i'm starting to sort by year like

89GAMES
89DEMOS
95GAMES
95DEMOS

etc.. for period contextuality

I never have so many games installed at the same time to need a very elaborated organizing scheme on my hard drive. I think i am more of in need of organization for all the physical games i bought in the last 15 years that i still have 😜 98% are not installed on my machine at a given time but they are all over the place, shelves, boxes, binders... Nowaday i prefer digital download, much simpler.

On my main machine i usually have an official Game partition where i would install all my modern games in the root in a dir with the gamename.
( ex: f:\UT2004)
When i was using dosbox, it would look like (ex: f:\dosgames\duke2 )
I would have a copy of dosbox for each game with a specifically configured dosbox.conf so i would click dosbox and the game would start with all the right settings. I was inspired to do so when i bought xcom apocalypse on impulse and it came in such a package.

In the last year though i made the shift from using DosBox for my old games to using real Retro Hardware. My new moto is: Very old games on very old systems( VOGOVOS ) ironically it is my new passion for old hardware that made me join this forum 😜 , but thats beside the point.

Thing is so far on my retro machines i stick to the same idea of having a partition for games with all games in a dir on the root. However ive not really played a game for an eternity... Ive not seriously played a game since last spring( when i had bought Armada 2526) . Seems all i do in my free time is play with hardware, scavenge/buy old hardware, setup machines, test hardware, fix hardware, record stuff... Maybe in the future when i go back to actually playing games, i will try to make things even more organized.

Thing is however, where i get a bit more organized is for backuping stuff on my file server. things go on a specific Directory tree ( ex: D:\appsback\dos\drivers\Vgadrivers\ativgawonders.zip )

You could have all the big developers use a subfolder. That alone should reduce your list by quite a bit!

Splitting it up in genres isn't my cup of tea because some games are hybrids and then you aren't sure where to put them.

My organisation is pretty simple:
Working
Broken

Since I've been ever-so-slowly transitioning to my current system from my old Win98 rig, not all of my DOS software is installed, and every time I do install something I set up a custom shortcut for it in a folder dedicated entirely to DOS software shortcuts.

This way, the only organization I have to worry about is whether to sort the list ascending or descending. ;)

Granted, I'm not doing a good job of separating my shareware versions from my registered versions... >_>;

I store all of my files on my home file server and then use multiple Synology NAS to back up my server.

Shares are broken up as follows:

Games
Media (contains movies and music)
Travel (all of my programs, pictures and backups)
IMAGES (acronis\vmware images)

Games directory has A-Z subdirectories and then beneath those is the full game name. Beneath the game name is Full/Free/Demo and the Cracks, Updates, Images, Docs, etc.

I used to just dump all titles into Games without sorting them in A-Z folders but trying to access that share over the network would take forever when Windows would try to search that folder......Windows always hasn't liked thousands of files in one folder anyway so best to minimize that.

When I play games on my desktop they go in a \Games folder off the root.

I've found that having a ton of games in one location just leads to decision fatigue, so I only install the couples of games I'm playing at any one time, and remove them once I've beaten them.. 😜

MaxWar wrote:

However ive not really played a game for an eternity... Ive not seriously played a game since last spring( when i had bought Armada 2526) . Seems all i do in my free time is play with hardware, scavenge/buy old hardware, setup machines, test hardware, fix hardware, record stuff... Maybe in the future when i go back to actually playing games, i will try to make things even more organized.

Sounds like hardware is your hobby, not gaming. Sadly I'm the same way. Designing, building, configuring, tweaking seems to be more fun than games themselves. Maybe because it feels productive as opposed to a waste of time? Yes.. "productive" use of time.. when you'll never actually use the systems.. 😁

I have root folders called DOSGAMES and WINGAMES, in the sub folders I have genre folders, FPS, RPG, PLATFORM, ACTION, etc. In those subdirectories I tend to have publisher or developer subdirectories also, and then a subdirectory for each game. For instance...

C:\DOSGAMES\FPS\ID\DOOM
C:\DOSGAMES\FPS\ID\HEXEN
C:\WINGAMES\FPS\MONOLITH\BLOOD2

etc.

