Windows 2000/XP/Vista emulators
Playing games released for these platforms on a modern system can be quite easy as programs can be run on latest Windows without sacrifices due to backwards compability.[1] However this may change in the near future due to dropping 16 and 32-bit support from processors.[2][3]
If you are trying to get Windows 2000, XP or Vista software working on a modern system, you should only be using this page as a last resort and would be better suited to read the PC Gaming Wiki, which likely already has information on the game you want. If you don't have the operating system you want, you can download it from WinWorldPC, and if you don't have the game you want or it's not available on the platforms like Steam or GOG; you can try downloading it from My Abandonware.
Contents
Wrappers
Sometimes, all that may be missing in order to get an old game running is a DLL wrapper for the graphics API. This is common for games that were designed for 3Dfx Glide cards and also you can use these in virtual machines for increasing "Virtual GPU Adapter" compatibility. More information is available at the respective page.
Game Engine Recreations and Source Ports
Many games are considered enough of a cult classic that the source code is made publicly available for study and use as a base for ports to newer platforms. For some titles, this is done by the developer themselves to show other developers the viability of such a project. However, for most games this'll usually be done by force through reverse engineering.
We have already listed many of the most popular video game ports and recreations at the respective page.
Hypervisors
Most viable way to get Windows 2000, XP or Vista software running on modern system is to run the operating system in a hardware-assisted virtual machine at the moment. This requires you to know how to manually install a Windows NT-family operating system on a computer. If you do decide to install these legacy operating systems in a virtual machine, you will need to install integrations (e.g., VMware Tools) for features like 3D acceleration, mouse integration and shared folders etc.
- VMWare Tools supports Windows 95 through Windows 10 but VMware Tools 10.0.12 will be the last version to support legacy Guest Operating Systems although you can still use latest VMware version with VMware Tools 10.0.12, VMware will automatically installs it to guest operating system for you.
- VirtualBox; supports integrations but does not include 3D acceleration for legacy operating systems anymore (with recent versions) due to VBoxVGA deprecate[4], so you must use VirtualBox 6.0.24 version or earlier to use 3D acceleration in a Windows 2000, XP or Vista guest operating system.
Also there was a major change in VMware 16.x in how virtual graphics were handled (sandboxed) and it also added support for DX11 in Windows VMs. But due to these changes users reported lots of crashes (ISBRendererComm error) lately especially with "3D Acceleration". Although some users report that it's fixed with 17.5 version, crash still occurs with WinXP guest OS; so use 15.7 version until it's fixed. See this section for more information about this problem.
Type 2 Hypervisors
| Name | Operating System(s) | Virtual GPU Adapter | FLOSS | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PC / x86 | ||||
| VMware Workstation |  
|
SVGA3D | ✗ | ✓ |
| Parallels Desktop | 
|
Parallels Video Adapter[5] | ✗ | ✓ |
| VirtualBox |  
|
VBoxVGA | ✓ | ~ |
3D acceleration in hypervisors is capable of running fairly demanding video games or other 3D applications with a few drawbacks such as limited DirectX API versions. Every hypervisor has a different approach to handling 3D graphics resulting VirtualBox supports for OpenGL are slightly better than Direct3D (since it doesn't have to be reverse engineered), on the other hand VMware has better support for D3D8/9. Keep in mind that most Windows games (including ports) use Direct3D. Having said that you can use wrappers like "WineD3D for Windows" or "DxWnd" for translate D3D calls to OpenGL on the legacy operating system for increasing your chance if games uncompatible with virtual GPU adapter. DxWnd 2.05.70, WineD3D 1.7.52 or 1.9.7-staging(partially) versions are the latest compatible versions with Windows XP (if OneCoreAPI is not installed to OS), for getting these old "WineD3D for Windows" builds use this link
Type 1 Hypervisors
| Name | Operating System(s) | Virtual GPU Adapter | FLOSS | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PC / x86 | ||||
| QEMU+KVM |
|
GPU-Passthrough | ✓ | ✓ |
| QEMU-3dfx+KVM |
|
MESA GL/3Dfx Glide Pass-Through ($) | ✓ | |
| QEMU-3dfx+WHPX |
|
MESA GL/3Dfx Glide Pass-Through ($) | ~ | |
| QEMU+KVM |
|
VirGL | ✓ | ✗ |
| QEMU+WHPX | [6]
|
VirGL | ✗ | |
| Hyper-V [7] |
|
GPU-Passthrough | ✗ | |
You need XP compatible GPU Drivers for GPU-Passthrough, latest supported GPU and GPU drivers from AMD; its 200 series and from nVidia; its 900 series. For more information about this you can use this link.
