I am thinking of starting a project that allows old gameport devices (especially of the force-feedback steering wheel/joystick variety) that only have working drivers on Windows 98 to be emulated on a modern Windows 10/11 PC using a Retro Windows 98 PC as the Host.

I am aware of several open source projects such as

GIMX - Client doesn't support Win98, only Win7+
Necroware's Gameport Adapter - Doesn't support FFB (yet)

and there is several adapters that can be purchased through the big online retailers but none that say they support FFB or devices that used proprietary digital protocols over the Gameport

I've also thought of using USB/IP on my Win98 retro PC but that also doesn't support anything less than Win7 and the modern PC would still require drivers I think.

My plan is to create a fork GIMX to make a client that works on Win98 or create my own from scratch, perhaps one that uses a Virtual Device on the modern machine instead of a Arduino and Networking/Serial instead of USB since many Retro 98 machines didn't have good USB support or working drivers for the USB-Serial chips that are used on most Arduino/prototype hardware.

Anyone have any insight on a possible existing solution or is this something that should be looked into?