86Box logo

86Box v5.0

August 24, 2025 - written by richardg867

This is the August 2025 update to 86Box, bringing in many new features, fixes, some important changes and an exciting preview for the highly-requested integrated manager.

Main features

Manager preview

This release features a preview for one of the most requested 86Box features of all time: an integrated machine manager to organize all your emulated setups. This new manager is only meant to replace the old 86Box Manager and other simple front-ends; you can still use other managers with more features such as Avalonia 86.

The manager is started by opening 86Box directly. This is a change from previous versions, where doing this would create or start an emulated machine in the current folder. Starting a machine directly (bypassing the manager) requires the -P/--vmpath command line option to be used with the machine’s path.

Emulated machines are stored in the following folders by default. You can move your existing machines there or change the folder through Tools > Preferences > System Directory; note that, for now, you must restart 86Box for the change to take effect.

Other highlights

Mouse input and display output are now much smoother, especially on high refresh rate monitors, thanks to improvements to the emulator’s frame timing, input polling and video rendering systems. The frame timing changes may potentially have a negative performance impact on low-end systems, but the CPU frame size option can be changed to Larger frames to restore the previous behavior from v4.2.

The OpenGL 3.0 Core renderer, which allows for applying CRT emulation and other shader effects to the emulated display, has been completely reworked. New features include multiple shaders, support for shaders in the .glslp format and configuring shader parameters through the user interface.

Out of the many new machines, a couple represent early attempts to bring standard PC-compatible architectures to the Japanese market, dominated at the time by the incompatible NEC PC-98 and other non-x86 computers. The OKI if386AX30L follows the AX specification spearheaded by a consortium of manufacturers and Microsoft, while the IBM PS/55 Model 5550 is part of a family of PS/2 machines modified for that market’s needs. The AX specification’s JEGA and JVGA video cards are also available as standalone options for other machines. Emulation for all this hardware was contributed by Akamaki.

CD-ROM has been around since the 1980s, but the IDE-based ATAPI interface we all know was only released in 1994. Prior to this, CD-ROM drives used proprietary vendor-specific interfaces on the average PC, or SCSI on higher-end gear. Several of these early drives made by Panasonic/Matsushita are now emulated, along with a matching controller card available in both a standalone version and a Creative version commonly found in Sound Blaster cards. Emulation is based on the PicoGUS project, which in turn uses part of our code in its CD-ROM emulation feature - we appreciate the support!

On the subject of CD-ROM, the MDS/MDF disc image format used by Alcohol 120% and Daemon Tools is now supported. Note that encrypted images produced by newer versions of Daemon Tools are currently not supported.

On top of the new manager, many improvements have been made to the user interface, including dark mode support on Windows, write indicators on the status bar icons, and a new status bar section with keyboard lock light indicators and a refresh rate display. The keyboard shortcuts for releasing mouse capture and calling other emulator functions are now configurable thanks to a contribution by Cathode Ray Dude.

Important changes

Mouse release shortcut

The key combination for releasing mouse capture is now Ctrl+End on all host operating systems, as the previous F8+F12 used on Windows hosts was found to have application compatibility issues. Releasing capture with the middle mouse button is still an option where available. The F8+F12 combination cannot be restored using the new keyboard shortcut customization feature.

Host system deprecations

v5.0 is the final release of 86Box to support macOS hosts running High Sierra 10.13 and Mojave 10.14. The next release is slated to require Catalina 10.15 or newer, with no plans to end Intel support.

As noted in the v4.2 release announcement, we are no longer providing builds for 32-bit host systems. Compiling from source remains an option on 32-bit and other unsupported architectures.

System-wide preferences

All settings found in the Preferences window, such as language and mouse sensitivity, are now saved system-wide and apply to all machines on all copies of 86Box v5.0 and newer. Due to this change, any of these settings you may have changed on individual machines have been reset.

Custom key combinations are not saved system-wide for now.

DVD on CD drives

Inserting DVD-ROM discs (or folders larger than 1 GB) now requires setting a drive model with DVD-ROM support, such as the 86BOX 86B_DVD, unlike previous versions where all drives accepted all disc types.

Changelog

Emulator

User interface

Machines

Hardware