Emulating old OSes for old games?

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zamardii12

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So, I want to try some older games that I can't get to work with Windows 10. Does emulating older OSes like XP have good performance in terms of gaming? I am familiar with emulation in a work environment, but I have never emulated a OS strictly to play games on it. Does it utilize the GPU, are there performance issues to be aware of?

Curious if anyone with experience in this has any input.
 
There are some VMs that support hardware graphic acceleration. That would probably be your best bet if you don't want to build a legacy machine.
 
I have gotten a few games to run in a Windows 7 VM, for example, the original FEAR. Where it gets tricky is if you want to run stuff like Glide games that were made for a 3dfx card or something, although I believe there is Glide emulator. It really depends on the game. Just curious - which games were you looking at getting to run?
 
kohl said:
I have gotten a few games to run in a Windows 7 VM, for example, the original FEAR. Where it gets tricky is if you want to run stuff like Glide games that were made for a 3dfx card or something, although I believe there is Glide emulator. It really depends on the game. Just curious - which games were you looking at getting to run?
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The first one I wanted to run again was Jane's F/A-18. Ever since I posted about it in another thread i've been wanting to play it like crazy. It may be outdated and idk how it will hold up once I get it loaded again, but i'll have to see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane's_F/A-18
 
I personally have tried VM but I could never get any DirectX games to run on it, even ones that could be run entirely off my CPU.

I simply gave up, and instead went off and bought parts for the most up to date XP supporting hardware that is still available. I am still waiting for the Mobo to arrive from US, I will report back if I manage to get it up and running.

The essential parts for my rig was a Trinity APU and an FM2+ ITX motherboard with XP drivers (Asrock's A68M-ITX R2.0), I chose Trinity APU because of all FM2/FM2+ chipset motherboards, the lowest common denominator of supported APU is the first gen, Trinity. Carrizo (X4 845 & 835) seems to be the APU that's universally unsupported. Plus, I managed to score a 5600k for $35.

I haven't bought a GPU for it, as I am not sure if I need one for the XP system and the games I'd be playing on it, but if I did, I would be going for either 950 or 960, as they are the most up to date GPU with XP drivers (970 & higher or newer is unsupported, plus 960/950 has HDMI 2.0 and h.265, perfect for the rig to double up as HTPC). If my XP runs fine on the APU, I'll instead probably get 1050/1050ti, again, for HTPC use.
 
I have a pretty big collection of lots of emulators going back to stuff like ZX Spectrums, to Amiga's, 8 and 16 bit consoles and more modern stuff. And I'm also into virtualisation and have a collection of VM's - so I've got a fair bit of experience in this area (I've done a lot of varied OS work professionally).
So far I haven't found anything I can't get running re: an old OS. Virtualisation is simplest for a lot of older Windows stuff (Windows 95 era stuff for example - I don't think I've ever had a desire to run something from the Win 3.11 era that wouldn't run on 95).
I use VMware Workstation Professional at home, which supports hardware acceleration of the VM's graphics using your GPU and I've played older DirectX titles on Win ME using this method without a hitch. In fact you can happily run another copy of Windows 10 through VMware WKS and run modern titles like Skyrim with good performance.

If you've got a reasonably recent PC (last few years) that supports CPU virtualisation (Intel VT and AMD-V instructions) and a vaguely reasonable GPU, then hardware is not going to be an issue for older titles on earlier OS'es (as a general rule).

...your success is going to vary depending on exactly which virtualisation platform you use - but unless you're trying to run something that requires unusual dedicated hardware that can't be supported within a Virtual Machine - there shouldn't be much of an issue.
...that's my experience anyway - but like I've said - I'm a VMware person and have used their products for a long time.

purely as an example - - and that video's a few years old.
So if your OS is supported by VMWare - game on :)
 
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zamardii12 said:
The first one I wanted to run again was Jane's F/A-18. Ever since I posted about it in another thread i've been wanting to play it like crazy. It may be outdated and idk how it will hold up once I get it loaded again, but i'll have to see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane's_F/A-18
Click to expand...

