Dal Posted July 22, 2015 Author Share Posted July 22, 2015 Hi Guys New to LaunchBox and this Forum (both seem awesome!) I've used DosBox for all of the MSDOS based games I have but there are still some old games in my catalogue that require windows 95/98 or XP and I just wondered if there was any emulators out there like DosBox that could emulate the correct environment for these games. I checked the sticky on the page for any mention of Windows emulators but couldn't find anything. I usually get an error when trying to run these games regarding 32 bit application can't be run or something hence why I was looking for Emulation. Cheers Dal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Dal said Hi Guys New to LaunchBox and this Forum (both seem awesome!) I've used DosBox for all of the MSDOS based games I have but there are still some old games in my catalogue that require windows 95/98 or XP and I just wondered if there was any emulators out there like DosBox that could emulate the correct environment for these games. I checked the sticky on the page for any mention of Windows emulators but couldn't find anything. I usually get an error when trying to run these games regarding 32 bit application can't be run or something hence why I was looking for Emulation. Cheers Dal This is very long and arduous, so bear with me. 16bit applications are the primary from the Windows 95 and 98 era. Those are the ones that can not be run on any modern OS. 32bit applications run just fine. There are two flavors of OS, 32bit and 64bit. The primary difference being that 32bit OSes can only read and utilize up to 3GB of RAM. There are some other limitations but this is the primary limitation. 64bit can theoretically use an unlimited amount. Most motherboards are still at a 32GB RAM limit. Some servers experiment with 64GB and 128GB, but that is not the scope of this. Anyways, It's not the 32bit portion of the application that has problems. It's that it is written using 10, 15, 20 year old graphical calls that most OSes don't work with anymore. It's very much more complicated because use the same statement but supplement graphical with sound, or net code, etc etc etc. Whereas, 16bit applications are written using just as old technology, it just inherently can not run because Modern OS does not have any instruction on 16bit applications. When it comes to emulating old OSes. DOSBox can be used to emulate Windows 3.11 and DOS Based versions of 95, but not successfully when it comes to games. You can use Virtualization software like VMWare or VirtualBox to run Windows 3.11, 95, 98, XP or even some versions of Mac if you do some editing and manually configing. The problem here is that this software is not meant to run games. I have had some success running one or two games in Windows 98 or XP, but they ran horribly, looked horribly or didn't sound right. Something was always wrong the game, if it ran at all. 3D acceleration support isn't a primary focus for these pieces of software. Their long term goal is just to allow users to be able to go back in and use a piece of software if they need to, or troubleshoot, or develop even. The best honest bet for old PC games caught between DOS and more modern PC games, is an old PC right now. If you have a Dell or a Gateway PC from that era, circa 2000-2003 with XP on it, you should be good. Just know that it will not act, run or even pretend to run more modern applications like a modern PC now days. There is some progress from what I had heard and read on emulating Windows 95 era PC Games. However, writing Emulation software is not easy. Magnify that by 100 because now you're essentially emulating an entire PC. I also read some groups trying to get 3D acceleration done right in some of the Virtualization software that exists now. Sadly, nothing is perfect. Honestly, I've had some varying success with Linux and WINE. Ubuntu + Wine can be very powerful, but extremely unintuitive. So, if you want to try and run a 32bit Linux machine with WINE, that could be another possible solution. I've searched long, wide and hard for solutions to this very problem. Some work half way, some don't work at all. The other best bet is to hope and see if a specific game has been ported to something newer, has been updated with patches so it will work on modern PC's or if there is a console variant that isn't dumbed down that you can emulate instead. Some games Engines have been ported or made Open Source too, these work on modern machines. I find it astonishing that Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 for example is getting patched after 10 years for Linux, Mac and adding in Steam Workshop support, Steam Achievements and better modern PC optimizations. After all that... any questions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dal Posted July 22, 2015 Author Share Posted July 22, 2015 WOW! Cheers for the absolute breakdown Brad! Appreciate it! My dream was to have potentially all of my old collection of PC games accessible from LaunchBox. I didn't really fancy running a VM to go through installing XP or Windows 98SE but by the sounds of what you're saying, it may be the closest I'll get to being able to run these games. I guess the follow on question would be; Am I able to link the game in LaunchBox so that it loaded the game with just a click. I'm sure having Windows 7 Pro version it comes with a windows emulator for (98?) and XP? Thanks very much Dal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Dal said