Linux, DosBox or Retro Windows for 90's Games?

[blackkeys1098]

Budget (including currency): N/A

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

Other details ASUS Tuf Gaming B550M, Ryzen 7 5800x, Radeon 5600xt, 32 gb ram, 1 x 250 gb SSD, 1 x 110 gb SSD, 1 x 3 tb mechanical harddrive

 

I'm rebuilding my homebuilt rig this week after replacing the CPU and motherboard. Currently running windows 10 off the 110 gb SSD with the old school mechanical drive for steam and other easy to replace game files.

 

After replacing the hardware, I'm planning to run Pop OS on the 110 gb ssd, windows 10 on the 250 gb ssd and make Pop my 1st stop for work and gaming with windows there as a crutch.

 

QUESTION: I love my 90's games and have a bunch of old games on CD. I've had mixed success with Dosbox on windows with games like Mechwarrior 2. Would I get the best results using Wine in Linux, dosbox or maybe even setting a partition in the 250 gb for windows xp or even 98?

 

Please don't say try it with windows 10 - tried and failed with that countless times (windows 7 too)

 

[RONOTHAN##]

It really depends on the game. The retro gaming community is big enough that you're likely to find some people who give tutorials for how to get these games running in DosBox and Wine. What I would probably do is try Dosbox first, then Wine (maybe with Winetricks), and if neither of those work, run it in a Windows 98 VM since I don't think it's possible to run Windows 98 or XP on a system with a 5800X and a 5600XT. 

 

Also, Welcome to the Linux Community!

[blackkeys1098]

15 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

It really depends on the game. The retro gaming community is big enough that you're likely to find some people who give tutorials for how to get these games running in DosBox and Wine. What I would probably do is try Dosbox first, then Wine (maybe with Winetricks), and if neither of those work, run it in a Windows 98 VM since I don't think it's possible to run Windows 98 or XP on a system with a 5800X and a 5600XT. 

 

Also, Welcome to the Linux Community!

Most of these I've tried that. Mechwarrior 2 being my biggest headache. I also only had windows 10 on hand at the time so I'm wondering if I can work some magic with Linux and maybe throw an XP partition in for kicks. 10 years ago, I could run literally anything on XP - though I'm not sure if XP will accept my current hardware

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, blackkeys1098 said:

10 years ago, I could run literally anything on XP - though I'm not sure if XP will accept my current hardware

Last I checked the newest stuff that supports XP was the R9 200 series and AMD FX. That said, a Windows XP VM would work just fine on that machine, and while there should be a way to get it to have GPU acceleration, it might be fun to buy a really cheap video card with XP drivers and mess around with VFIO. 

 

As for Mechwarrior 2, a lot of people are reporting success with Dosbox on Linux. Someone said he got it to work with Wine once, but said it was a royal pain to do and can't remember exactly how (very useful, thank you reddit).