Aleph One
https://github.com/Aleph-One-Marathon

2000-XP v1.3a1
Vista v1.6
7 v1.6.1

Quakespasm 0.95.1 and TyrQuake 0.71 both work on Windows 2000

From the readme

"4.4 Quake '2021 re-release'
QuakeSpasm 0.94 has support for playing the 2021 re-release content: Copy the quakespasm binary to your rerelease installation and run as you normally do."

The Quake remaster using kexengine is 7+

Quake3e from 1-27-2023 (didn't test a newer ver) works on Windows 2000
Requires ws2_32.dll from XP and a newer msvcrt.dll from the one included with 2000.

Fo1in2-1.8.3032 + sfall2k_3.8.30 work on Windows 2000.
Need to run undat.exe on a newer OS.

Gothic 3

These work on XP:
Gothic_3_EE_Patch_v1.75.14_Int_Full
Gothic_3_EE_v1.75_Int_Update_Pack_v1.04.11

This requires Windows 7
Gothic_3_Parallel_Universe_Patch_v1.0.5

For Windows 2000 it's possible older unofficial updates might work, "Community Updater", v1.6 patch, v1.52 patch, etc. Haven't tested.

For those wanting to run Tale of Two Wastelands without steam you'll need to use SmartSteamEmu to run the game.
Simply name falloutnv.exe to another name and then rename steamloader to falloutnv.exe, in the SSE .ini specify add the renamed fallout executable as well as the appid.
For some ridiculous reason the nvse dev only allows approved hashes so even though steamless works just fine on the Fallout New Vegas executable nvse doesn't recognize it.
I haven't tried any modification of nvse yet
https://github.com/xNVSE/NVSE

fHeroes2 project
https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2
The release v1.00 from December 2022 was still easy to get working in Windows XP, with the usual Windows version 6->5 hexedit in the PE header.
The release v1.01 has four NT6 specific calls, and needs a KernelEx wrapper to run on NT5.
The release v1.02 also uses a somewhat rewritten file indexing with FindFirstFileEx. On my XP system it can't see any file.

On my website, in the back-ports section, is a v1.02 XPmod, build to run on Windows XP.

I'm still cleaning up my backups of online game folders so I can eventually just do a winmerge between the original and backed up folders so I know what's changed and keep the older versions in a different location, once done I'll need to go back through my methods to make the games work offline but I've decided to dump my existing list to .txt and upload to github.
I'm also about to upload a list of game ports which can also be used to remove the oneline store restriction

Lists are here:
https://github.com/vogonsorg/OfflineGames

Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lzqUe1Qfec

Picked up this bad boy I'd given away awhile back but now I have it again:
https://us.msi.com/Laptop/GT72-Dominator-Pro- … M/Specification
Same as this one except with 4GB of VRAM

Plan to use it for testing along with my test desktop since VMs are shit for compatibility compared to the real thing. Not sure if XP will work on it but it does support SATA M.2 and the 980m will work on XP so the two biggest culprits would be taken care of. Windows 11 does work as well.

Update for my previous post:
Re: DosFreak All System Specs 4-14-2022

So I've been testing RDP to a Windows 11 VM that has a GPU using passthrough. It's too fiddly, it's still using RDP, issues crop up and it's only compatible with 10 and 11. Instead I decided to hook up my monitor, keyboard and mouse to the Win 11 VM that has the 3060 in passthrough and that's working much better. Install ESX, Install VM, Enable passthrough for devices, assign devices to VM, install drivers in VM. DONE. No BS the way it should be. Next testing will be with 9x/NT4 to 8.1 with FX1300, 8800, 980ti videos cards but that will have to way until the resilver is done for the drive I replaced this weekend.

If this works out I can use ESX strictly for testing and my other hardware strictly for gaming.

So GPU passthrough works great but I discovered that USB passthrough would cause the host to PSOD so I ended up just passing through the keyboard and mouse instead of the USB controller.

