7 ms·
Ask HN: Best way to play old games that require Windows 98/XP?
Hey HN,
I'm trying to install some old (german) Win 98 / 32 bit games for kids, but unfortunately they cannot be installed on modern operating systems. I already tried:
Not working:
- Dosbox (windows is required, I tried all tricks I found)
- Windows 7 or greater (even with compatibility mode)
- Wine on Linux (installer crash)
The only way I could get them to work (see references) is to install a Virtual Machine running Windows 98 SE, but on my wife's Windows 10 notebook this did not work (Virtual Box crashed).
Is there any better way, that I did not find?
References:
https://archive.org/details/windows-98se-vmdk
https://archive.org/details/Microsoft_Windows_98_Second_Edition_Virtual_Machine_VMware_WinWorld
https://archive.org/details/Windows98vdi
https://github.com/JHRobotics/patcher9x/releases/
- ratg13 3y agoVMWare Workstation Player is free. https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/info/slug/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation_player/17_0 https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/info/slug/de... Your virtualbox crash is likely due to bios/uefi configuration. Booting from a USB is also a valid route to a solution.
- berbec 3y agoIf you have Windows 10 Pro, Hyper-V[1] might work better than VirtualBox. I'd check why VirtualBox crashed, though. It's possible you don't have virtualization enabled in your bios. 1: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/quick-start/enable-hyper-v https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-...
- numlock86 3y agoHyper-V is terrible in regards of video output performance and input responsiveness as its meant primarily for virtual machines running in the background.
- lostmsu 3y agoNot related to the original topic, but now Hyper-V supports GPU virtualization. E.g. guest Windows 10 (starting from some build) can see and use host GPU.
- realitythreek 3y agoI’ve looked into this recently. Microsoft has ended support for RemoteFx [1] and Discrete Device Assignments requires a supported gpu dedicated to that VM. From my perspective, Hyper-V lacks a good vGPU story but would love to hear otherwise. 1. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb4570006-update-to-disable-and-remove-the-remotefx-vgpu-component-in-windows-bbdf1531-7188-2bf4-0de6-641de79f09d2 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb4570006-update-t...
- lostmsu 3y agoNo, it is way better than RemoteFx or DDA. Your VM gets a virtualized GPU. So with 1 NVidia card you can use 3D acceleration and CUDA on both host and guest at the same time. See https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/jym8xz/gpu_partitioning_is_finally_possible_in_hyperv/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/jym8xz/gpu_partit...
- numlock86 3y ago> but now Hyper-V supports GPU virtualization Yes, but getting that to display still is bound to low performance and delay. It's meant for GPU related tasks to utilize resources solely for computing.
- sandreas 3y agoI'm not a fan of Hyper-V... in the past I killed a whole system just by installing it as windows component. But maybe as a last resort :-) Thanks.
- ocdtrekkie 3y agoSo the biggest issue you will find is that the standard virtualization platforms like VMware and Hyper-V aren't suited to this: Many games need support for extremely old DirectX versions and that generally isn't implemented for things like VMware especially prior to XP. PCem is the one I've seen that seems ideal to the task, but I haven't had the time recently to experiment with the configurations for it. https://www.pcem-emulator.co.uk/ https://www.pcem-emulator.co.uk/ The key distinction is that it actually emulates various legacy graphics and sound hardware that games may have been intended to run on.
- spiffage 3y agoI just came across this walkthrough if you decide to give it a try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx2H3IV9SG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx2H3IV9SG4
- mmozeiko 3y agoThere's also dxwrapper that implements old DirectDraw/3D interfaces with newer D3D9 api for better compatibility with newer Windows versions: https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper
- fourfour3 3y agodgVoodoo 2 is also a nice tool for this - I've found compatibility can be better, and it also handles 3dfx Glide. http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/ http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/
- low_tech_love 3y agoI’ve had great results with this too, I really recommend trying, since it’s so easy.
- AlexeyBrin 3y agohttps://86box.net/ https://86box.net/ Is pretty good for running old OS like Windows 98 SE.
