Retro Gaming Windows OS: Win 98, Win ME, or Win XP

[hypercybermegatron]

I've got an PC with an Athlon Classic that I'm planning to set up as a gaming PC for old games.

Some of the games should be ok to run natively in DOS but for the ones that need windows I'm undecided as to whether to go with Win 98, Win ME, or XP.

Ideally I'd just go with 32-bit XP, at least there's a Steam client for this (although not officially supported anymore). But I really want to make sure my Win 98 games work.

The main games I want it for are:

• Diablo 1 and 2
  
• Theme Park
  
• Theme Hospital
  
• Quake 1-3
  
• Syndicate
  
• Interstate '76 and '82
  
• HOMM up to 4
  
• Tombraider up to last revelation
  
• Carmageddon
  
• C&C Red Alert
  
• NOX
  
• Robin Hood Legend of Sherwood
  
• Mortal Kombat 1-3
  
• Sierra On-Line, LucasArts, and Westwood Studio games in general

So I guess my question boils down to: has anyone out there had any issues trying to play these [games on Windows XP?

I might end up just doing a dual boot with Win98 and XP but reliable IDE drives are getting hard find, not sure if the IDE to SATA adapters are worth bothering with but I'll give them a try with a new SATA drive if I need to.

[Arnie Rimsy BSc.SSc.]

My first thought was stick with '98 for accessibility.

[Captain n00by]

98 SE, as it was the last MS OS to native support DOS games.

Make a XP build if you want to play the pre Crysis PC games but not the really old stuff.

[hypercybermegatron]

Originally posted by DatCrazyNerf:

My first thought was stick with '98 for accessibility.

Yeah I was thinking across the same lines. I have read a few testimonies that ME has performance improvements over 98 for games but don't know for sure, might not be worth compromising compatibility.

[hypercybermegatron]

Originally posted by n00by:

98 SE, as it was the last MS OS to native support DOS games.

Make a XP build if you want to play the pre Crysis PC games but not the really old stuff.

That's a good point. I think I'll go down the path of doing a dual boot 98/XP machine.

[Doctor Neuruss]

hii!!

[Χάρης]

First game I'd play on that would be Blood Omen 2.

[Jej]

I would recommend using an IDE to CF or SD adapter and having a card for each OS. Preferably an adapter that can be accessed from the front.

That way you can swap them easily.

Also KernelEX could work with 98. It allows a lot of modern applications to run.

[Electric Cupcake]

I keep a Windows 2000 VM around for the 16-bit classics. It's run almost everything, though Millie's Math House wanted some .dll that was only in Windows 95-98.

[Vince ✟]

You need to look into eating some delicious Raspberry PI ehh.