I got to verify what's the Win2K graphics driver. Do you get 16-bit/32-bit color support or are you limited to 2-bit to 256 colors with the class driver or with your manufacturer driver. The manufacturer driver will get you a lot of 2D games to run but in case you use the default class driver and it doesn't support good amount of colors by default, this won't get you much

I don't know I don't have any driver.
I'm just gonna install Windows 2000 and see if there is one in Windows.
I have integrated S3 Trio 64 2 MB.

koleq wrote on 2022-04-05, 06:15:

I don't know I don't have any driver.
I'm just gonna install Windows 2000 and see if there is one in Windows.
I have integrated S3 Trio 64 2 MB.

Windows 2000 was not really targeted to the gamer user base . Until Windows XP came along, most games either mainly or exclusively targeted Windows 9x variants but often could run on Windows 2000 or newer, regardless of 3D accelerator requirements (or lack thereof). Eventually, newer games were designed with Windows XP in mind and became difficult and eventually impossible to run under Windows 9x (though at least some of these could be coaxed to run under Windows 2000, instead of XP, or even explicitly supported Windows 2000) .

In other words, whatever games you may find that do not work under Windows 9x, but work in Windows 2000 were likely primarily meant for Windows XP .

Yeah, I kind of thought so.
And most XP games will probably require a 3D accelerator.

also Win2000 will be unusable on 48mb RAM anyway. NTs love them some memory

Probably the earliest "requires Win2000" minimum game I can think off-hand is Doom3. Taking a Win2k requirement and "2D only" into consideration would probably end up in the regression-happy Free software ville, i.e. OpenTTD, FreeCiv, etc.

leileilol wrote on 2022-04-05, 07:08:

also Win2000 will be unusable on 48mb RAM anyway. NTs love them some memory

Probably the earliest "requires Win2000" minimum game I can think off-hand is Doom3. Taking a Win2k requirement and "2D only" into consideration would probably end up in the regression-happy Free software ville, i.e. OpenTTD, FreeCiv, etc.

I'm upgrading to 96 MB of ram soon.

Windows 2000 on a Pentium 133 is a pretty bad idea. You will not have a great time as the CPU is much too slow for this OS, your RAM is inadequate (even at 96MB) and if your HDD is of that particular era as well, it will be even worse. If you wish to see what the OS is about, consider installing it on a newer Pentium 3 or Pentium 4 system or alternatively setting up a VM on your main desktop.

Much like leileilol theorizes, I think that 2D only stuff that requires at least Win2K is certainly mid to late 00's territory and will include all sorts of free, shareware, freeware and open-sourced reverse engineered engines and such, which would be a lot to ask for this system. In some cases, the Trio64 might actually be even more limiting.
You can however play 2D games (or software rendered 3D games) that came out in the late 90s, provided they are compatible with Win2K (officially or unofficially).

I want to at least try to run Windows 2000 as a test and then I will more than likely return to Windows 98 SE.

Because Windows 2000 supports up to DirectX 9, there are a LOT of games that work with it. Of course, those games also usually work with Windows 98 SE, since that also tops out at DirectX 9. I personally think Windows 2000 is a lot of fun, and once you have it fully patched and service pack'd with the latest drivers for your hardware, it's more stable than Windows 98 too.

A lot of games for Windows don't require a 3D accelerator, especially ones with an isometric perspective. Games like Starcraft, Diablo, Age of Empires II: Age of Kings, and Fire Fight don't use 3d acceleration, if I'm not mistaken.

As for things that DON'T run on Windows 9x, don't think about games. A lot of useful utilities stopped supporting Windows 9x long before they stopped supporting Windows 2000. For example, 7-zip's last version that works on Windows 98 is 4.5.7, while much later versions (maybe even the latest?) still work on Windows 2000.

Based on my memory of using win2k when it first came out - the vast majority of win32 games run on it just fine

Probably The Ultimate Doom will work fine, also maybe Quake Software Rendered

Haven't tested in awhile but:
NT3.51-NT4 - 7-zip 9.20
95,98,ME - 7-zip 9.30
98-ME KernelEX - 7-zip 19.00
2000 - 7-zip 21.05