Need help to run old CD game for Windows 95 and higher

[TheGermanCharizard]

Hello everyone,

 

I am new to LaunchBox and the community and I would like to ask for some help.

So as you can read in the title I want to try to run some old game I still have the original CD from 2000 and up for Windows 95 and higher.

And a game I tried to run is Venom Codename Outbreak by  GSC Game World and I think I do something wrong so maybe someone can help me I would really appreciate it!

 

So I check if the game was in the database of LaunchBox and yes it is and even on EMO Movies since LaunchBox ask me if I want to download metadata and images for it.

And I try two ways first I install it manual from my PC by click on tools and import.

And the the second way was create a short cut and then just drag and drop the short cut in to LaunchBox.

The process was on both ways similar.

But when I start it,  it first runs good, the intro is playing with sound but then when the intro is done you should enter the Main Menu of the Game but in my case it crash or something else and I get this message:

And After I close it this message also come's up:

So I want to ask do make something wrong because I thing I do not add a emulator to it or maybe I done some thing by the import wrong.

Maybe someone has a guide or a video for how to run old PC games for windows 95 and higher or down on LaunchBox.

 

It would really help me a lot.

And sorry for my question I just start LaunchBox Today for the first time in my life and I don't have experience with emulator.

Thanks for everyone who want to help me in my situation.

I really appreciate it!

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

24 minutes ago, TheGermanCharizard said:

Maybe someone has a guide or a video for how to run old PC games for windows 95 and higher or down on LaunchBox.

It usually isn't a problem running your old pc games from LaunchBox, but running your old pc games on a modern operating system at all.

Your best bet would be to look up your game on PCGamingWiki to see if there are any workarounds or patches. If you have a decent pc you could also emulate a Pentium 1 / 2 with PCem. Else you could create a VM. Both the latter options require you to install Windows 95 in your Virtual Machine and then run your game from there. I think I once read you could install Windows 95 in DosBox, but I'm not sure as I have never done that.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Your Friendly A.I Overlord

[jadekitten]

look into PCem or 86box

[JamesBond@ge]

@Zombeaver is king of running these old PC / Windows games. (I hope he doesn't mind me calling him out)

Edited June 8, 2022 by JamesBond@ge

[Zombeaver]

For most 9x stuff I would recommend PCem setup with W98 SE, specifically with a FIC-VA or later motherboard. The reason being is this will allow you to tell the emulated Windows environment to shut down and it will automatically close itself out afterwards - with W95 or even with W98 if using an older mobo when you tell it to shutdown it'll then say "It's now safe to turn off your computer" and you'll have to change to windowed mode and then close the window. I would also highly recommend setting up your virtual hard drives to be dynamically sizing - this means that in the emulated environment you could have say a 32GB HDD, but it wouldn't actually occupy 32GB on your host PC, it will only use as much space as is actually occupied with data on the virtual hard drive which is very useful for avoiding wasted HDD space.

You can actually run W95 in DOSBox as well, though this is more complicated. I recommend DOSBox Daum if you decide to go that route as it makes things easier with virtual IDE mounting. DOSBox-X includes that feature as well but 1) I don't like X very much and 2) performance between the two favors Daum heavily in cases where you would want to use DOSBox for 9x games. Those cases would specifically be games that are locked to software rendering like, for example, Rocket Jockey or Lifeforce Tenka. In such cases DOSBox maintains a performance edge over PCem. Anything that is designed for video hardware rendering via something like a Voodoo 2 you would want to use PCem.

There are many video and written tutorials about how to setup PCem and DOSBox for W95/W98 so I'm not really going to get into that here. But basically those are your best bet for this kind of thing.

There are also video wrappers like DdrawCompat, DgVoodoo 2, and DxWrapper, but your mileage with those may vary (wildly). I used to use those quite a bit but it became more and more clear over time that they're just not reliable on any major scale across different hardware and software environments. I use VMs pretty much exclusively at this point because they "just work". The learning curve is, of course, higher than simply dropping a dll in a folder, but it's worth it in the long run. Otherwise you'll end up troubleshooting the same game over and over every time you switch PCs or in some cases simply do something as simple as updating your video drivers.