IF PASSTHROUGH FOR USB CONTROLLERS CRASHES ESX THEN DO THE FOLLOWING TO ONLY PASSTHROUGH THE KEYBOARD AND MOUSE TO THE VM […]
Show full quote

IF PASSTHROUGH FOR USB CONTROLLERS CRASHES ESX THEN DO THE FOLLOWING TO ONLY PASSTHROUGH THE KEYBOARD AND MOUSE TO THE VM

1. Make sure passthrough is disabled for all USB controllers in "Manage->Hardware
2. Enable ESX shell
3. Open the console via ALT+F1
4. Type
lsusb -v | grep -E '(^Bus|HID)'
5. Look for your keyboard and mouse

Mine:
413c:2003 Dell
046d:c332 Logitech

6. Add the following to your .vmx via VM Options -> Edit Configuration using the information from lsusb.
usb.generic.allowHID = TRUE
usb.quirks.device0 = "0x046d:0xc332 allow"
usb.quirks.device1 = "0x413c:0x2003 allow"

7. cd /etc/vmware
8. vi config
9. Press "i"
10. Add the following to the config file to prevent ESX from hiding the devices:
usb.quirks.device0 = "0x046d:0xc332 allow"
usb.quirks.device1 = "0x413c:0x2003 allow"
11. Press ESX
12. Type wq to save and quit

13. cd /bootbank
14. vi boot.cfg
15. Replace existing kernelopt with this one. YOU WILL NEED TO ADD BOTH KEYBOARD AND MOUSE!
kernelopt=autoPartition=FALSE CONFIG./USB/quirks=0x413c:0x2003::0xffff:UQ_KBD_IGNORE:0x046d:0xc332::0xffff:UQ_KBD_IGNORE

16. Press ALT F2
17. Edit your VM and add the keyboard and mouse as devices

https://williamlam.com/2020/05/how-to-passthr … vm-in-esxi.html
https://blog.rylander.io/2020/06/26/Passthrou … -using-ESXi-V7/
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2004746

Have done some extensive testing with ESXI and passthrough of GPU and have decided to go with the following for testing:

ESX - Windows 7+ 64bit, Linux using Geforce 3060
Test Desktop - 9x, NT4,2000,XP 32/64, Vista 32/64, 7-10 32 using Geforce 980TI and FX1300.

Unfortunately my server doesn't have any extra PCIE slots and I really don't want to constantly swap out hardware in my server so mabye someday when I upgrade the mobo in my server I may be able to add the others cards.
Likely for 9x,NT4,2000 I'll use pcem on my main desktop which would be nice since I could swap out the FX1300 for a SSD/10GBE NIC in the test desktop but we'll see.

When I started out testing years ago I would use physical hardware with images which worked but testing was limited due to the fact it takes quite a bit of time to setup a proper image which when done you are good but when doing alot of compatibility testing you'd have to constantly restore those images. If you have multiple operating systems per hardware then the images increase and it just gets crazy.

Over time I moved to testing via mainly Vmware workstation which solved the image issue and the need to restore images due to snapshots. Unfortunately the major downside is the GPU, although Vmware is great at providing GPU acceleration it still pales in comparison to the real thing.

So I've finally moved to using ESX for testing which solves the imaging, snapshot and acceleration issue by using GPU passthrough and everything is stable and most importantly repeatable with no messing with hardware, bios settings, etc.

For this system I will test Linux and all Windows 64bit operating systems starting with Windows 7.
The limitation for why minimum is Windows 7 64bit is mainly because I ran out of room. If the mobo had integrated 10gbe and/or if I upgraded all my HDs so I could get rid of my 2x 8TB SSD taking up a PCIe slot or if the SATA ports wouldn't get in the way of longer video cards then I might be able to slap my GTX 780 or 980ti in there but for now I can't.

