Best overall option for older games on Win7 64x?

I'm weighing my options with the realization that I won't be able to satifactoraly play most of my pre-2005 games on my shiney new Win7 Home Premium 64x OS.

Which of the following would be my best option:

1. Install Virtual PC (can't use XP Mode) with my Windows XP 32bit ISO
2. Install XP as a Dual Boot option
3. Install Linux as a Dual Boot option

Of course, since my new PC uses NVIDIA Optimus I'm not sure if any of these are viable.

VirtualBox vclaims to have hardware acelleration for video. I haven't tried it (the video acelleration) myself but might look into that. I do like VirtualBox a lot otherwise.

But as far as games go, I think it's just the DOS 16 bit games that are an absolute no go, with a few exceptions for others here and there...

Fo the others, try the ussual suspects (RunAs Admin and Emulate XP etc...) ANd google for each game, frequently there is a solution

Jonathan_King said:

Dual boot with XP would be faster than Virtual PC, but not as convenient to enter, as it would require a reboot.

If the games you will be playing are resource intensive, I recommend the dual boot with XP. Otherwise, the convenience of Virtual PC attracts me.

If the games run in Ubuntu, and you don't have a copy of XP with a product key, go for the Ubuntu dual boot. Ubuntu is free, XP is not.

fseal said:

VirtualBox vclaims to have hardware acelleration for video. I haven't tried it (the video acelleration) myself but might look into that. I do like VirtualBox a lot otherwise.

But as far as games go, I think it's just the DOS 16 bit games that are an absolute no go, with a few exceptions for others here and there...

Fo the others, try the ussual suspects (RunAs Admin and Emulate XP etc...) ANd google for each game, frequently there is a solution

Thanks for the tips guys, it's mostly my old Infinity Engine games (Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, etc.) that won't run, they don't get anywhere close to running. I haven't been able to find solutions online.

Before extreme measures I'm going to try installing the 32bit C++ files as suggested in another thread. Worst comes to worst I'll probably install Ubuntu as my 'old school' game OS, as I prefer to keep my W7 clean from complicated things like Virtual PC...

How can I emulate XP? Through compatibility mode?

Yeah, Compatibility Mode, I had a brain fart there and could not remember the exact term for it

I've run several old (non-game) DOS utilities in Win7 64 using D-Fend Reloaded as a GUI front end loader/emulator. It's meant for games but I've used it for years in XP, now in 7.64 for ancient DOS stuff like electronic circuit analysis programs.

As for dual-boot, I use it, it's easy and reliable. The main problem I find is that I rarely use XP, so when I do use it, there's always plenty of updates (AV, etc.) to run.

fseal said:

Yeah, Compatibility Mode, I had a brain fart there and could not remember the exact term for it

Lol, gottcha... i tried all the compatibility modes and none of it worked.

The issue is odd, because the game doesn't even attempt to load. It immediately gives me the error.

Is there something I needed to do when installing it to begin with?

Also, is Virtual PC slow?

Virtual PC and Virtual Box (Two different products) are surprisingly fast, but. yes slower in certain ways. As I said I've not tried the hardware acelleration for video to play a game in VirtualBox. BUT VirtualBox is free to DL and use and if it doesn't work you can just uninstall it. I'd try that before dual booting since it's so much handier. But it may still be likely that you need to dual boot to get full hardware acess for gaming.

just a quick update, I installed VirtualBox and I am officially a fan. It was the smoothest XP installation I've ever done, and it runs these games flawlessly (so far) without sacrificing any performance on my Host (W7) side. Win XP is a little slower than usual as a guest, but since I shut down almost every service (just to play games) it's actually faster than it was as my main OS.

Awesome stuff, far simpler than I expected.