Virtual 98 PC for old games

A much wiser man gave me this idea but Ive been having trouble implementing it and my experience and knowledge of virtual machines is slim to none.

Ive tried using Microsoft virtual PC and I got everything running but the games (half life etc) are slow and jumpy when I run them and others like system shock 2 I get errors that my video card is unsupported no matter what drivers Ive tried.

Microsoft virtual Pc is easy but doesn't seem to have too many options is this the same with other virtual PC software or have I just set it up poorly?

Has anyone done this before successfully if so whats your configuration?

My Pc specs are
Vista business edition 32bit
2 gig ram
AMD 4000+ x2
8600gt

Also wasnt sure where to post this so any advice where the virtual gurus han out, didnt think it was quite enterprise level stuff.

 

Have you downloaded and installed the 8 series card drivers that CAN support Windows 98?
I think it has something to do with the drivers for the graphics card. Because you have an 8 series card the drivers do not support Windows 98, so essentially stuck. I got the same idea because I was having troubles with CS 1.6 in Vista so thought of a 98 virtual PC to play them through but the nvidia drivers for my 8800GTX could not support Windows 98. For the matter if you have an 8 series card I doubt you will find drivers for Windows 98 for them, if you do please PM me with the details.
When I say this I mean it, your PC is just TOO powerful for Windows 98. Better off buying a good old P4 machine with 4 series graphics card in it and having the real thing for the hassle you have to go through to setup a virtual PC in 98 mode. Would also be pretty cool for LAN parties, you can be named the retro man of the lot of them, just mod your case to make yourself more noticeable.

 

Hehe, *blush*

I think Microsoft virtual PC virtualizes your video card to 2D only. I maybe wrong on this, but I think only OLD old 2D games will run, and 3D games using openGL will run poorly in software render.

I've tried and tested the following games on a virtualised Windows 98SE machine with out any problems:

Theme Hospital (Works fine on WinXP too, but handy to be windowed as it doesn't run full screen)
Syndicate Wars
Theme Park
Constructor
Transport Tycoon (Best of to download and run OpenTTD on WinXP)

If you can, open up Half life and check the settings. You'll probably note that it's running in Software render, not hardware, thus that's why it is jumpy as all hell, yet running. Other 3d games will refuse to run as the 3d hardware graphics card is simply not virtualised.

 

VMWare Fusion for the mac supports Direct3D and OpenGL, so I'm guessing VMWare Workstation supports them, too.

 

virtualizing 2d only would explain it. I can play isometric games no problem.

Now as I understand there was a free version of vm ware. but the page seems to be broken atm.
And I assume its VMware workstation that Im after not one of the other packages.

Also is this the best free/open source virtualization tool for what Im trying to do.
From what I hear they seem to be a big name.

 

vmware server and workstation aren't free.

Player is free but you need to get a machine prebuilt by someone else - there are lots of dos versions around.

vmware 3D performance is much better imo than microsofts version.

 

Don't use the MS one..
use THIS.
supports every type of operating system, and passes your video card info direct to the new OS.

 

Server and Player are free, workstation is not. I got 10 server keys from them a few months ago

If you can find a pre built 98 image, Player might be an option. Although I think a pre built image of a Windows OS might be concidered piracy.

 

To use VMWare player, you don't need a whole prebuilt "image", just the virtual machine config file and an empty virtual HDD. There's a number of places on the web that have scripts that will build both for you, so have a Google. Once you download the .vmx and virtual HDD files, you run them in Player and you can install your legit Windows 98.

That said, 3D support in VMWare Workstation is still unsupported and requires manual editing of VMX files, at least last time I tried it. I don't recall having a lot of luck with it, but I wasn't serious about it so didn't spend more than 2 minutes trying. Perhaps they've moved it into the GUI with a new version. No idea what, if any support, there is in the free Player/Server but I'm guessing not as much.

A mate and I thought about using virtual machines but in the end we had enough old hardware around to build up a couple of pretty sweet Windows 98 boxes in real hardware. Much more fun, and it means I have an AWE64 and a Voodoo 5 in mine. Only downside is having to lug em around. That's a real pain cos normally I just work/game on my laptop, so I'm not used to dragging a PC/monitor around any more.

 

I gave that a go, had very little luck with it unfortunatly. I couldn't find a way to have it use anything but the virtual box video driver, which doesn't support 98 and the links on the site were unhelpful.

Have you actually had this set up with 3D? If so can you provide some details on how to get it going?

 

Im having the same problem, although ive noticed vistas compadibily mode to be far more effective than in XP.

Might have to look into wine...

 

as far as I can gather there is no 3d support in any virtual PC software atm (at least not free)

To this endI spose I will maybe look at cywin and wine

 

All your examples run perfectly in dosbox and Half-life will run perfectly on xp/vista. Why do you need 98 again?

Under nix a virtual pc isn't the best way to go about playing windoze games. You really need to use wine or crossover, something like that. Full emulation is too slow for all but the oldest stuff.

 

that looks like a better option
I might try that - does it work okay with Vista?
when you get it sorted, give 98lite a run - you'll be impressed

http://www.litepc.com/98lite.html

 

On the surface, at least it runs FINE with Vista as the host OS.. Just fired it up here - (Vista home premium)

Ooroo
Callan

 

i dont want to hijack the thread but


why in gods name would you want to run windows 98 virtual pc games etc etc

i understand the dos box thing but why would you need to make the equivalant of that but for windows 98?? can someone explain what im missing here. i was under the impression that windows xp could run old games that were used on windows 98 without a hitch...


?? are yas using linux or something?