If you already own 3.1, you can copy the floppies to your computer and install it to DOSbox. Not sure about 95 but I remember reading a thread here where it was more complicated.

You can also use Wine under Linux, it works better with older programs than newer ones.

Get a new system for new games. Get some recent but obsolete system for cheap and play older games. The first computer I owned with WinXP on it is now my Win98 system.

How well does Wine work? Will it do games like Amber: Journeys Beyond which require you to install quicktime or other movie codecs?

Is it possible to have a not-quite-obsolete computer (something like the Alienware Aurora) and make it dual-boot Windows 7 and 98 with a minimum of fuss?

Movie codecs? I wouldn't think so...
Thought you were talking about 16-bit games.
Vista/7 breaks old 32-bit games?

WINE can be ok for old Windows 95 games, you'd need to look up their compatibility list http://appdb.winehq.org/.
Windows 3.1 can be played using Dosbox (by installing Windows 3.1 in dosbox), this works very well and I'd recommend this.

EdmondDantes wrote:

For over a decade my solution to playing old games was to use an actual old computer. Unfortunately, that computer has now bit the dust for good.

I understand your old machine has died, and from reading your post, I am guessing that it had Windows 95/98 on it. I think your solution is to replace this machine's motherboard with another whose chipset still supports Windows 9x. How about an nForce2 chipset-based mobo? That will give you power and speed, and you'll be able use DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 9x and also if you want, you could dual boot it with Windows XP.

Just a quick question: has anyone here ever tried Virtualization?

I'm asking because it seems to me like my only options are either that, or build a new computer. Kinda wary of the latter because if I build a new computer I'd like it to be a top of the line machine, not something that's intentionally crippled for the sake of classic software.

Emulation Recommendations

After looking over the suggestions in this topic, here's my preliminary plan of action:

Get a machine like the Alienware Aurora (EDIT: See link below), play DOS games with Dosbox and Windows games via either Virtual PC 2007 or via a dual-boot (will that system even support a Win98 dual-boot?)

EDIT: This is the machine I'm looking to buy:

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productd … s=19&l=en&s=dhs

DOUBLE EDIT: Since posting, I've considered the option of building my own PC (mostly because that way I can get an even higher-end system for less). For my needs, which would be a better default OS: XP, Vista, or 7? I've heard XP's "Compatibility Mode" is more reliable than Vista's. Is this true?

If your favourite games use Directdraw only, you're safe to do virtualization.

And what if some games use Glide or OpenGL?

Granted, all the games I can think of that use those will play just fine on modern Windows, but it never hurts to be sure.

The thing is that virtual machines only support 3d acceleration on Windows XP/Vista/7 guests.

You mentioned Amber, here is a solution: http://www.squirtthecat.com/games/amber/index.html

Hey Guys, I'm back and I'm trying something different.

I recently saw Youtube videos of people installing Windows 98 in a DOSbox session. How is this possible? I was thinking that if it works, it would be the perfect solution for much of my gaming library. Anyway, I at least want to try it.

Use VPC 2007 or Vmware Workstation/Player

DOSBox is for DOS games.

I'm experimenting with virtualization.

EDIT: So far I've tried Virtualbox and Virtual PC 2007. The result: Windows 98 SE is up and running in VPC 2007, and the first game I tested (Amber: Journeys Beyond) showed every sign that it was working fine.

I'm now seeing how far I can push this thing. As soon as I'm done editing this post I'm going to try out Resident Evil 2: Platinum Edition, and after that Half-Life (I'm aware I'll have to play both in software render mode, but I just want to see what kind of games it can potentially handle).

Also going to test a statement I made earlier, re: "Any game that uses some sort of graphics acceleration will run under Vista." My guess is I'll be proven wrong, but I need to see.

Actually, I was just reading about how some DX7 and DX8 stuff is completely broken in Vista.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US … 5-f5f255c2c679/

Another consideration is that nVidia's newer cards (or rather the newer drivers that support the newer cards) seem to have some compatibility issues with particularly old games.

These are mostly fixed on the new 25x.xx series driver (at least on Windows XP).

do you have any info on what was fixed ?