VOGONS

How to emulate PC games from the era 2000 up to 2007?

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First post, by finalspace

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For a very long time i want to play my old games from the windows 98 up to the windows XP era (2000 up to 2007) and i want to "almost" get the same experience i had before.

But this is not easy, because:
- My old hardware is not working anymore or is already thrown into trash
- Most games from that era has DRM protection built-in and does not work on modern windows anymore
- Original cds/dvds are not readable anymore, but i have backups made from most of them
- Some games don't work at all on modern windows
- Some patches are detected as viruses/malware and therefore blocked by modern AV
- No guarantee that enhanced/fixes game patches from the community works
- Most games are only available in english on GOG

Some games can be patched to make it work on modern windows (PCGamingWiki) and some games can be aquired by GOG/Steam - but not all of them.

X86 PC emulators are out here, because they only work great when playing games older than 2000, but as soon as you require more GPU features such as T&L/Shaders, etc. you can use those anymore.

I tried using VMware and Virtualbox on my Windows 11 PC and they seem to work ok, but only starting from XP or above.

But there are a lot of problems with that:
- Some games won't run at all due to incompatibility of virtualized CPU/GPU hardware (requires GeForce 3/4 or special features)
- Hard-to-ignore graphical issues (flickering, bugs, broken UI)
- Keyboard/mouse/gamepad not working properly
- DirectX 7/8 based games run very poorly
- Windows 9x/2000 has no 3D hardware acceleration for modern VM's
- Mouse optimization for games in VMware does not work in all cases

I am talking about the games such as (that i already tried running using VMware):

- Aliens vs Predators 2 -> Unplayable frame rates
- No one lives forever 1 + 2 -> tons of mouse/keyboard issues or broken menu
- Command & Conquer Renegade -> won't work at all
- Dark Messiah of Might and Magic -> mouse issues
- Drakan -> works only on win 98
- Red Faction -> works only on win 98
- Far Cry -> Unplayable frame rates or graphics issues
- Max Payne 1 + 2 -> mouse issues
- Motocross Madness -> won't work at all
- Need for Speed Underground 1 + 2 -> stuttering
- Oni-> Mouse not working, even with anniversary edition
- Kings Quest 8 Mask of Eternity
- Onimusha 3 -> installer fails
- Prince of Persia Trilogy (Sands of Time, Warrior Within, Forgotten Sands) -> Broken input and graphics
- Prince of Persia (2008) -> Weird input issues
- Quake IV -> Won't run at all due to S3TC extension missing
- Trespasser -> works only on win 98
- Touhou Project -> works only on win 98
- Splinter Cell -> Does not work at all

Is there a holy grail emulation/virtualization tool that can run most of those games from that era?

I have a very fast AMD system with 32 cores, 64 GB of RAM and a 24 GB GPU, running windows 11.

Reply 1 of 3, by wierd_w

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The drm issue is prickly. Vogons does not appreciate talk of drm circumvention. Sorry. L9ok for unencumbered re-releases from gog, or caveat emptor.

As for the graphical issues, this is what dgvoodoo2's directx wrapper functions are for. They can wrap dx5 through dx9 onto dx10 or better interfaces, so old games run nicer / properly on modern windows boxes. (I also use it with WINE on linux to wrap those to vkd3d dx11/dx12)

Reply 2 of 3, by BEEN_Nath_58

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VMware has always had issues for me with mouse, so I never even bothered using it for gaming. The most common being the mouse panning to one side, or getting accelerated.
For DRM issues, you need to find no-CDs and no-SecuRoms and similar yourself, since Vogons won't allow the discussion.

Most games run without issues on Win11 given you have the basic tools for it: such as dgVoodoo2, DDrawCompat, DxWnd for very old games, dgVoodoo2 and Vulkan for relatively newer games (D3D9 era) and can handle complexities with the AppCompat shims. Considering that I am using Nvidia and not Intel ARC, things are even more simple for me.

A primitive + problematic thing could be the reproduction of HW accelerated sound, but that's not very severe.

The only type of games that never worked were very old Sierra games like Phantasmagoria, however ScummVM exists for them, or the PowerChess series that uses a DOS based engine behind a Win32 game environment

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 3 of 3, by finalspace

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dgVoodoo2 only works on windows 7 or higher and older games that require XP, won't run in that environment.

Regarding directX wrappers, i tried a few to fix issues for DX7/8 games - but neither of them work properly.
They do nothing or simply crash. Even wrapping just direct input was crashing games like AVP2 or NOLF, so i assume those wrappers work in modern windows (7+) only too.

I respect vogons, so ignore the DRM stuff. That is simply a fact that playing old games requires workarounds to make them work.
Nothing more to say than this, so please ignore it.

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