JAAHAS: Windows 7 VM [..] I decided to move over to Linux and make it run my games on VMs
phaolo: Which distro did you choose? I'm still on Win7, but soon or later I'll have to switch too (alas).
Also, how do you run it in a VMs, did you activate it properly or with tricks? And can it use the GPU?
For the host OS I ended up using Xubuntu and I activated the first successful gaming capable Windows 7 VM over phone on each of my host computers and then created clones for offline and online gaming use.
The latest version of the guide I used for GPU / KVM passthrough can be found here:
https://mathiashueber.com/passthrough-windows-11-vm-ubuntu-22-04/
It should hopefully cover most things one may need to do to get a Windows 10 or Windows 11 VM working with GPU passthrough, but for anyone who would really want to get it to work with a Windows 7 VM too, it helps to know a learn about a the few extra details below that I had to learn more or less the hard way before I finally got it working over two and half years ago:
1. OVMF (UEFI for VMs) + GPU passthrough + Windows 7 VM combination doesn't like multiple vCPU cores being assigned to the VM, you don't want to know how long that little detail eluded me before I accidentally saw it mentioned on some reddit thread...
2. SeaBIOS (BIOS for VMs) does not have that problem, but with it you can't use Intel's integrated GPUs for the host OS because for some odd reason they apparently cause a "VGA Arbitration" problem between the host and the guest, even though the guest should not have any idea about any devices that have not been exposed to it.
3. This renders most consumer grade motherboards on Intel's side totally unsuitable for the task as while there are ways to deal with lousy IOMMU groupings, you need at least two 16x long slots for two dGPUs and they better work in 8x/8x mode unless you have obtained a board from GigaByte, as all other brands can only boot the host OS from the iGPU or the GPU on the first 16x long PCI-E slot.
4. The selection can shrink even more if you would like to passthrough an entire USB controller while still retaining ports for the host OS too or if you would like to passthrough a discrete sound card to the guest.
On the other hand, if you have a Ryzen CPU with iGPU, even an ITX motherboard might work just fine for a Windows 7 VM as long as you don't plan on also passing through a PCI-E soundcard and multiple NVMe SSDs to it.
And finally, you may wish to create a bit more up to date installation media with the Intregrate7 script and install MalwareByte's Windows Firewall Control for any Windows 7 VM you still want to expose to the internet.
JAAHAS: Do you happen to have any codec packs installed?
DoomSooth: I'm sure I do but I couldn't tell you which ones, if any. I'm able to play the cutscenes with VLC. The file is an MP4.
I could be wrong, but unlike the good old codec packs, the codecs that come with VLC may not get registered for global use in Windows, which could explain why VLC can play those cutscenes despite them not working properly within the game itself on your system.