EXE of a game and install it, or click on Install in the client (Galaxy, Steam, Origin, Uplay, whatever...), then when the game is installed I either play it, or I might tweak the configuration using the DOSbox config tool or edit the configs by hand as per wsgf.org or other site recommendations, I might install mods for high-res/widescreen or similar.

Other than that, I play it as shipped and don't care if I have 4700 identical or different copies of DOSbox installed on my hard drive. In fact, a game could install 20 copies of DOSbox all in one folder and I don't care. I have 6 terabytes of disk space and the extra space wasted by having 1000 copies of DOSbox installed whether they are identical or different is extreme trivia I simply don't care about. The time it would take to care and to try to customize 100 or more games to all use the same DOSbox install and work properly with it, I could have actually played and enjoyed several games.

In short, life is short and I just want to install my games, possibly mod/tweak them for to match my graphics hardware/monitor setup and other factors as minimally as possible, then just play them. If I run out of hard disk space because I have 500 copies of DOSbox installed, I'll go buy a new hard disk. :)

Both.

I have only one game installed at a time, so if it has dosbox, it's both centralised and scattered.

This. Especially for CD games which need CD mounting in the config file etc., ie. just using the same generic DOSBox config files isn't enough.

If I feel some GOG DOSBox game needs a newer version of DOSBox, then I probably replace the DOSBox in the GOG installation with a newer one, instead of moving the GOG game files around to my "main DOSBox installation". I've done that once I think (replacing old DOSBox in a GOG game with a newer version), for the GOG version of Shattered Steel (not sure if that helped any to the game's problems, mainly that the laser guns don't hit enemies but go right through them if you give too many CPU cycles for the game in DOSBox)..

The good thing about GOG DOS games having their own copy of DOSBox is that that makes those GOG games portable, ie. you can just copy that game directory around, without needing an installed DOSBox in the system. Having its own DOSBox inside each GOG game directory takes an extra 8 megabytes per game, and that is nothing, the savings for HDD space would be negligible.

All in all, while there might be some small benefits by GOG (and Steam) using some centralized DOSBox installation for all their DOSBox games, I feel the current way is more fool-proof and probably also more future-proof. What if some new DOSBox version really does bring some issues to certain older games? What if the "generic" DOSBox installations made by both GOG and Steam DOSBox games somehow clash? What if Microsoft changes something in Windows 11 that makes such arrangement non-working?

It would also be more work for GOG. If all GOG DOSBox games use the same central DOSBox, then if the config file formatting changes with a newer DOSBox version (like it HAS changed before), then GOG would have to rewrite the DOSBox config files for all their existing DOSBox games, to be compatible with that new DOSBox version.

I just feel the current approach, DOSBox included inside the game directory, has less such risks. A self-contained package. Boohoo for losing extra 8 megabytes per game installation, I can live with that thanks.

Use D-Fend.

Currently 100% scattered, though I have dabbled a bit in the past with D-Fend Reloaded for DOS games that aren't on GOG (like Jetpack, Railroad Tycoon and X-Com).

I'd prefer if there were only 1 Dosbox with different optimized settings for each game.

Gathered in a central location, though not visible to each other. Each has a custom-written dosbox.conf that I use with my own custom-built dosbox. For most of the games, I've spent more time setting them up than actually playing them.

I used to have them centralized but now I have separate Dosbox installations for every game as it's easier to have my gamepad automatically apply profiles.

This

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dfendreloaded/