WOW! Cheers for the absolute breakdown Brad! Appreciate it! My dream was to have potentially all of my old collection of PC games accessible from LaunchBox. I didn't really fancy running a VM to go through installing XP or Windows 98SE but by the sounds of what you're saying, it may be the closest I'll get to being able to run these games. I guess the follow on question would be; Am I able to link the game in LaunchBox so that it loaded the game with just a click. I'm sure having Windows 7 Pro version it comes with a windows emulator for (98?) and XP? Thanks very much Dal Virtualization is the closest, but still doesn't work. Well, it can work. Most of the time however it doesn't do the job because of incompatibilities with 3D Acceleration. More over, its the incompatibility with DirectX 6, 7 and OpenGL. It can perform DirectX 8 and 9 functions well enough, but then it still doesn't have 3D accelerated graphics support so either the game wont load, it will look funny or crash constantly. If you do get a game to work, as of right now, no. There is no way to hot link a shortcut to open the VM and auto start a game. Again, the whole point of these pieces of software is not gaming related, its legacy support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CADScott Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 The latest experimental version of VirtualBox has support for 3D acceleration for virtualised environments. I have tried it with older CAD packages and it seems quite reasonable. Some details of using it are here: http://www.howtogeek.com/124479/how-to-enable-3d-acceleration-and-use-windows-aero-in-virtualbox/ I have not tried it with any games or operating systems before XP so I am not sure how you would go with older systems that that. VirtualBox also has what they call Seamless Mode, that allows the virtualised programs to run on your desktop as though they were running natively, again more details are here: http://www.howtogeek.com/171145/use-virtualboxs-seamless-mode-or-vmwares-unity-mode-to-seamlessly-run-programs-from-a-virtual-machine/ Cheers, Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 I had heard of one of the software guys pushing for this... but I've been reading that for years at this point. It's really nice to see one of these companies embrace another aspect of their software. I'm downloading this right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Ok, I should have read the post first. Ok, so yea, this is what I already do. I use this virtualization software. This is the one I did all my testing with. It doesn't work. It is more complicated than adding 3D acceleration. Like I said before too, for Windows 95/98 era of games they used DirectX 6-8 which is poorly supported. This post is 3 years old. It's nowhere near experimental anymore. This goes back to this is not what their software is made for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 Yeah, Windows 95/98 era games are still extremely problematic, sadly. It really sucks because it's a big collection of games that are really, really difficult to play. GOG helps for the really popular games because they make them work again, but of course they're missing a ton of games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 Keep in mind that it's often easier to find the game for a console; if it happens to exist. If it's on N64, GameCube, PS1, or PS2, chances are, you can play it that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dal Posted July 23, 2015 Author Share Posted July 23, 2015 Thanks guys, good info and solutions. I especially like the GOG stuff, I bought my first game (Settlers IV) there not that long ago and bookmarked them for future use. I've got a arcade cabinet but that's running XP which isn't connected to the web. I was hoping to convert the OS to Windows 7 together with a rebuild of a PC but use LaunchBox as the main interface. I know I can connect the ROMS but was hoping to have all my collections on there. Not to worry though, sounds like GOG may at least fill in some of the blanks. The solution regarding other platforms could also be a good answer but I tend to find PC games have a bit more content over their console ports, especially the earlier eras but it may be a compromise at the very least. It's not often I get excited about software but this LaunchBox is truly a great project and I'd love to help support it. I'll invest in the Pro version in the next couple of months (starting a new job next week after being made redundant back in September). Really appreciate the advice Thanks very much Cheers Dal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 I would actually suggest Windows 8 or 10. Their RAM Footprint is a lot lower. In Windows 8 case, I installed a Start Menu and boot straight to the desktop. I never touch modern UI. I only use 8 for the OS improvements which are actually vast over 7. I also have it automatically sign me in. So my PC just boots straight to the desktop. You can then disable a lot of programs and services to just make it a more bare setup. One thing I do want to note though, "Improvement Tweaks" from 7 don't necessarily carry over to 8. Like the Superfetch service doesn't need disabling on 8. Just a forewarning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spycat Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 For physical copies of 95/98/XP era Windows games an OS that's compatible with both the games and with LaunchBox is your best bet as Brad pointed out. Once you go up to Windows 7 or later the ability to play these games (natively) more or less ends. XP would be 1st choice, although I remember reading somewhere on the Forums that LaunchBox does not take XP support into account. Vista32 can handle quite a lot of these games often without having to play around with the Compatibility (Win95/98/XP) settings. However, downgrading your PC to Vista32 just to be able to install and add these games to LaunchBox and actually play them makes no sense to say the least. For what it's worth I'm still using Vista32. Feel free to snigger here, all my friends do! I have a small collection (18) of these 95/98/XP era games that I've installed and added to LaunchBox. 