SERVER

CASE: SUPERMICRO CSE-743T-650B Black 4U Case 11 Bays (Replaced case fans with Noctua Fans)
CASE ADDON: Supermicro CSE-M35TQB 5-in-3 Hot Swap SAS/SATA Mobile Rack (Black)
PSU: Supermicro 1200w ATX12V Power Supply - 1 kW, 1.20 kW - Internal - 110 V AC, 220 V AC (PWS-1K25P-PQ)
MOTHERBOARD: SUPERMICRO MBDH11SSL-I Rev 1.01
PROCESSOR: AMD EPYC 7351P 16-Core
PROCESSOR COOLER: ARCTIC Freezer 4U for AMD SP3
MEMORY: 4x Supermicro Certified MEM-DR432L-SL03-ER26 32GB DDR4-2666 LP ECC REG DIMM
ADDON CARD: ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 PCIe 3.0 x4 Expansion Card V2 supports 4 NVMe M.2 (2242/2260/2280/22110) up to 128 Gbps for Intel ...
ADDON CARD: NFHK Dual 2X NVME M.2 AHCI to PCIE Express 3.0 Gen3 X8 X16 Raid Card VROC Raid0 Hyper Adapter
NIC: Intel Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540-T1 10GBE
HARD DRIVE: 13x Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB NAS (ST16000NE000)
DOM: 1x Supermicro 64GB 520 MB/s Solid State Drive (SSD-DM064-SMCMVN1)
ADDON CARD: 2x Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB M.2 for ASUS Hyper M.2 x16
ADDON CARD: 4x Seagate FireCuda 530 1TB Solid State Drive - M.2 PCIe Gen4 ×4 NVMe 1.4
ONBOARD M.2: 1x Samsung SSD 970 EVO 2TB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7E2T0BW) for onboard M.2
GPU: ASUS Dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 V2 OC Edition 12GB GDDR6

For this system I will test all Windows Operating systems both 32 and 64bit from XP to Windows Vista and also Windows 7,8 and 10 32bit
Nice thing about this system is if I really want to I can use the other M.2 slot to boot an XP+ OS on it and add an X-Fi to it if I want but the main intent for this system is for game testing via ESX

TEST DESKTOP

TEST DESKTOP

Processor: Intel Core i7 6700k
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S w/2 Noctua A9 92mm fans
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z270-A
Memory: Patriot Viper 4 32GB (4 x 8GB)
NIC: Intel X540-T1 10GB
SSD: Seagate Firecuda 530 1TB (XP)
SSD: Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB (ESX)
PSU: Corsair RM850x
Audio: X-Fi Titanium
Monitor: Acer XB271HU IPS 2560x1440 27"
Video: Zotac Geforce GTX 980 Ti 6GB AMP! Extreme GDDR5 ZT-90507-10B PCIe
Case: CoolerMaster ATC-110 w/ 4x Noctua NF-A8 PWM fans
Amebay 5.25 Inch Front Panel USB Hub 2port 3.0, USB 2.0 for Computer Case
DVD: Blu-ray LG UH12LS28
M.2 2x SATA w/StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter - Dual Slot and Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB
M.2 2x SATA WD Green 120GB w/StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter - Dual Slot

For DOS: ESX, pcem, DOSBox and old laptops should be sufficient
For 9x,NT4,2000: ESX,pcem and old laptops should be sufficient. Vmware Workstation can be used for D3D and OGL with Windows 2000 at possibly equal to or greater speeds than compatible hardware I currently have an HD5450 and 8800GT are the latest I have (not counting the 980ti) although I haven't verified

Unfortunately GPU passthrough is too flaky for 2000 and likely below in ESX and PCIe sound cards don't passthrough and haven't had any luck with USB passthrough of sound cards on these operating systems via ESX.

I did play with proxmox briefly but I prefer my VM solution to be ESX since that's what we use at work, Vmware is proven and works across different operating systems, Vmware doesn't break things and never fixes them, it doesn't require a PHD to get things working, etc etc ad infinitum. I will say that proxmox looked pretty good for what it is so it may fit your needs.

Below is what was in my previous test desktop system. Debating on if it's worth the space, energy, time on buying another case and setting up the hardware just for testing physical DOS,9x,NT4,2000.....probably not. The below CPU is too fast for DOS games and the chipset is x38 although bios settings and TSRs could potentially be used. The memory is too much for 9x although can be patch with rloew. The video card is crap for 9x and finding a decent one for 9x is ridiculous. NT4/2000 mabye but not sure if worth it just for those. All of these would require fiddling with software, hardware and bios settings and definetly not as easy to test with versus ESX, dosbox, pcem, Vmware workstation or old laptops.