QEMU-3dfx's advantage is "MESAGL/3Dfx Glide pass-through". The project took on the troubles to support the legacy of vendor-specific OpenGL extensions that matter for PC games. Past and existing solutions (VirtualBox VBoxVGA's ChromiumGL, VMware SVGA3D and QEMU Virgil 3D) are all based on API "re-rendering" rather then "direct forwarding".[8]
With Windows host and "QEMU + WHPX" it will be much slower performance wise compared to Linux host and QEMU + KVM. You will have to stay with QEMU TCG entirely until you manually switched to 'ACPI PC' kernel. The starting 'ACPI Uniprocessor' kernel does not boot on QEMU WHPX.
QEMU VirGL only for Linux guests "with 4.4=> kernel with mesa (>=11.2) compiled with the option gallium-drivers=virgl" at the moment. Plans are to target GL2.1 + GLSL 1.20 as the possible lowest GL interface to support. The guest would then expose the same level of GL. This project will eventually support Direct3D and Windows guest but there is none at the moment. Currently the renderer is GLSL 1.30 based, and requires some extensions from later GL levels. Current developer only really tested on the open source nouveau driver exposing GL3.0/GL3.1 core profile, and the binary nvidia driver exposing GL 4.3. Future plans to add a capabilities system will be required to work make things work across more systems. The capabilities system will expose different guest GL levels dependant on the host GL level, this could allow for a GLES2 specific interface etc. The current guest driver exposes GL2.1 and GLSL 1.20. For more information about VirGL3D use this link.
"Hyper-V + GPU-P" exclusive to Windows 10/11 host and guest systems at the moment. So you don't have any option other than "QEMU-3dfx with WHPX" OR "Type 2 hypervisors" for current Windows hosts at the moment.
- Videos;
QEMU+KVM with GPU passthrough guide for Windows XP VMs
KJ Liew's QEMU-3dfx ($) Windows XP SP3 Retro Gaming VM From Scratch to 3D Acceleration in 15 mins
- Compatibility pages;
Virtual GPU adapter compatibility sheet for WinXP (only partially translated via GT)
Working games under VirtualBox (Linux host - Windows guest)
SVGA3D (VMWare) - 3D Applications Compatibility List
WineHQ appdb (useful for "WineD3D for Windows" wrapper)
Hardware emulation
These are emulators in the truest sense, in that they don't do any kind of cheating the way a hypervisor would. But keep in mind unlike hardware-assisted Hypervisors; emulating something like Voodoo3 with Pentium II with these emulators requires top-notch single thread performance of CPU. PCem, 86Box and PCBox are full retro x86 computer emulators, spanning from the original IBM 5150 to Pentium III PCs. Setting it up is much like building an actual retro computer, but in software, so expect it to be as difficult as setting up an actual retro PC. This means you're going to have to install Windows 2000/XP (Vista is supported by them but unrecommended) along with all necessary drivers for the hardware you chose. This is also a great option if you want most accurate and compatible option for 3DFX Voodoo emulation and Windows 2000/XP glide games.
For more information;
- Main article: POS_(Pong_Consoles)_CPUs_and_Other_Chips#x86_CPUs
What about implementing KVM and these virtual adapters (VMware SVGA/SVGA II and VBoxVGA emulation) for emulators. (NT-Based OSes unsupported by DOSBox forks at the moment). Vogons.org thread: "Using PCem with a XP guest"
- ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/make-older-apps-or-programs-compatible-with-windows-783d6dd7-b439-bdb0-0490-54eea0f45938
- ↑ René Rebe: Intel finally to remove 16-bit REAL MODE and some 32b RINGS
- ↑ In 2023, Intel proposed a major change to the architecture referred to as x86-S (with S standing for "simplification"), which aims to remove support for legacy execution modes and instructions
- ↑ changes in VirtualBox's 3D acceleration system
- ↑ lactobacillusprime's video about "Parallels Desktop"
- ↑ Repository to help build qemu with virgl support for windows hosts.
- ↑ Windows hyper-v is a type one hypervisor.
Run Hyper-V in a Virtual Machine with Nested Virtualization - ↑ javispedro's comment about Virtual GPU adapters
KJ Liew's "QEMU Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003) -- Tribute to NVIDIA OpenGL" video description
