Yes, most XP era games are generally easy to run on modern Windows. There are problems with unsupported features or broken DRM on certain titles, but I'd assume 80% runs out of the box and feature complete.

SoftGPU isn't necessary (except for the few cases where it is ), always try to get the game working on the host OS (Linux w/Wine or Windows) first. Virtualbox, vmware player/workstation, qemu, etc aren't really for gaming.

People can only speak from their own experience which is insufficient to speak for all games. For all Windows games from the very beginning to current day then the majority can be played without issue and jumping through hoops. For XP+ that's even higher.

If the amount of games you own are affected by the below but someone else responding has different games that are not then their response may differ as far as OS compatibility.

Do all games work perfectly? no.
Do some of that number have issues with the DRM? yes
Do some not work or have functionality missing because of an API that may no longer exist or has a bug? Yes
Are some 16bit and cannot run without another solution? Yes
Do some games have bugs in rendering that were fixed by a specific vendor video driver that is not in another vendor driver or not in the latest vendor driver that previously fixed it? yes
Are file dependencies missing in a newer OS that were in a previous OS? yes
Are there 32bit games wrapped in 16bit installers? yes
Are the people setting up these old or new operating systems forgetting to set them up properly? yes
Are the people setting up these old or new systems not verifying that the hardware is properly functioning? yes
etc
etc

It's like when I constantly see praise for Wine every year and how it's sooooo much better than Windows for game compatibility, and I go back and test and find it insufficient compared to Windows for my usage but I have 40TB + of games and don't care about playing whatever an influencer is playing today. Most people only care about running the latest released game on Wine that they viewed as working well in the WineHQ compatibility list or nowadays Proton (most websites even forget to mention or don't know of Wine or when they talk about Proton....) and the compatibility is skewed towards that. Occasionally old games may get tossed a bone, meanwhile the codebase is constantly worked on and some things get fixed while others break and the less used games never get noticed.

Burinis wrote on 2024-02-08, 13:18:

I'm wondering: why do many people believe that most games created for Windows XP work fine on Windows 10? I once contacted the SoftGPU driver theme because of a problem that occurred on Windows 98 in VirtualBox 6, and I was advised to upgrade to the 7th version of the WB. In turn, I explained that in addition to Windows 98, I also have XP (as I understand it, virtualbox 6.1 is the latest version that supports 3d acceleration for XP) and wrote that I need Windows XP to run several games of my childhood (Mickey Saves the Day (2001), The Simpsons Hit & Run (2003)), but they immediately started stupidly writing to me that a number of 2000s games are running fine on the 10th Windows.
Maybe this is because Windows XP and 10 have the same kernel (NT), although it has been updated several times? Or is it because Windows Server 2003 became the basis for Windows Vista, 7, 8 and all subsequent new Windows (considering what problems Microsoft faced when developing Windows Vista)?

I'm in the same boat, I'm afraid.

I still use Windows XP because it can run Software Synthesizers (SYXG-50, Roland Sound Canvas 3) which have full DirectX/DirectMusic support.

Vista and up have dropped support for these device drivers.
Here, Direct Sound 3D also nolonger works natively, either.

Same goes for Direct Draw (with direct access to framebuffer) and full-screen DOS applications. They depend on XPDM drivers.

Other reasons to keep XP around is the support for my favorite null-modem drivers and the not-so-broken NTVDM/WoW.
Here, Vista and up have memory issues (EMS etc).

Edit: Acronis True Inage 9 still works on XP, with the backup mounting feature.
I still need that to open old backups made 15 years ago.
The bootable live CD works without it, of course, but can't mount these backups as read-only virtual drives.

So I'm stuck with VBox 4.1.x, even,at some point, because my Mac Pro 2.1 runs Snow Leopard (host) on the Mac OS SSD.

Windows XP (host) on the Windows SSD can run VBox 5.0, at best.

For Windows XP as a guest, VBox ~6 is about the latest version to be fully usable.

After that, WineD3D and the experimental 3D support is gone due to removal of the old graphics card (VboxVGA).
Because of security reasons. As if VBox ever was secure. *sigh*

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=106674

Anyway, I'm just writing this for solidarity reasons.

Personally, for a long time, I hoped to be able keep my Windows XP Virtual Box VM around.

And then, without any warning, VBox devs had pulled this stunt.

Now there's not a single VM software left that runs Windows XP without any sacrifices.

But "not without warning" perhaps isn't entirely correct, if memory serves, the VBox people once refused to support High Definition Audio (HDA) in XP, claiming that XP didn't support it.
Which isn't exactly true. It did, in Windows XP SP2.. But that's another story.

Edit: I'm sorry for this long posting, I didn't mean to hijack your thread. I just wanted to point out you're not alone here.
Other users are also "stuck" with older versions of Virtual Box.

Well not all games work great. The word great is quite confusing, because it can either mean 'better' or can mean 'quite good on a platform not XP'. I am supposing you mean the later.

All the OS follow the NT kernel and the API functions and the Win32 system is linked and preserved over versions (well most functions). Things break due to lack of maintenance, or because of lack of necessity or because of security reasons or because of a necessary upgrade to the API.

Both games listed are quite early in XP's life (both also support Win9x)
As games dropped Win9x support I suspect the success rate would go up dramality.

Personally I don't own many games past 2006 so for me I'm more likely to try running Win9x games in XP

Burinis wrote on 2024-02-08, 13:18:

I'm wondering: why do many people believe that most games created for Windows XP work fine on Windows 10?

because they do, most games work fine. most just means a majority, not something near 100%

fine means you can play the game and have the same experience as you would on XP

for some fine isn't fine, some people look for the tiniest variations in experience and feel that it means something isnt working

windows has almost always been good at being able to run older applications made for earlier versions whether its XP coping with win95 and win 3.1 or windows 10 coping with win XP software.

However there are enough counter examples such that it may seem at times that what is the general case isnt the case.

in short, windows is pretty good at running XP games but not 100% of the time, sometimes it needs workarounds, patches or gog!

it's not true. there's a load of built-in compatibility checks and 'fixes' for specific games' versions but not all is covered. and there's that gimme about cd checks, and video drivers still remain an issue at regressing games as well (like AMD after 'making minecraft fast' at the cost of OpenGL2 support)

HOWEVER it's still at least a better track record than MacOS and certain linux distros

Out of the box, I would say it's compatibility with Win9X/WinXP games is terrible, but I would probably say the same of Win9X/WinXP too.

With some tweaking however I've gotten 99%+ of the games I've tried to work better than they did natively in Win9X/WinXP. And the 1%- is largely because I try a lot of problem games posted about here and just test lots of random games because I'm bored.

Mickey Saves the Day? Definitely playable on Windows 10.

Actually never tried The Simpsons: Hit & Run, but the extensive PCGamingWiki article on it suggests it should work.

leileilol wrote on 2024-02-10, 01:52:

and video drivers still remain an issue at regressing games as well (like AMD after 'making minecraft fast' at the cost of OpenGL2 support)

Well what's the scenario with AMD OpenGL (never decided to dig further)?

ZellSF wrote on 2024-02-10, 09:23:

Actually never tried The Simpsons: Hit & Run, but the extensive PCGamingWiki article on it suggests it should work.

It absolutely does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6KbvEJIBAM
I have nearly 100 games for 98 and XP currently running natively in W10 with or without community fixes or wrappers.

Burinis wrote on 2024-02-08, 13:18:

they immediately started stupidly writing to me that a number of 2000s games are running fine on the 10th Windows.

Well, they're right.
Have you considered that you might be the stupid one?