17 games run perfectly, while 1 has in-game speech issues. If you have a more modern OS such as Vista64, Win7 or later then something like GOG is the way to go. Yes I know I really need to ditch Vista32 and join the modern world, but it's worked flawlessly since it arrived on a Dell back in 2008, so I'll see if I can eke a couple of years more out of it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Honestly, you can pick up a 2002-2003 era PC with 2GB of ram and install custom versions of Windows XP on to them for cheap. You can find a that era "gaming" PC for cheap on ebay. If all you want to do is to just play them, that is the best way. However, on modern systems, if its not a DOS game and GOG has gone out of their way to make it playable, go that route. As far as LaunchBox not being "compatible" or supporting Windows XP, Jason just can't do it. There needs to be cut offs where people need to upgrade. The user base needs to spend a little bit of money on some hardware if need be and bite the bullet. Windows 8 is honestly not all that bad if you do a little bit of TLC. I sure as hell didn't pay for it. We actually just ran in to this issue with the new installer Jason was trying to migrate over to. It does not play well with Windows XP because XP simply does not contain the software protocols anymore. Not to mention there is no security updates for it anymore. Careful Scree, Vista is not supported anymore or it will stop being supported soon. Once an OS is DOA, its time to upgrade. That goes for modern every day systems though, not specific gaming systems. I want to buy an older Gateway or Pentium PC from that era for some old games. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Scree as long as Vista had SP2 and you play with the UAC's a little there isn't anything wrong with it I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 that originally came with Vista but now runs Windows 10 (very well I might add) I recently installed a 64GB mSATA drive in a 2.5 SATA adapter in a IDE disk drive caddy and kept the HDD. Nice to know I could install Vista as a dual boot on it to play PC games that I couldn't emulate on modern systems and would be lost otherwise. I personally look at what a lot of us do here is like preserving the history of gaming. I will definitely be looking into this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 DOS76 said Scree as long as Vista had SP2 and you play with the UAC's a little there isn't anything wrong with it I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 that originally came with Vista but now runs Windows 10 (very well I might add) I recently installed a 64GB mSATA drive in a 2.5 SATA adapter in a IDE disk drive caddy and kept the HDD. Nice to know I could install Vista as a dual boot on it to play PC games that I couldn't emulate on modern systems and would be lost otherwise. I personally look at what a lot of us do here is like preserving the history of gaming. I will definitely be looking into this. I would go with the custom Windows XP personally. Especially if you're not really taking it online and that portion is only for games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Ok was thinking Vista so I could use it with LaunchBox but I consider the XP route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 As much as I love LaunchBox, I am taking that out of the equation right now. XP can also run on lower end hardware. So especially if you are building a new machine XP might still be the better option. In your case, I personally would still go with XP and see if I can get it to work. If Vista however can be just as good with compatibility and if hardware isn't a concern then that could be a good option too. I'd rather have the games working as best as they can first then get LaunchBox to wrap around it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 what kind of hardware do you think I would need the laptop I had in mind has a core 2 duo t8300 with 4GB of RAM but would only be using onboard graphics. I didn't really play computer games in that era I was busy running the streets and being a crim (although a petty one for sure) at the time but I imagine 2007 hardware could handle 95 98 games if not the XP ones also Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Yea, that'll be fine. Though, 4GB of RAM, only 3GB of that will be usable. Just keep that in mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Oh you have to install a 32 bit system even though its a 64 bit chip that kind of sucks but since it would sort of be like a legacy platform and still have an OS that is modern it wouldn't be to much of a problem especially since I am not doing much with the system anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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