...that'd be easy. You can download pre-built VM's for most versions of Windows. Download Windows ME as it's the last version in the 95/98 line of OS'es, fire it up, copy the game in using an ISO file, install and you're off. Your only catch might be your joystick support - depending on precisely what you're trying to use etc. I can confirm that Jane's Longbow 2, running on ME within VMWare works perfectly :)
 
muz_j said:
"SNIP"
Click to expand...
I had hoped that I missed something with VMware except for the version, but from the looks of your post, it wasn't. I was using VMware player, and even with all the tools installed, DirectX simply flatout refused to even install properly on it.

Also, I had hoped that there is a way around the VMware stealing your GPU, but my google-fu came up that it wasn't, I had to give an entire GPU to it, and I only have 1 GPU.

The cost of the VMware pro, additional cost of the extra GPU I'd need to dedicate to the VMware (which would otherwise be completely useless) were the primary deal breakers.

I hope I missed something, but my searches came up empty.

I would have thought that VMs had the ability to piggyback the Graphical load onto the native so even if it could only get a fraction of the power, it would still be more than enough for legacy games, but that doesn't appear to the case at all.
 
chenw said:
I had hoped that I missed something with VMware except for the version, but from the looks of your post, it wasn't. I was using VMware player, and even with all the tools installed, DirectX simply flatout refused to even install properly on it.
Also, I had hoped that there is a way around the VMware stealing your GPU, but my google-fu came up that it wasn't, I had to give an entire GPU to it, and I only have 1 GPU.
The cost of the VMware pro, additional cost of the extra GPU I'd need to dedicate to the VMware (which would otherwise be completely useless) were the primary deal breakers.
I hope I missed something, but my searches came up empty.
I would have thought that VMs had the ability to piggyback the Graphical load onto the native so even if it could only get a fraction of the power, it would still be more than enough for legacy games, but that doesn't appear to the case at all.
Click to expand...

It sounds like you're trying to do something a bit non standard....? (I'm not critising you - just commenting)
I'm sure you appreciate VMware player is not as fully featured as the proper workstation product. It's not intended to be and it never will be. It's a free product for running pre-existing VM's and Virtual applications.
I haven't compared the features, but it wouldn't surprise me if it lacks some of the GPU support features or perhaps it doesn't support DirectX within a VM. Not sure - I've only used it a few times and never for gaming.
...so like my earlier comment said - the results for this kind of thing really will vary depending on which virtualisation product you're using - and VMware player is not Workstation - so I can't really comment much on what will and won't work within it from a gaming perspective.
Yes - Workstation isn't free and has a cost. I use it for work and other stuff, so it's easily worth my while and I've done a lot of Vsphere work professionally on a large scale, so I tend towards liking their products.

...re: the stealing your GPU comment - what are you trying to do exactly?
...it sounds like you might be trying to do other tasks simultaneously which are using your GPU, while running games within a VM ?
 
chenw said:
I personally have tried VM but I could never get any DirectX games to run on it, even ones that could be run entirely off my CPU.

I simply gave up, and instead went off and bought parts for the most up to date XP supporting hardware that is still available. I am still waiting for the Mobo to arrive from US, I will report back if I manage to get it up and running.

The essential parts for my rig was a Trinity APU and an FM2+ ITX motherboard with XP drivers (Asrock's A68M-ITX R2.0), I chose Trinity APU because of all FM2/FM2+ chipset motherboards, the lowest common denominator of supported APU is the first gen, Trinity. Carrizo (X4 845 & 835) seems to be the APU that's universally unsupported. Plus, I managed to score a 5600k for $35.

I haven't bought a GPU for it, as I am not sure if I need one for the XP system and the games I'd be playing on it, but if I did, I would be going for either 950 or 960, as they are the most up to date GPU with XP drivers (970 & higher or newer is unsupported, plus 960/950 has HDMI 2.0 and h.265, perfect for the rig to double up as HTPC). If my XP runs fine on the APU, I'll instead probably get 1050/1050ti, again, for HTPC use.
Click to expand...