- LeoPanthera 3y agoIt will run 95 just fine, but 98 is a stretch. The "best" hardware it can emulate is a Pentium 1. Edit: I stand corrected, I guess I am out of date.
- minimaul 3y ago86box will do right up to and including Pentium II or K6/2 if your CPU is fast enough. edit: also, Win 98 works very well - I use it often in 86box.
- minimaul 3y ago^ this can work pretty well with the caveats that: 1. 3D card support is pretty limited - only 3dfx cards, and the voodoo 3 support is fairly buggy 2. you need a pretty solid CPU to use it well.
- sandreas 3y agoCool, thats something I could try.
- low_tech_love 3y agoI’ve had much more stable results and better performance with Win98 over DosBox instead of 86box. Especially with DosBox-X.
- sp332 3y agoWhat are some of the games you're having trouble with? You could try Steam's Proton, which is based on Wine but has a lot more compatibility work done on top. You might even find your games in https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ to see if someone else has tried them first.
- sandreas 3y agoSome german links: Neues von Pettersson und Findus: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neues_von_Pettersson_und_Findus_(Computerspiel) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neues_von_Pettersson_und_Findu... Bernd das Brot und die Unmöglichen: https://www.nat-games.de/bernd-das-brot-und-die-unmoeglichen-review-zum-miesen-brot-adventure/ https://www.nat-games.de/bernd-das-brot-und-die-unmoeglichen...
- Schinken_ 3y agoI know "Peterson und Findus" Runs in VMware (Windows XP). Did it myself. Also "Kapitän Säbelzahns Piratenprüfung" und "Pferd und Pony: Mein Pferdehof" work in VMware but not in Virtual box. Also some games (I believe "Petersson und Findus" as well as "Autos bauen mit Willy Werkel") have 16 bit installers but 32 bit executables. So as long as you can install/extract the files in a VM, you can just copy over the installation and run it on Windows 10.
- edenstrom 3y agoI've installed the Swedish version of the sequel (https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pettson_o_Findus_och_mucklornas_v%C3%A4rld https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pettson_o_Findus_och_mucklor...) on my Linux desktop. Used Lutris configured with Proton and that worked great. Had to change some resolution settings but otherwise pretty seamless. Also tried it on macOS with only wine, and that crashed during installation. Otherwise Windows XP VM works for pretty much all games.
- CSMastermind 3y agoNot OP but I once lost a day trying to get Oregon Trail 3rd Edition working. I never managed to even though I had the original CDs and everything.
- aidenn0 3y agoIf they are old enough to work without hardware video acceleration, then XP inside qemu works. I have several old games that are incredibly far from working in wine, and I have run them this way. They are all late 90s though, and games from that era mostly will work without hardware video acceleration.
- sandreas 3y agoSeems like WinXP in Qemu is the way... I would prefer a ready to use image, but I could also run this. Got an old licence here :-)
- Jiro 3y agoYou can try dosbox-x. It was forked from dosbox a while back and has enough compatibility to run Windows 98. (Regular dosbox 0.74 was released in 2010.)
- pewterman 3y agoSearching for "dosbox-x windows 98" on YouTube returns multiple videos that show how to install Windows 98 in DOSBox-X, and even Windows 95.
- sandreas 3y agoCool, that sounds interesting. I'll give it a try.
- low_tech_love 3y agoThis is my setup, works pretty great!
- oslac 3y agoBuild / buy an old enough computer.
- minimaul 3y agoThis is an underrated solution. It's not cheap (especially with how badly people are gouging on the right eras of hardware), but there's nothing like period hardware for compatibility with that early 3D era.
- eschneider 3y agoNever underestimate the convenience of just keeping an older computer around...