VIDEO
1080TI Vista+
Zotac Geforce GTX 980 Ti 6GB AMP! Extreme GDDR5 ZT-90507-10B PCIe XP and 2000 BWC
Geforce 8800 GT 2000
Quadro FX 1300 128MB PCIe 2000 and below

Storage
XP and Vista M.2 SATA w/StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter - Dual Slot and Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB w
2000 and below M.2 SATA WD Green 120GB w/StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter - Dual Slot

STORAGE/NIC
7+ Synology 10Gb Ethernet and M.2 Adapter Card E10M20-T1, RJ-45 Samsung 950 Pro + Firecuda 520 2TB

NIC
Intel Pro 1000 MT DOS+

AUDIO
Audigy 2 Platinum 6.1 SB0240 (9x-8.1)
Yamaha YMF724E-V DOS-XP (Possibly Vista-10 32bit)

KVM
XP+ Use KVM
2000 and below do not

Case: CoolerMaster ATC-110 Replaced fans with 4x Noctua NF-A8 PWM
PSU: Corsair RM850x
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3.87GHZ FSB:431MHZ @ 1.35000v
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900A LED Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler Replaced fan with Noctua NF-P14 FLX 140mm Case cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte X38-DQ6
Memory: 16GB DDR2 F2-6400CL5D-8GBPQ @ 862Mhz CL5-6-6-17 @1.8v
NIC: Realtek RTL8111 PCI-E Gigabit (DO NOT USE, HIGH CPU Utilization and laggy desktop)
Audio: Realtek (Windows 10+)
Monitor Acer XB271HU 27" 2560x1440 "Acer Predator XB1"
Monitor Dell Ultrasharp U2410F 24" 1920x1200
DVD 1: Blu-ray LG UH12LS28
DVD 2: Plextor DVD-R PX-760A
USB3: Inateck PCI-E to USB 3.0 (5 Ports) (KT5001) w/ Amebay 5.25 Inch Front Panel USB Hub 2port 3.0, USB 2.0 for Computer Case

Multiplier 9
CPU HOST 431
PCI 100
Memory 862
CPU 1.35000v

gerwin wrote on 2023-03-20, 00:03:

fHeroes2 project https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2 The release v1.00 from December 2022 was still easy to get working in Windows […]
Show full quote

fHeroes2 project
https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2
The release v1.00 from December 2022 was still easy to get working in Windows XP, with the usual Windows version 6->5 hexedit in the PE header.
The release v1.01 has four NT6 specific calls, and needs a KernelEx wrapper to run on NT5.
The release v1.02 also uses a somewhat rewritten file indexing with FindFirstFileEx. On my XP system it can't see any file.

On my website, in the back-ports section, is a v1.02 XPmod, build to run on Windows XP.

Hi gerwin. Thanks a lot for your work! Will you be making backport of the newer fHeroes2 release?

Srandista wrote on 2023-06-19, 19:19:

Hi gerwin. Thanks a lot for your work! Will you be making backport of the newer fHeroes2 release?

Sure. I just uploaded a new FHeroes2 XPmod package, based on v1.0.5 SVN with last commit from yesterday.

Thanks gerwin, really appreciated!

Spent quite a bit of time working on passing through a GPU with Windows XP on ESX without luck so I gave up and installed it on another nvme SSD directly on the hardware (nice!) and got it working fine......and of course I finally got passthrough working in ESX with Windows XP a day later.
Issue came down to needing to use the primary display for boot and NOT disabling svga in the advanced options, you have to disable the Vmware video card in Windows unlike the newer versions of Windows.

Was also able to get passthrough working on Windows 2000 but I can't disable the vmware video card in device manager (might be some CLI tool to do it), USB keyboard doesn't work, My FX1300 and 8800GT didn't want to work although the HD5450 did. The HD 5450 is slower than Windows 2000 in Vmware Workstation using acceleration and likely it's a wash either way as far as game compatibility....... Also I would have had to add another sound card just for 2000 which would mean swapping out another sound card....... So for now sticking with <XP with GPU passthrough with Vmware Workstation, Old laptops, pcem etc.

Here are the specs for the XP+ box in ESX 8 or physical

TEST DESKTOP

Processor: Intel Core i7 6700k
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S w/2 Noctua A9 92mm fans
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z270-A
Memory: Patriot Viper 4 32GB (4 x 8GB)
NIC: Intel X540-T1 10GB
SSD: Seagate Firecuda 530 1TB (XP)
SSD: Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB (ESX)
PSU: Corsair RM850x
Audio: X-Fi Titanium (XP)
Audio: Sound Blaster Z SE
Monitor: Acer XB271HU IPS 2560x1440 27"
Video: Zotac Geforce GTX 980 Ti 6GB AMP! Extreme GDDR5 ZT-90507-10B PCIe
Case: CoolerMaster ATC-110 w/ 4x Noctua NF-A8 PWM fans
Amebay 5.25 Inch Front Panel USB Hub 2port 3.0, USB 2.0 for Computer Case
DVD: Blu-ray LG UH12LS28