I honestly just don't want another tower laying around. I have thought of that too and I know I could do it for super cheap but still it's just not something I want to do.
 
muz_j said:
It sounds like you're trying to do something a bit non standard....? (I'm not critising you - just commenting)
I'm sure you appreciate VMware player is not as fully featured as the proper workstation product. It's not intended to be and it never will be. It's a free product for running pre-existing VM's and Virtual applications.
I haven't compared the features, but it wouldn't surprise me if it lacks some of the GPU support features or perhaps it doesn't support DirectX within a VM. Not sure - I've only used it a few times and never for gaming.
...so like my earlier comment said - the results for this kind of thing really will vary depending on which virtualisation product you're using - and VMware player is not Workstation - so I can't really comment much on what will and won't work within it from a gaming perspective.
Yes - Workstation isn't free and has a cost. I use it for work and other stuff, so it's easily worth my while and I've done a lot of Vsphere work professionally on a large scale, so I tend towards liking their products.

...re: the stealing your GPU comment - what are you trying to do exactly?
...it sounds like you might be trying to do other tasks simultaneously which are using your GPU, while running games within a VM ?
Click to expand...

I am only using VM to play old games, and those games are not 3D accelerated, but they do need DirectX (and DirectMedia in one of them). Your images show playing Skyrim in your VM, I barely need 1/10th of the computing requirements of Skyrim.

I am under the impression that while VMs support passthrough to the native hardware would 'hijack' it, preventing the native system from being able to use it at all.

I am also under the impression that if DirectX is to be able to installed properly onto the VM, it needs direct access to the hardware in question (drivers not withstanding, since 1080 is already beyond the reach of XP nVidia Drivers), because I have no spare GPU in my system, I would only be able to use one OS or the other.

But those were my assumptions, and I could VERY well be VERY wrong on this, but I honestly could not spend their asking price to find out, as otherwise VM is completely useless if it doesn't work the way I like it.
 
zamardii12 said:
I honestly just don't want another tower laying around. I have thought of that too and I know I could do it for super cheap but still it's just not something I want to do.
Click to expand...
Hence why I am planning an ITX case. The case I have in mind (RVZ02 or similar) is narrow enough to be hidden behind my monitor, the only gripe would be an extra set of keyboard and mouse.

In someways I'd prefer that over running 2 OS's on the same machine, I definitely prefer this over running Linux and emulating windows just to play games anyhow. If I go down the Linux route, I'd install Linux on a lunch box and windows on the main rig.
 
chenw said:
I am only using VM to play old games, and those games are not 3D accelerated, but they do need DirectX (and DirectMedia in one of them). Your images show playing Skyrim in your VM, I barely need 1/10th of the computing requirements of Skyrim.
I am under the impression that while VMs support passthrough to the native hardware would 'hijack' it, preventing the native system from being able to use it at all.
I am also under the impression that if DirectX is to be able to installed properly onto the VM, it needs direct access to the hardware in question (drivers not withstanding, since 1080 is already beyond the reach of XP nVidia Drivers), because I have no spare GPU in my system, I would only be able to use one OS or the other.
But those were my assumptions, and I could VERY well be VERY wrong on this, but I honestly could not spend their asking price to find out, as otherwise VM is completely useless if it doesn't work the way I like it.
Click to expand...

Well that sounds pretty normal to me. I'm not sure why you're having issues.
The VM does not exclusively "lock" the host system's GPU - so there is no requirement for a dedicated GPU for doing this. I've done it myself quite happily (DirectX titles - not OpenGL which is more limited in terms of its support, or Glide3D based games).
VMware player seems to support the same feature set as workstation. There's documentation on their web site re: enabling accelerated graphics within the player software:
https://pubs.vmware.com/player-12-w...UID-DB7C4F11-1588-4DD3-BB1F-FBABFA570E3A.html

...so unless you've got a very unusual scenario (and it doesn't sound like it) I would have to agree that you are wrong on this. There's no need for a dedicated GPU and in my experience it all works quite seamlessly. You do need to make sure you've got all the prerequisite software on hand to make things easier though (like patch updates and DirectX run times for the guest OS etc).

I'd suggest giving it another go and see if you have success. if not, try and work through the problem - as like I said, I've been quite successful running old games on old guest OS'es (Windows ME & Windows XP - off the top of my head).

You can find pre-built images of a lot of guest OS'es if you search around. eg: there's an old (from a VMware machine perspective) image of WinME at the bottom of this page - which I've used myself. I'm sure you can find others if you look around.
https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-me/final
 
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