And weirdly having fun trying out all possible combinations of virtual system+operating system+morrowind :)

Also, only for those of us that has a laptop from that era lying around :P Emulation is the way to go ultimately. What are the chances of keeping a 2006 pc running into 2020. I've never had a pc survive for longer than about 3 or 4 years without a component failing. I'm not really sure what causes it. Perhaps infrequent spikes in the local power grid slowly damages components or something. I'll have to do some research on that before my next big pc build. Perhaps a fancy ups will be in order.

well xp sp2 has also let the side down both did the exact same with morrowind on vpc2007
debugger error

im currently installing sp2 on virtual box

but emulation has jumped ahead with leaps and bounds
but it seems win 9x is just too old for the emulation coders to care to keep up with so we need scumm and wine and other wrappers

but for the time being hardware is stil best ware for 9x

Who knows hopefully one day when 9x becomes truly retro its proper emulation will get some tlc again.

Sp2 might make a big difference from what I can remember, though I might be thinking of 98. One of the windows os became far less crashy after sp2.

Well, that and there's all manner of legal issue, too. Have you looked into React OS?

yes but its not really ready for prime time
that be win 98 SE

i tried xp sp 2 on both vpc and virtual box and alas i have been thwarted with the same debugger error
and finding drivers for emulation computers is uhh not gonna be easy

midtown madness has the bullshit error that it cant find its cd rom even when its in the bloody drive
but i knew that already

so thus far vmware workstation 12 player comes out as the winner

but i also have windows 2000 sp4

are you thinking what i am thinking ?

Looks like I might end up eating my words then :P Somehow I thought it would be smoother sailing. The only thing I've ever used virtual pc for was for an xp installation so that I can use my older version of matlab. Never did try running a game on it from what I can remember.

It's a trivial suggestion, but I'll ask anyway: did you try a nocd crack on midtown madness?

good lord :D
I want whatever it is you put in your coffee! We're in the same timezone and it's damn near midnight lol! I can't imagine what the context is going to be but I'm sure I'm going to dream about win 9x OSs and coding emulators tonight thanks to you!

no i didnt try a no cd crack on mid town madness
i did let it loos on vmware 12
and the game installed and it got running but sadly i didnt get in to the game proper
the graphics wouldnt load

..not this time around anyway

and i am pursuing this in the name of science !

and i got a fuckload of windows discs
i even have vista and windows 8
all oem's

im going to have another go at trying to get midtown madness to run in a lower resolution
and then windows 2000 !

Well if nothing else at least you're now trying to get a game running that you like :)
And I wouldn't normally say this to someone that's doing what you're doing, but have fun!
I'm retreating to my warm sheets, and an episode of Futurama.

(parting suggestion/question: perhaps try a different version of directx? I remember back then new directx versions came out fairly regularly compared to now)

hmm maybe
but i install direct x 8.1 directly from the morrowind install disc
and i still get the debugger error
and where do i find ancient versions of direct X

..oh wait i found a directx 9 archive nevermind !!

midtown madness has been rather stroppy in getting to run on vmware
which is rather odd because its a less taxing game then morrowidn which runs fine ...as far as morrowind can be categorised as fine and not eyestabbingly horrifyingly ugly but i digress since i dug up my windows 2000 discs

and sega rally revo is catching my eye

are you thinking what i am thinking ?!

edit : well that was interesting

sega rally revo actually WORKS !
how the hell can a game from 2006 work "fine" but a game from 1999 face plants ?

well "fine" is a big word it runs in 800x600 but there is no tearing or artifacting and the game runs smoothly



...tempted to try oblivion now

Was it you that expressed interest in a rally game recently? You could check out the demo of Colin McRae Rally 2.0 on the virtual system. I played the demo over and over back when it came out. Surprisingly the demo actually still works perfectly on my win7 laptop, which I didn't really expect for a 2000 game:
http://colin-mcrae-rally-2.en.softonic.com/
The cockpit view is amazing!

that was me
and i already have colin mcrae rally 2 on the playstation
but i could give it a go
i mean it runs sega rally revo of all things

and i just upgraded it to sp2
so far vmware workstation 12 player is the best of the three i tested

Are you using the free one? Also does it still not do 3dfx? I ask this as i'd like to run 98 on it to play the older 3dfx games. Finally can you control cpu cores on it? (Games like Klingon Honor Guard and Mortyr for example ran too quick last time I tried them.)

Might have to set it up and dig out my Mortyr disc thanks. So 3dfx works under XP in it then? Or is Sega Rally usinng direct3d/opengl?

Also how were you running Midtown Madness? (as i'll try that as well, as last time I did it it ran but only in software mode) I'm more or less certain I tried Midtown under Windows 10 as well and had the same result.