Getting Driver's Education 98 to Run

[bboyd96]

How does one go about getting old niche games from the WIndows 98 era to run? Specifically, I am trying to play Driver's' Education 98. I have been trying for about an hour to get it to run via Lutris. I think part of the problem may be that the game files contain a .bin and .cue instead of an .exe? When I try to install via the bin or cue file, I run into a "File not found" error in Lutris. I have also tried to convert the files to an iso using PowerISO but get a "file not supported" error when trying to do that.

I will be genuinely surprised if anyone has tried this particular game, so any general advice is welcome. I feel like I have gone too far down the rabbit hole for this tonight and don't know what else to try.

[Mahjik]

Take a look at this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dosbox/comments/zsapz8/cue_and_bin_file_help/?rdt=42019

[Zef]

Publicado originalmente por bboyd96:

How does one go about getting old niche games from the WIndows 98 era to run? Specifically, I am trying to play Driver's' Education 98. I have been trying for about an hour to get it to run via Lutris. I think part of the problem may be that the game files contain a .bin and .cue instead of an .exe? When I try to install via the bin or cue file, I run into a "File not found" error in Lutris. I have also tried to convert the files to an iso using PowerISO but get a "file not supported" error when trying to do that.

I will be genuinely surprised if anyone has tried this particular game, so any general advice is welcome. I feel like I have gone too far down the rabbit hole for this tonight and don't know what else to try.

Ignore what Mahjik said, for Windows 98 era games you're better off running them in a emulated environment using either PCem or 86box.

https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/downloads.html
https://86box.net/

Simply configure your emulated hardware, something like a pentium 200/MMX, 128 Mb ram with a S3 Virge or Voodoo card and install a copy of Windows 98 second edition on it.

Once your Windows 98 is installed on the emulated hardware you can simply launch your iso's/cue's file's directly from in PCem or 86box as a virtual cd rom drive that wil be visible in the guest operating system.

86box is more up to date but is also more accurate thus slower to emulate on the same hardware then PCem (pcem is generally faster). You can even run the windows version of PCem through proton if you want.

You should only use wine/proton for Windows XP era games and higher, anything older then that you use PCem/86box.

And for dos era games you use Dosbox ofc.

[Haruspex]

Publicado originalmente por Zef:

Ignore what Mahjik said, for Windows 98 era games you're better off running them in a emulated environment using either PCem or 86box.

I second using PCem. A VM is the way to go for these Windows 9x titles for now, at least until we get a good DOSBox equivalent for old Windows.

[thetargos]

You can also use older wine releases to accomplish this either in Lutris or Bottles. It used to be the case that win9x software ran reasonably well under wine for pre 1.x releases

[bboyd96]

Publicado originalmente por Zef:

Publicado originalmente por bboyd96:

How does one go about getting old niche games from the WIndows 98 era to run? Specifically, I am trying to play Driver's' Education 98. I have been trying for about an hour to get it to run via Lutris. I think part of the problem may be that the game files contain a .bin and .cue instead of an .exe? When I try to install via the bin or cue file, I run into a "File not found" error in Lutris. I have also tried to convert the files to an iso using PowerISO but get a "file not supported" error when trying to do that.

I will be genuinely surprised if anyone has tried this particular game, so any general advice is welcome. I feel like I have gone too far down the rabbit hole for this tonight and don't know what else to try.

Ignore what Mahjik said, for Windows 98 era games you're better off running them in a emulated environment using either PCem or 86box.

https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/downloads.html
https://86box.net/

Simply configure your emulated hardware, something like a pentium 200/MMX, 128 Mb ram with a S3 Virge or Voodoo card and install a copy of Windows 98 second edition on it.

Once your Windows 98 is installed on the emulated hardware you can simply launch your iso's/cue's file's directly from in PCem or 86box as a virtual cd rom drive that wil be visible in the guest operating system.

86box is more up to date but is also more accurate thus slower to emulate on the same hardware then PCem (pcem is generally faster). You can even run the windows version of PCem through proton if you want.

You should only use wine/proton for Windows XP era games and higher, anything older then that you use PCem/86box.

And for dos era games you use Dosbox ofc.

Thanks for the detailed response! I will have to look into that a bit more. I did read elsewhere how Win 95 era games are the trickiest to get working using proton, so that makes sense.

[bboyd96]

Publicado originalmente por Haruspex:

Publicado originalmente por Zef:

Ignore what Mahjik said, for Windows 98 era games you're better off running them in a emulated environment using either PCem or 86box.

I second using PCem. A VM is the way to go for these Windows 9x titles for now, at least until we get a good DOSBox equivalent for old Windows.

I had seen a few other folks during my research suggest the VM route but I was trying to see if there were more straightforward options. But it sounds like a VM would actually be the most efficient in the long run. Will have to look into it more tonight. Thank you!

[bboyd96]

Publicado originalmente por thetargos:

You can also use older wine releases to accomplish this either in Lutris or Bottles. It used to be the case that win9x software ran reasonably well under wine for pre 1.x releases

Thank you! I will definitely look at that. Sorry for the ignorant question, but can you set the wine version specific for each game? I have other games in Lutris set up with the current version.

[thetargos]

Publicado originalmente por bboyd96:

Publicado originalmente por thetargos:

You can also use older wine releases to accomplish this either in Lutris or Bottles. It used to be the case that win9x software ran reasonably well under wine for pre 1.x releases

Thank you! I will definitely look at that. Sorry for the ignorant question, but can you set the wine version specific for each game? I have other games in Lutris set up with the current version.

Yes, you define the "runner" (wine, Proton, DOSBox, SCUMMVM, etc version/build you want to use, per application), just check how far back it allows you to get. I'd reckon any version of wine from 1 to 4, will do the job. Just remeber that wine (regardless of version) can't handle directly things like device direct access (like some USB/PCI devices).

[RedBaronK™]

The easiest way is to run pcem on steam deck, it runs flawlessly. I got the windows version of pcem to run via proton. There is a native Linux version but I don't know how to install it into the deck... If anyone can write up a guide on installing the native Linux version I'd appreciate it.

There will be some performance reduction since you are emulating a windows 98 pc, but it's not as bad as running windows 98 on the deck directly without any decent drivers... So it'll be comparable in performance vs spending an hr manually installing windows.

There's pre-configured windows 98 and 95 pcem installations available on internet archive for download... Someone was decent enough to get it set up with all drivers ready to go, so just download it and run it via proton.