Possible usage for when not using ESX and OS giving me issues on SSD:
M.2 2x SATA w/StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter - Dual Slot and Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB
M.2 2x SATA WD Green 120GB w/StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter - Dual Slot

Fixed the keyboard not working in Windows 2000 in ESX by swapping out the old Dell USB (SK-8115) keyboard with a Corsair K95 and of course that worked.... 🙄

Okay was finally able to get Input/Audio/GPU working with Windows 2000 under ESX:

Video: 980ti works w/BWC Extended kernel. Debated between vanilla and extended Core and there isn't much difference game compatibility wise since you'd still need Extended Kernel for newer games. So any testing I'll just do vanilla w/Extended Core vs Extended Core w/Extended Kernel.

Audio:. Spent a few hours testing Audigy RX vs X-Fi vs 980ti audio vs HD5450 audio vs C-Media. Nothing work, audio always grayed out in sound properties. Finally put a clean Windows 2000 on there and it worked with C-Media, Put the Audigy RX in there and it worked with the XP drivers. Tried X-Fi and the driver installs but audio is greyed out.

Input: Issue with no keyboard passed through and error in device manager was due to the old Dell USB keyboard, using a much newer keyboard worked.

2000 is pretty stable until you do GPU passthrough. While in the desktop it's stable but on shutdown periodically you'll need to power off the PC and power it back on again. Supposedly the "fix" for this is to disable the video card before shutting down but you can't do that in 2000 without booting into safe mode..... It's not a big deal for a test/gaming but would definetly be a no go for a daily driver.

P.S.
For GPU passthrough on 2000 and XP make sure that the display output you use to view the vmware console at boot is the same one you are using for passthrough for your VM otherwise you'll receive a Code 10 error in Windows and not enough resources errors.
For GPU passthrough on XP do NOT disable svga in the VM options, install the Nvidia drivers, verify the video card is working in device manager, enable the video card in display properties, disable the vmware video card and reboot.
For GPU passthrough on 2000 do NOT disable svga in the VM options, install the Nvidia drivers, verify the video card is working in device manager, boot into safe mode and disable the vmware video card.

Windows 2000+ via ESX 8

Processor: Intel Core i7 6700k
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S w/2 Noctua A9 92mm fans
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z270-A
Memory: Patriot Viper 4 32GB (4 x 8GB)
NIC: Intel X540-T1 10GB
SSD: Seagate Firecuda 530 1TB (XP)
SSD: Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB (ESX)
PSU: Corsair RM850x
Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy PCIe RX 7.1 (2000)
Audio: X-Fi Titanium (XP)
Audio: Sound Blaster Z SE Vista+
Monitor: Acer XB271HU IPS 2560x1440 27"
Video: Zotac Geforce GTX 980 Ti 6GB AMP! Extreme GDDR5 ZT-90507-10B PCIe (2000+ w/ Extended Core)
Case: CoolerMaster ATC-110 w/ 4x Noctua NF-A8 PWM fans
Amebay 5.25 Inch Front Panel USB Hub 2port 3.0, USB 2.0 for Computer Case
DVD: Blu-ray LG UH12LS28
The following is for if/when installing an OS without ESX and OS doesn't support NVME to boot
M.2 2x SATA w/StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter - Dual Slot and Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB
M.2 2x SATA WD Green 120GB w/StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter - Dual Slot

The 10GB NIC and the Soundblaster Z are nice to have but if I can get 9x and NT4 working with passthrough of sound (likely Audigy RX can be made to work) and video I'd have no issue with swapping them out.

Something interesting that came out of this testing:

KX driver "kxdrv3553-full-unsigned" works with the Audigy RX on Windows XP. The applications bundled with it do not since they were compiled for Vista+ for some dumbass reason.

Supposedly kxdrv3537-full (last official to support 9x but no RX support) or 3538c-h (Supposedly work on Audigy rx) work on 9x so if someone were so inclined you'd think it wouldn't be too much of an issue to get the Audigy RX working on 9x and 2000. If I get my hands on 3538c through h I'll test on the RX and upload to vogons drivers.