Windows 9x runs great in Virtual PC 2007 (Don't know how well it runs in Virtual PC for 7).
Windows 9x also runs great in Vmware 6.x (Haven't tried 9x in 7.x yet).

The above 2 are the best solutions for running 9x in virtualization software.

As for DOSBox:

Windows 95 runs fine in DOSBox 0.73 and CVS. Not sure about Windows 98 (been awhile since I last tested it).
When I did test it Windows 95 ran stable but Windows 98 did not and that's likely the same behavior today.

Windows 9x is not officially supported in DOSBox. It's not really in any future plans either. There are DOSBox patches submitted by other people (like HAL9000) to add support for 9x but they are not part of the official CVS and there are no plans to integrate support.

So for now use Vmware or VPC. Don't use BOCHS,VirtualBox, or Qemu. You'll just be wasting your time.

I've also been pondering the idea of running some kind of emulated or virtualized Win9x environment for stubborn old Win9x games that don't run well or at all under XP/Vista/Win7. One of the barriers for that is that some kind of Direct3D/OpenGL passthrough/wrapper will probably be needed for 3D games.

What about HX DOS or WINE? I've heard rumors of a Windows port of Wine (I know, 🤣).

I heard VirtualBox is supposed to have some Direct3D support or something, but you said it's no good...

Thanks for the prompt reply. Pretty much what I was expecting, and I shall pass that on to the person concerned on the VirtualBox forum.

I know how well windows 98 runs in MS VPC 2007 and I had planned to use it that way under Windows 7 until I discovered Windows 7 actively blocks it from being installed. I am therefore going to have to try VirtualBox (which I have started setting up as we speak) and I'll see how it goes.

It is interesting that you say avoid VirtualBox. Have you had problems with it yourself? I have previously had Windows98 running happily in VirtualBox under both Windows XP and Linux so I'm hopeful it will work, but only time will tell. It was also the way I first ran Windows 7. I wanted to try the 64bit version, but as I only had a PC with 32bit XP loaded (my work PC in fact) and couldn't afford to change the partitioning, VirtualBox was the answer. With virtualisation enabled it allowed me to run the 64bit Win7 under XP and it worked well. MSVPC doesn't support 64bit guests under 32bit hosts. As for VMWare, I really don't want to go that route because its expensive and, from when I was checking things out using the trial version, not as good as VPC or VBox. I've also tried Bochs & Qemu, but I simply couldn't get my head around them.

Anyway, regardless of what I end up using to support older operating systems, when it comes to DOS games there really is only once choice that works, and that's DosBox!

Almost forgot. WindowsVPC for Win7 doesn't support anything prior to XP, and so far I've not found details of how to make it work with anything other than the official VirtualXP image, but I will keep looking.

Windows 7's VirtualPC w/WinXP is a joke for games because it uses Remote Desktop to access the VM.

You can install Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7. I remember doing so when the first beta of VPC for 7 came out. Can't remember what I had to do to get it to install tho.

I think the main issue was that I installed VPC 2007 AFTER I had already installed VPC for Windows 7 so I had to hack around that. If you uninstall VPC for 7 you should be fine.

It's likely best to not have both installed anyway since they are basically the same product and I doubt VPC 2007 would play too nicely with the new driver/dll's that come with VPC for 7. (I only played around briefly for 15 minutes with both installed). Enough time to become even more disgusted with VPC (like that's possible). 😀

Well it may not officially support prior OS's to XP but I'm sure they will run. It's probably just like VPC 2007 where you had to use the additions from VPC 2004 for Windows 9x.

Frankly, if you have to jump through this many hoops to use 9x on VPC you should get the hint and just use a different product.

I believe I remember reading somewhere where you could create different VM's, read Ben's Blog posts I think he posted about it:
http://blogs.msdn.com/Virtual_PC_Guy/

If VirtualBox works fine for you with Windows 9x then that's your solution, don't let anyone else tell you any different. 😀

I've been using Vmware/VPC for years and there was a time a long time ago in a land far far away where Connectix was giving Vmware a run for it's money. That time is long past and Vmware came out on top and continues to do so. Periodically I try to switch to VirtualBox but there's always something that let's me down. About the only thing I use VirtualBox for is with WinBuilder to test out .ISO's. Considering all the time Vmware saves me, it's excellent support, and it's compatibility it's worth the price.

And if you don't need the features of Vmware Workstation you can always use Vmware Player\Vmware Server\ESXi for free

HunterZ wrote:

Windows 7's VirtualPC w/WinXP is a joke for games because it uses Remote Desktop to access the VM.

Do you have to use RDP?

Yeah, as far as I know the RDP interface integral to Virtual PC 7.

Is there a virtualizer out there that supports 3d hw on windows guests other than XP/Vista/7? I mean older like 98, 2000, and such. I know virtualbox only supports it in XP, and Virtual PC doesnt have it. Does VmWare support it ?

The only way you are going to 3D support 9x guests currently is to use software emulation like:

Swiftshader which emulates in software D3D8/D3D9.
Mesa3D which emulates OpenGL.

Both will be very slow so you'll need a very fast CPU to use them if you plan on playing anything very intensive. They work fairly fast on the early OGL/D3D8 games tho.

WINE has been adding D3D support lately. Their tests indicate it is getting pretty good, but your mileage will vary. And WINE is not the easiest thing to install.

Crossover Games 8.0 is due out fairly soon, as are new versions of Bordeaux. These WINE frontends should see wider selection of titles working pretty well <crosses fingers>.

DosFreak wrote:

The only way you are going to 3D support 9x guests currently is to use software emulation like: […]
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The only way you are going to 3D support 9x guests currently is to use software emulation like:

Swiftshader which emulates in software D3D8/D3D9.
Mesa3D which emulates OpenGL.

Both will be very slow so you'll need a very fast CPU to use them if you plan on playing anything very intensive. They work fairly fast on the early OGL/D3D8 games tho.

DOSfreak. Do you know if VPC or VMware Workstation works well with Swiftshader? Which works better?

Well Vmware is faster than VPC but I stopped using VPC long ago so I don't know if VPC for Windows 7 is any faster from reading the forums there are alot of complaints that it's actually slower than VPC 2007.

I know that this is a dumb question, but why is it so hard to use 3D graphics in virtualization programs like VMWare and VirtualPC? Isn't there a way to do all of the graphics processing on the host's graphics card?

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I know that this is a dumb question, but why is it so hard to use 3D graphics in virtualization programs like VMWare and VirtualPC? Isn't there a way to do all of the graphics processing on the host's graphics card?

I read once that MAME officially does not use PC 3D graphics acceleration because it aims for accurate emulation: doing everything in software allows for much better integration between the emulated CPU and the emulated graphics card. Presumably similar reasoning applies in VMware and VPC.

So, in other words, it might be possible, but nobody has ever really attempted it.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

So, in other words, it might be possible, but nobody has ever really attempted it.

Except that 3D acceleration is possible in VMware with Windows XP guests.

Jorpho wrote:

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

So, in other words, it might be possible, but nobody has ever really attempted it.

Except that 3D acceleration is possible in VMware with Windows XP guests.

Yeah, apparently all of the efforts are aimed towards bringing 3D to windows XP guests, nothing more. I suppose it's because that's what these companies' clients want.

I have some vague notion that the way drivers work in XP makes it much more feasible to get 3D acceleration working there than it would in Windows 98, but I have no idea about the specifics and could well be way off base on that.