- sandreas 3y agoYeah thank you... I already thought of buying an used old WinXP Notebook for 45 Bucks or so, but then I thought: If this thing breaks after a while I must invest another 45 bucks and so on... And I have so much stuff laying around, I would prefer a virtualized solution :-)
- MrFoof 3y agoI’ve simply installed Windows XP in a guest virtual machine (VMWare, Hyper-V) and that’s been that. Hyper-V will require a Professional version of Windows, but the VMWare Player (you don’t need Workstation) is free and will work just fine. I play even Windows 3.1 games that require 16-bit libraries just fine. Nothing special. Install and go. Maybe a bit of ye olde config for really old DOS games where you had to set up a sound card in a separate config tool from the game :). Some games may require you to right-click on the executable, go to Properties, and set the Compatibility Mode to an older version of Windows. This is built into XP itself. Honestly, I think I only have 1 or 2 total games that have ever required it. Been doing this forever (15 years?) on both Intel Macs and x86 desktops for as long as I can remember. Moreover, this isn’t just my old memories — literally played a Windows 3.1/95 game (came out in 1994) this weekend while watching Le Mans.
- sandreas 3y agoSounds reasonable... maybe Windows XP will work on VMWare Player... that's something I could try. Thank you.
- cfn 3y agoIt does, I still have some software applications that are developed in a Windows XP VM under VmWare Player (the VM is more than 10 years old!). It is also quite cheap if you need to do professional work with it.
- MrFoof 3y agoI’ve been using VMWare exclusively for virtualization for old games, old dev environments, etc. forever. It’ll do what you need just fine. I think I started using VMWare when a story originally hit Slashdot 20+ years ago. I use kvm and xcp-ng mostly nowadays for professional work, but VMWare is tried and tested for Windows desktop use. There’s really only two things you’ll run into: * Games that rely on some esoteric third party library, that for whatever reason wasn’t included in the installer because it relied on a redistributable from Windows Update or the audio driver installer for the sound card. Rare, but happens. Almost always an audio library. Quick search will find it on abandonware sites. Think I’ve done this for 2-3 games ever, last one being Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol. * Games that relied on early DirectDraw (not DirectX) and were released before Windows 2000, and used fade in/out effects. With how DirectX was changed under the hood for the NT 5.0 kernel in Windows 2000, it ends up being a slideshow. This isn’t a virtualization issue, but a Windows 2000 or later instead of Windows ME or prior issue — you’d see the same issue on 20-25 year old hardware (I did back then)! However this is super rare. I think the only game I have affected by this is the installer (not the game itself) for Dark Reign, which was an RTS by Relic.
- organman91 3y agoIt's a long shot, but some old games are available via https://www.scummvm.org/ https://www.scummvm.org/
- sandreas 3y agoYeah I know this, but this is mainly for Lucas Arts stuff and the games I would like to use don't run there. Anyway thank you.
- justsomehnguy 3y agoIt really depends on the game (particulary old DirectX <5 and are PITA). Without the game name and it's requirements I only can advise to seek advice on Vogons or Old-games.ru
- Topgamer7 3y agoDid you look at the wine appdb for your games? There might be some things you can do to get it running.
- sandreas 3y agoyeah the games are not popular enough, unfortunately.
- rasse 3y agoWine may still be the way to go. You should check the logs, if you haven't already. If the crash occurs because of missing runtime libraries, the issue might be fixed with Winetricks. https://wiki.winehq.org/Winetricks https://wiki.winehq.org/Winetricks
- kgm 3y agoThere's a whole generation of games from the mid to late 90s (and perhaps into the early 00s) that's remarkably annoying to play these days because of this issue. The game I've personally tried to get running, every once in a while, is Mechwarrior 3, but it's a complete disaster. The last time I tried to run it, I actually managed to load into the first mission, but the in-game physics were remarkably broken, with the amusing result where the first enemies you face in the game (a couple of little tanks) drove up towards me, hit a little bump, and then immediately rocketed into the sky. At least part of the issue is that the game uses multiple threads, but was designed for systems with a single CPU, with a clock speed that's considerably slower than is present in modern systems. Something about this difference in timing breaks the whole thing in ways which are diverse and inexplicable. Now, this comment thread contains plenty of possible solutions I could attempt, but if it's really a matter of the game relying on something like the CPU speeds of contemporary hardware (not to mention contemporary graphics hardware) then I start to think that I'd need to track down some kind of Pentium 3-era gaming PC to really make it work.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoMechwarrior 2 (ATI 3D Rage Edition) is my white whale. I cannot for the life of me get that working.
