How to take screenshots of Dosbox games

If you boot up any game running through Dosbox you might notice that the screenshot button (Steam's default is F12) doesn't work out of the box. In this guide I'm going to show you how to get that screenshot button to work for Dosbox games.

To start:

1. From your library go to a game that you want to start taking screenshots of (In this case I'll use Dungeon Keeper Gold but this works for any game running through Dosbox.)
On the right hand side of steam you should see a gear, a controller, the info, and the favorite star.

2. Click the gear/Manage button
A menu comes up. Go down to "Manage"

3 . Click "Browse local files"
This will bring up a window of wherever the game is installed on your machine.
You'll notice you have a few DosboxDK config files. ignore "client", "server", and "single" We just need the "DosboxDK" config file.

4.Double click the "DosboxDK" Config file.(it should be the file just below the two applications.
(If your computer asks you which program you want to open the config file in I always use Notepad.)
If you opened the correct config file it should look something like this:

--------------------------------------------------------------

# This is the configuration file for DOSBox 0.74-2. (Please use the latest version of DOSBox)
# Lines starting with a # are comment lines and are ignored by DOSBox.
# They are used to (briefly) document the effect of each option.

[sdl]
# fullscreen: Start dosbox directly in fullscreen. (Press ALT-Enter to go back)
# fulldouble: Use double buffering in fullscreen. It can reduce screen flickering, but it can also result in a slow DOSBox.
# fullresolution: What resolution to use for fullscreen: original, desktop or fixed size (e.g. 1024x768).
# Using your monitor's native resolution (desktop) with aspect=true might give the best results.
# If you end up with small window on a large screen, try an output different from surface.
# On Windows 10 with display scaling (Scale and layout) set to a value above 100%, it is recommended
# to use a lower full/windowresolution, in order to avoid window size problems.
# windowresolution: Scale the window to this size IF the output device supports hardware scaling.
# (output=surface does not!)
# output: What video system to use for output.
# Possible values: surface, overlay, opengl, openglnb, ddraw.
# autolock: Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen. (Press CTRL-F10 to unlock)
# sensitivity: Mouse sensitivity.
# waitonerror: Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.
# priority: Priority levels for dosbox. Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.
# pause is only valid for the second entry.
# Possible values: lowest, lower, normal, higher, highest, pause.
# mapperfile: File used to load/save the key/event mappings from. Resetmapper only works with the defaul value.
# usescancodes: Avoid usage of symkeys, might not work on all operating systems.

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=desktop
windowresolution=original
output=overlay
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper-0.74-2.map
usescancodes=true

-------------------------------------------------------------------

(If you opened the wrong config file and it doesn't look like above its not a big deal close the one you opened and find the one that does look like above.)

5. Go down to the option that says "Output=overlay" as underlined and boldened above

6. Change "overlay" to "opengl" It should now read Output=opengl

Don't forget to save the changes to the config file.

You're done. Start up the game and hit that screenshot button and it should work..

NOTE: For whatever reason you can't take a screenshot when there isn't movement on screen. (You can move your mouse to trigger the screenshot if you've pushed the button but it didn't take the screenshot.)

This works for any game running through dosbox. Just look for the config file that looks like the one in this guide for the other dosbox games and change overlay to opengl in those settings and you can take all the screenshots you want.

[LeGheed]

this is very helpful, thanks a lot. only issue is that [ctrl]+[f12] is the combination to speed up the game. so I recommend to check the speed of the game prior to making this adjustment, or else you will produce a lot of unwanted screenshots while speeding up.

[Pancakes11]

This is for people that don't want to use mods. It also works for any dos game so it will work on games that KeeperFX won't work with.

[Manstie]

You shouldn't bother with DOSBox, install the KeeperFX mod/remake instead