Two oporating systems one PC advice

[Tyrone1996]

Hello folks, I'm new on this forum.

I've recently picked and ordered all the parts I'll need for my first gaming PC build, but I feel I might need to get another older oporating system in order to run those older PC games I'd like to play sometime. I believe Windows 8 backwards compatibility mode isn't always reliable, and I may go as far back as DOS games.

I just wanted some advice on what other oporating system I may need to make sure I have less problems running older games.

This is a new build so I don't think I have to worry about backing up any files and such. Thanks in advance.

[Geek-9pm]

Windows XP is suitable for running most old DOS games. The advantage of XP over olde versions of Windows is that XP is still being supported. But that will end soon.

Using a suitable tool, break your large hard drive into partitions My personal prefer ace is two primary partitions s and  a extended partition.(About 20GB for XP, and maybe 80 GB for Windows 8.) The extended can have two or more logical drives. These can be used for projects, data, videos and backup. Actually, you can even install an OS on a logical drive. You have choices; but avoid TWO  OS inside a single partition!
Install Windows xp first. get it to work good, then install Windows 8.
Nota bene:   
Once you install Windows 8, doing a fresh install of Windows XP is not a viable option.* So get  the XP right and make a backup.

* not impossible -- but don't ask. 

[Allan]

Using a suitable tool, break your large hard drive into partitions My personal prefer ace is two primary partitions s and  a extended partition. The extended can have two logical drives.

First of all Geek -- USE A SPELL CHECKER

Second, there is no limit to the number of logical drives you can create (other than letters in the alphabet)

[Geek-9pm]

Patio Allan ,   corrections made. 

[Tyrone1996]

Fantastic Geek, thanks a lot for your help, much appreciated.

[Tyrone1996]

I forgot to ask before I get Windows XP. Seeing as its to help with older games, should I go for the 32 bit version?

My Windows 8 will be in 64 bit.

[Allan]

I think installing XP is a bad idea. First of all, Microsoft is about to stop supporting it. Second, Windows 7 has an XP compatibility mode that works just fine. If I were you I'd install the 32 bit version of W7.

[Tyrone1996]

Hm I see, what happens when Microsoft stops supporting XP, just that no content will be created for it anymore? I will only be using XP for running older PC games, I'll use Windows 8 for the newer ones.

[BC_Programmer]

Most popular DOS games now have Windows Ports. Some examples being, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, Rise of the triad, Commander Keen, and Quake.
For other games, you can use something like DOSBox, which is pretty much a DOS Emulator.

Some folks will stop me here, and say "But I don't want to emulate DOS to play DOS games".

Well, if that's the case, you can't really use XP either. XP, like any NT-based Windows OS, runs DOS programs using virtualization. DOSBox is just a much better approximation and is built to different standards- NTVDM (the DOS Emulator XP and 32-bit Vista and 7 uses) is built for compatibility with boring old business DOS programs. DOSBox is built for compatibility with DOS Games. Because DOSBox is a software emulator rather than a virtualizer, it also works on 64-bit Windows.Not to mention allowing a wider variety of games and programs to work successfully on XP.

Add in the fact that XP support is being dropped and it's 13 years old and you are setting yourself up for problems from both fronts. Newer games will not run as well on a 32-bit platform, and DOS compatibility is mediocre at best, almost entirely because of our current hardware. DOS games under XP will be virtualized which means they will be talking to your hardware, in a manner of speaking. The problem being that modern graphics cards aren't exactly tested to see how well they wrun in 640x480 with 256 colours or other lower resolution graphics modes that games use.Some simply don't work at all with those video modes or display garbled screens. Since DOSBox is a full software emulator, there is no virtualization, the game will interact with the devices the emulator uses Windows Graphics capabilities (OpenGL and Direct3D) to display what is happening. So even if your latest and greatest graphics card doesn't work with VGA's undocumented 320x240 Video mode that is used by some games, DOSBox does work with it.

[Tyrone1996]

DOSbox, I'll remember that thanks, but what about games that use Oporating systems after DOS, can Windows 8 handle those ok or should I still consider XP?

[Geek-9pm]

Very large list of games that play in DOS Box
http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?letter=a

DOSBox is a DOS-emulator that uses the SDL-library which makes DOSBox very easy to port to different platforms. DOSBox has already been ported to many different platforms, such as Windows, BeOS, Linux, MacOS X...

DOSBox also emulates CPU:286/386 realmode/protected mode, Directory FileSystem/XMS/EMS, Tandy/Hercules/CGA/EGA/VGA/VESA graphics, a SoundBlaster/Gravis Ultra Sound card for excellent sound compatibility with older games...

You can "re-live" the good old days with the help of DOSBox, it can run plenty of the old classics that don't run on your new computer!

DOSBox is totally free of charge and OpenSource.

[BC_Programmer]

DOSbox, I'll remember that thanks, but what about games that use Oporating systems after DOS, can Windows 8 handle those ok or should I still consider XP?

Most of the older games from Win98 or so work fine on my system (Win7 x64)- The Need For Speed (the first one) works in DOSBox; Need for Speed IISE works (and so does the non SE version). the Software rendering has some glitches but those are present with XP as well. I resolved them by using a Glide Wrapper, which let's me play NFS2 using it's Glide Version which also looks better and is a higher resolution. Need for Speed High Stakes (I believe it's known as "road Challenge" in the UK and Europe) Works as well, but I 'enhanced it" with some aftermarket additions which fix some of the issues. Of note? Those same issues occured with XP.

Age of Empires had some graphical issues running under Windows 7 x64, but those were due to a bug in Windows Explorer; terminating Explorer before launching the game (I used a batch file) fixes it. Additionally, the bug in Explorer was fixed with Windows 8, so the game actually runs better under Windows 8. AOE2 has this same problem, but AOE2 was also re-released as AOE2 HD (which is actually quite a bit better overall).

Some of the Early C&C games suffer form the same bug in Explorer, but that's an easy fix (and, again, fixed in Windows 8). I haven't encountered a game that I haven't been able to get to work yet.

EDIT: disabled smileys

[Tyrone1996]

Brilliant, a slight glitch now and then don't seem so bad. I think I'm all set then, thanks all for your help again.