In windows, sometimes for video testing, I group by engine

like for example

C:\GAMES\IDT1\QUAKE
C:\GAMES\IDT1\HEXEN2
C:\GAMES\IDT1\HL2
C:\GAMES\IDT1\LASER
C:\GAMES\IDT3\QUAKE3
C:\GAMES\IDT3\STVEF
C:\GAMES\IDT3\COD4
C:\GAMES\UE1\DEUSEX
C:\GAMES\UE2\BIOSHOCK
C:\GAMES\UE2\DNF

didn't "id Tech 1" refer to the Doom engine? or did they just have trouble retrofitting the silly naming scheme to older games when they made it up later on? 🤣

I like to keep the 8 letter Caps Lock naming conversion when mounting folders in DOSBox.
For most games I had C:\DOS\GAMES mounted and let them install to there.
For games that belong to a series I mount a subfolder such as GAMES\CATACOMB, GAMES\COM_KEEN, GAMES\T_MURPHY.
There are also games that store a file at the root so I mount a subfolder to keep them self contained.
I've also used subfolder mounting to keep each of the Duke Nukem 3D expansions separate and each of the Quake expansions separate.
After installing I zip the game directory (or mounted subfolder) and keep that on another dive.

On my other drive I have a folder for DOS, another for Windows 3.1, and currently my 95-98-XP games are together in another folder. In those are the full titles of each game.

If it's part of a series I have the series name with subfolders for each game with 1-, 2- 3-, etc... prefix to keep them in the correct order. The same is used for expansions.

In each game folders I keep disc images, zips of DOS games, and the save files for games I've finished.

The game folders also have another subfolder structure.
Extra
Extra\Guide
Extra\Guide\Cheat
Extra\Guide\FAQ
Extra\Guide\Map
Extra\Manual
Extra\Patch

This is used for patches, pdf manuals if I found one, maps, walk through, and cheat codes which I formatted into an rtf document.
Sometimes I also keep wallpapers.

I've also kept text files documenting my setup and in game option choices as well as where I downloaded patches from.

Split in about 8 by-genre directories on HDD and managed by D-Fend - in which they`re sorted by countless sub-genres, devs, year, etc.

I give the larger developers their own folders. Otherwise I don't mind the clutter too much.

I categorize in
- Ultima
- NoUltima
😀

Hehe.

Two folders; Dosgames/wingames. Then sub-folders in each for genre.

I keep them in a folder called "dosgames." Then each individual game is divided into sub-folders listed in alphabetical order by title. Simple enough, but my collection isn't really that big either... just mostly stuff I grew up with.

Actually I usually have a whole FAT16 2047GB PARTITION itself labeled "GAMES" in my pure DOS machines. Depending on my mood, I sometimes place them under the developer's/publisher's title.

Usually my favourites fall into :

E:
\ORIGIN\ - (for Crusader, Ultima VI, Ultima VII, Crusader, Regret, Bioforge, System Shock, etc.)
\SIERRA\ - (for King's Quest series, Quest for Glory Series, etc.)
\SSI\ - (for Dragonlance Games, Forgotten Realms, Stronghold, etc.)
\MICROPRS\ - (for Gunship2000, F-117A, Darklands, etc.)
\LUCASART\ - (for Fate of Atlantis, Monkey, Monkey2,etc.)
\TITUS\ - (for Crime Does Not Pay, Prehistorik, etc.)

And most of the time, I place the individual games under root directory :

E:
\PRINCE (Prince of Persia)
\WARCRAFT
\RISKY (Risky Woods)
\GODS
\OMF (One Must Fall 2097)
\FXFIGHT (FX FIGHTER)
\TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
\DINO (Dinowars)

etc..etc.. 😀

Malik wrote:

Actually I usually have a whole FAT16 2047GB PARTITION itself labeled "GAMES" in my pure DOS machines. Depending on my mood, I s […]
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Actually I usually have a whole FAT16 2047GB PARTITION itself labeled "GAMES" in my pure DOS machines. Depending on my mood, I sometimes place them under the developer's/publisher's title.

Usually my favourites fall into :

E:
\ORIGIN\ - (for Crusader, Ultima VI, Ultima VII, Crusader, Regret, Bioforge, System Shock, etc.)
\SIERRA\ - (for King's Quest series, Quest for Glory Series, etc.)
\SSI\ - (for Dragonlance Games, Forgotten Realms, Stronghold, etc.)
\MICROPRS\ - (for Gunship2000, F-117A, Darklands, etc.)
\LUCASART\ - (for Fate of Atlantis, Monkey, Monkey2,etc.)
\TITUS\ - (for Crime Does Not Pay, Prehistorik, etc.)

Hey, that's similar to mine. Of course, there are some early CD ROM games like Hi-Octane that "play directly" through the CD, while they actually create their own directory in C:\ the first time you play them.