- kgm 3y agoPart of the issue there is that the 3D-acceleration-enabled versions of Mechwarrior 2 (and Mercenaries) were buggy as heck even at the time. (Mercenaries was even pretty buggy before they did the 3D card patch, and it only got moreso.) It really doesn't help this kind of games preservation that the games themselves could be kind of junk, from a technical standpoint.
- deeesstoronto 3y agoI played a ton of Mechwarrior 2 (ATI 3D Rage Edition) - the Aptiva bundle version - and didn't notice it being buggy.... Maybe this is a later version and earlier versions were more buggy?
- password4321 3y agoSemi-related, though also nearly impossible to setup these days: Windows 7 Pro supported "Windows XP Mode" using Virtual PC. https://archive.org/details/windows-xp-mode_20200907 https://archive.org/details/windows-xp-mode_20200907
- treve 3y agoOn Linux, have you seen the Lutris project? It's basically a launcher for games, and the community maintains Wine/DOSBox/etc configurations.
- sandreas 3y agoAnother interesting one... maybe I'll give it a shot if I fail with vmware player and windows xp
- snthd 3y agoCopy the installed version, and run that with wine.
- sandreas 3y agoThat may work, but I need a way to install it first... nice idea though
- kev_emu 3y agoYou could try BoxedWine. It is enough of a PC emulator to run an unmodified 32-bit version of Wine. Runs on Windows, Mac, linux and in a web browser. - https://github.com/danoon2/Boxedwine https://github.com/danoon2/Boxedwine - https://www.boxedwine.org/ https://www.boxedwine.org/
- dzek69 3y agoI'm not an expert but Dosbox can be run in browser. I've seen entire oses in browser too, but that would be too much CPU to waste. Anyway, if your game is dos based that could help you.
- weare138 3y agoI've had pretty good luck with Virtualbox and legacy OSs. It's open-source. WINE works surprisingly well with older Windows games and apps too.
- netsharc 3y agoMaybe PCem, as demoed on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWEE2RJj3YI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWEE2RJj3YI
- sandreas 3y agoThis is REALLY interesting. Thank you very much.
- BlackLotus89 3y agoTry installing windows 95 in dosbox and save that as a base image for your software. Don't know if this was o e of the "tricks" you tried... anyway worked for most old games that required windows I tried
- deeesstoronto 3y agoWhat about installing Windows 98 in dosbox? I haven't tried this but have done it with Windows 3.11. This was the first result when I searched: https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3AInstalling-Windows-98 https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3AInstalling-Windows-98
- anotherhue 3y agoI've been porting this to Nixos all week. Handles glide emulation pretty well https://github.com/kjliew/qemu-3dfx https://github.com/kjliew/qemu-3dfx
- hdjfndnrldn 3y agoWine
- hdjfndnrldn 3y agoNo but seriously ... I play a couple StarCraft and Total Annihilation both work flawlessly...
- sandreas 3y agoI would like to thank everyone for contributing. There are way too many approaches to try them all, but my further research led me to the following conclusion: I'm going to start with trying Windows XP on either VMWare Player or qemu Most versatile / reliable source for Windows XP isos here[1] (needs registration) Trying this[2] modern installer creation may be a next step If this does not work, I'll try Win 98 SE on dosbox-x following this[3] guide [1]: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/microsoft-windows-xp-iso-svf.44702/ https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/microsoft-windows-x... [2]: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/tool-xp2esd-create-modern-windows-xp-installer-v1-6-2.82935/ https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/tool-xp2esd-create-... [3]: https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3AInstalling-Windows-98 https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3AInstalling-Windows-98
- sandreas 3y agoUpdate: I'm going to start with PCem. See https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/downloads.html https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/downloads.html and for LTT review video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWEE2RJj3YI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWEE2RJj3YI
- tmtvl 3y agoAs a Wine user (... a winer?) I'd like to go over a couple tips which you may already have tried, but which can help if you aren't used to them: - did you create a 32-bit prefix? - did you try setting the Windows version to an older one, like Windows 95? - did you try using something like InnoExtract (if applicable) to extract the game data without running the installer?
- qup 3y agowino