Get a laptop

The Nokia 5130 use the S40 OS and isn't good enough to run DOSBox. There is a DOSBox port for the S60 phones from Nokia though, but I would hardly recommend trying it either, unless you want to play games that are over 2 decades old. Newer DOS games will run much too slow simply because the phone CPU is too weak.

Android smartphones and iPhones have a port as well (in the case of iphone you need it jailbroken).

Even with a fast Cortex A9 CPU, I think you'll only manage 5000-6000 CPU cycles. My Nook Color's Cortex A8 at 1200 MHz is very limited in what it can do with DOSBOX. It's 286-386 level speed.

So IMO unless you specifically want '80s games, DOSBOX is only practically usable on a x86 CPU.

Also, touch screens are terrible for the majority of games. I can only bear to play turn based games that rely almost exclusively on mouse input.

swaaye wrote:

I think you'll only manage 5000-6000 CPU cycles

No, you can get a lot more out of modern smartphones. My already quite outdated Galaxy S (overclocked from 1 to 1.3 GHz) runs Ultima VII or Ultima Underworld with 8500 cycles, and Doom or Warcraft II with 12000 cycles. You have to use AnDOSBox, though, aDOSBox is much slower.
Apart from the sometimes awkward controls, there's not much difference nowadays between phones/tablets and netbook PCs. The upcoming Galaxy S3 is rumored to feature either a 1.8 GHz dual core or a 1.5 GHz quad core cpu, that's more than enough power to run any 486 game.

the issue of controls is precisely why I haven't bothered to try any of the Android ports of Dosbox on my Galaxy S2. They seem poorly supported too.

You need GameKeyboard: http://bit.ly/sUoT3F
If you set it up properly, games like Doom or Wing Commander are perfectly playable, and you can use it with aDOSBox, too (and Onlive, and GTA 3, and FPse etc...). 😎
Forget about U7 or the like though, they're a PITA to control via mouse emulation.

I think the correct thing to say would be that current ARM mobile CPUs can run 486 games with VGA resolution pretty well. SVGA would be another matter.

I'm curious to see how the upcoming Cortex A15 manages. The current quad core A9 stuff isn't exciting to me because it holds little practical value in actual use. Apparently Cortex A15 might get up to around AMD K8 in per-clock per-core performance. If only it could run the speedy DOSBOX dynamic x86 core. 😉

Yep. For some strange reason, Warcraft II runs like a charm @12000 cycles, but most other SVGA games lag pretty badly. Even though the dynamic core is surprisingly fast, it's nowhere near the performance on x86 cpu's of course. But - it's great fun to have Dark Forces and Worms running on my phone. 😉

Please I need help I have seen a video on YouTube for an android running the elder scrolls arena and daggerfall on andosbox and got really excited. I bought andosbox 1.1.8 and do not have the slightest clue on how to even start with getting either game and playing it through andosbox... Please help me I've put endless hours into trying with no avail please please help me

I bought andosbox 1.1.8

Then ask those people selling it. Wtf.