coppercitymt wrote:

How do you tell if a game is in 16bit or 32bit?

Anything that uses protected mode or has a 386 as its minimum requirements is 32-bit. Protected mode software usually includes DOS4GW.EXE in the game's directory and displays a message stating that DOS4GW is starting when the game is run, but there are also a few other "extenders" out there.

Also what is the best OS to run on these to take full adavage of the maximum coverage of all the years say from 1985 (is that doable with the 8Mhz mode) to say 1995.

Windows 95 or 98 in DOS mode should be able to run a game from 1985 without any problems. 98SE is probably the most preferable. 8 MHz might still be just a little too fast for some things; 4.77 MHz was pretty common for very early games. But honestly, games that are that old – or at least, their PC ports – probably aren't going to hold your interest enough to be worth making a fuss over getting them to run correctly.