qemu has a few gui front-ends. i use virtual machine manager--been years since i've had to type in anything on the command line. qemu is also completely open source and built-in (kvm) to the linux kernel these days so no recompiling modules or dkms nonsense on every kernel update. kqemu has been gone for over a decade.

Mister98XPee wrote on 2023-01-23, 08:35:

Your exactly right! There's a long story to it but the short version is when computers went to 64 bit for a long time a lot of […]
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Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-11, 15:34:

If it is about PC emulation accuracy, both PCem and 86Box are the closest thing but it requires a CPU with very fast single thread performance for a decent experience. Another alternative is DOSBox-X which goes further than the original DOSBox regarding running DOS software in general.

Virtualization in my experience seems to be more focused on running older non-gaming software on modern computers.

Your exactly right! There's a long story to it but the short version is when computers went to 64 bit for a long time a lot of stuff (and many are still) broken so then came the virtual machines to run mostly business servers and software that needed specialize services and dependencies. The average gamer crowd doesn't know any better so just 'goes' with whatever even if it's against their own self interests which they usually often find out later then sooner.

In the early days of 64 bit there was actually bit more compatibility with software then later machines for example I had a VERY early 64 bit computer from Circuit City in 2004 and it was actually 64 bit. It said X64 on it and it ran all my 32 bit stuff. I had to replace that with a later 64 bit in 2008 after the ice storm hit here in OR due to some things being fried and the later one was NOT compatible at all.
Now that I think about it I think it may be because I had 32 bit XP installed on the old one where as the new one had Windows Vista which was quickly changed to 7.

Made me remember my first owned PC (not owned by my parents that is, which started out with a Win95 386 PC compatible). It had a very early gen x64 AMD CPU with only 2GB RAM installed and 32-bit Windows 7 supplied with it. A little before buying my next (current) i7-based PC I found out that it was actually 64-bit(K8 I think if memory serves, Sempron perhaps (the badge looks familiar. It ran at 2GHz)?), so installed some 64-bit Windows version just to try it out (although only software and not RAM might benefit for wider registers and faster calculations though). Didn't knew Linux back then tho (besides my games were all Windows 9x/DOS games mostly, didn't change much tho (few modern games (and lots of digital/consoles), but mostly from the 90's on PC).