You might be fine running Windows XP inside VMWare. As long as you got VMWare Tools installed it'll allow you to have hardware acceleration within the vm as well as some other features. I tested 3DMark2001 SE inside my Windows XP VM and was getting 300 FPS in it with a Radeon HD 4830 on my host machine so any reasonably modern system should be getting decent performance from it. I haven't done too much other testing but it seems somewhat promising.

Wine is a wrapper that allows using windows apps/games in Linux. It can run most Windows software, and it has a database where you can find if your program can run, and how well it can run.

The main advantage over virtual machines is that they have better 3D support (not limited to DirectX 8 and later); the main advantage over modern windows is that they don't kill features (i.e.: pixel formats, 16 bit subsystem) used in older windows. Also, it can "mimic" a windows version to make your apps feel happier.

The drawbacks:
- Wine is highly dependant on X-Windows, so it only works in Unix-like OSs.
- Wine is not an emulator, is a wrapper. That means that it only supports x86/x64 platforms (sorry, no Wine for your ARM devices).
- Wine is a Windows wrapper, it only supports Windows programs. For DOS programs, you must use DOSBox.
- Wine does not have a Windows environment, it only runs the programs. You can run more than one program at a time, but you won't have some things like "control panel" and "start menu".

Wine is a good tool and I used it often to play WoW without rebooting on Windows, but maybe it's not the thing you expect it to be. Give it a try, but keep in mind that you'll need to learn about Linux before.

Well, the Windows 98 games I've tried actually work better than Windows XP games I've tried, though I haven't tried many games. Rollcage Stage 2 works perfectly, just as well as it does on Windows. South Park (Deeply Impacted) works perfectly through wine, and I couldn't even get that working under Windows 7! The only issues I've had with wine, like I said, were with games made for Windows XP or newer. Again, I've only tested a handful of games, but if it's anything to go by, then I'm sure you'll be fine.

Well, I'm gonna install ubuntu on my netbook and test a few games and if all goes well I think I will install ubuntu on my main computer as well and hopefully solve a lot of my compatibility problems.

Thank you for the input 😀

Always keep an eye on the knowledge/database linked to above. There are valuable hints there which might help you getting stuff to work.
Crossover is a nice (but costly) GUI for Wine, btw.

Yasashii wrote:

Well, I'm gonna install ubuntu on my netbook and test a few games and if all goes well I think I will install ubuntu on my main computer as well and hopefully solve a lot of my compatibility problems.

Thank you for the input 😀

🤣. Solve your Windows game compatibility problems with Windows and my PC Game Compatibility List, not Linux (except for rare cases where Wine works and windows doesn't)

If your game is in the Wine compatibility list and is listed as being fully compatibile then you should be good....until it breaks with a new Wine update. Anything else then you will be SOL.

I'm just getting tired with having to muster up workarounds and hacks for every single old game I pick up lately to get it to work with Windows 7.

Case in point: Ignition at first crashed when started and when I fixed that, there's no CD music. Now take a look at wine compatibility report of that game:

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sC … rsion&iId=27766

I would suggest using playonlinux as a frontend for wine. You can install different wine revisions within playonlinux and once you get a game running with, for example, revision 1.5.10 it will always run as it is independent from the wine installed on your main OS (I always keep my main wine up to date). This will eliminate any main wine update producing regressions. Not only that but it is much easier to configure each game independently using winetricks
I have over 700 games (pre 2000) installed and running fine in wine even resident evil and star trek DS9 dominion wars.
Wine is becoming a fantastic alternative to old windows games even windows games running on windows ironically.
Be warned the winehq database linked above can contain older posts and wont apply to newer revisions...in this case you would be better trying your game with a newer revision than the one posted in the wine database as it could have been fixed since

Have fun on your journey into a more open world!

DosFreak wrote:

Yasashii wrote:

Well, I'm gonna install ubuntu on my netbook and test a few games and if all goes well I think I will install ubuntu on my main computer as well and hopefully solve a lot of my compatibility problems.

Thank you for the input 😀

🤣. Solve your Windows game compatibility problems with Windows and my PC Game Compatibility List, not Linux (except for rare cases where Wine works and windows doesn't)

If your game is in the Wine compatibility list and is listed as being fully compatibile then you should be good....until it breaks with a new Wine update. Anything else then you will be SOL.

not true if you use playonlinux...you can make a game use a specific wine version and any update to the main wine installation will not affect it