PC Need some help running early 2000s Windows games on my modern PC

[TruxtonTatsujin]

Some old Windows games have recently caught my eye, but I don't have really any experience with old PCs. I'm mostly a console guy. Not even really sure where to start, is there some kind of emulator that I could use?

The games I'm trying to play are the RASETSU series, they're Japanese only RTSs developed by Kogado Studio. I've been able to find disc images and box scans for pretty much all the games already. (I've posted them in the Repo section) The system requirements are printed on the back of the box if that helps. (Sorry for the quality, it's the best I could find)

 

[Jill_Sandwich969]

what exactly is the problem? Some game that were designated for windows 98 still run properly on modern windows.
If you have any problem try virtual machine

 

[bjork]

I'm not super well-versed, but I know when I've had trouble with stuff, running as administrator helped?

 

[RETRO-VETRO RETRO-VETRO]

You’re already off to a strong start @TruxtonTatsujin , having disc images and box scans for the RASETSU series puts you ahead of most retro PC game hunters. Since these games were released in the early 2000s, they likely target Windows 98, 2000, or XP, and may rely on DirectX 8 or 9, 16-bit installers, and Japanese locale settings. Running them on a modern PC can be tricky, but there are a few solid approaches. The most reliable method is setting up a virtual machine using VirtualBox or VMware Player with a Japanese version of Windows XP. This lets you mount the disc images, install DirectX manually, and run the games in an environment that closely mimics their original hardware. Alternatively, you can try running them directly on your current system using Windows compatibility mode and tools like Locale Emulator or AppLocale to force Japanese language support, though this method is hit-or-miss depending on the game’s architecture. For maximum fidelity, emulators like PCem or 86Box can recreate the full hardware stack of a retro PC, but they require more setup and patience. Once you’ve got the games running, you can use wrappers like DxWnd or dgVoodoo2 to improve compatibility with modern graphics drivers. Since you’ve already posted the assets in the Repo section, you’re in a great position to help others by documenting your install process, sharing which method worked best, and maybe even recording gameplay or writing a guide, RASETSU has almost no English documentation, so anything you contribute could be a huge help to the community. If you want, I can walk you through setting up a Japanese Windows XP VM or help troubleshoot a specific game install. Just say the word.

 

[Octopus]

Compatibility from program to program is going to be really finicky from that era of post-DOS PC games, unfortunately. Its likely going to take a lot of finagling and troubleshooting, game depending of course but I'm assuming an early 2000s Japanese title is going to take a lot. The most efficient way is running a virtual machine like someone above mentioned (I'd assume probably running Japanese WindowsXP or even Windows7 maybe), but that's out of my wheelhouse and I know very little about that stuff. I'd recommend mounting it with Alcohol 120% at least, that should bypass a lot of the mounting issues that are likely to pop up.

 

[Vexicrypt]

There are emulators for that, yeah, they are called virtual machines. They basically emulate another PC running any operation system you want, but you need to get them separately, they usually come in iso files. Oracle VirtualBox is a good virtual machine so try that. As for which version of Windows you need for this game, XP would be ideal since its the most modern one and easy to use, but with these old PC games its a gamble every time. Some might work better on the oldest option (Win 98 in this case), so its mostly trial and error thing.

 

[qw90700]

Problem with old games:

They look for specific location in your file system, naturally Japanese games look for Japanese named folders. It does make a Japanese Windows necessary especially for they wanna use Japanese regedit. Folders can be manually created in Japanese but regedit is shit work.

My advise would be as many people said using virtual machine, or install Japanese Windows 98. Find the old hardware as much as you can because you will have CPU and GPU problems otherwise. A game may have no idea how to run in a modern CPU that has 8 cores lol, and it may have no idea where to send graphical codes to where in your GPU. For example Windows 10 does its best to make games run ok as much as it can via adjusting how CPU process the game but naturally what it can do for GPU is so limited most of the time dgVoodoo2 is essential.

In my experience I learned that local emulators and even setting Windows time to Japan's time was needed to run the game. Other than this you may have bit issues:

Old games often needed to be installed, it would be normal that you couldn't just copy paste installed version of the game. And the shit is when their setup is 16 bit it doesn't work on 64 bit Windows, they would work on 32 bit Windows instead.

Another issue is 32 bit codes of games not working on 64 bit Windows. When it happens the issues are sound to input issues for the game may can't access even your keyboard. So imagine what kind of graphical issues may happen too.

Old DRMs are a bitch that modern Windows just kick them from their ball and completely prevent the game from running sometimes lol. Then you may need to find cracks or some stuff.

TL;DR: Since the game is too old better use virtual machine or find some old PC for better "ease of my mind" way to play the game ok, otherwise can run the game "somehow" but it would be very problematic.

Well good luck playing old games, soldier. <o

 

[TruxtonTatsujin]

Thanks everyone, I'll start messing around with virtual machines and let you know how it goes. Also this comment on one of the archive pages makes a bit more sense now. This is pretty much the only clue I have to getting this specific game working so hopefully it's enough.

 

[Tortuga]

Win XP games usually works just fine on modern system
sometimes you need to do stuff like put XP compatibility on exe
and in some rare cases i use DDrawCompat usually fix most problems if game have any

As for japanese games i use Legui Locale Emulator
really good software allow you to just right click and run game as jp locale
i never bother to use virtual machine for old games

 

[nobitakun]

I second that. My recommendation is to never use VM for playing games, everything native.

I usually have 2 approaches to play japanese old PC games, one is to use an old PC from 20-25 years ago, but in mini format. HP Compaq's with Pentium 4 were good back then, and they are barely free if you find one. My other approach is pretty new, but it's been working good so far: Use a Thin Client. HP and Dell have tons of them very very cheap, and you can find some of them with specs similar to a 2004-2005 PC.

I bought a Wyse CX0 with a VIA C7 1Ghz CPU, 1GB of RAM and I am using a IDE to SD adapter which works great, and it costed me 12€ in total. I installed Windows XP and so far I've tested Tears to Tiara, Utawarerumono and Resident Evil 1 & 2 and all of them work great. You only need either to configure Unicode programs with Japanese language or use the Locale Emulator.

 

[qw90700]

I second that. My recommendation is to never use VM for playing games, everything native.

I usually have 2 approaches to play japanese old PC games, one is to use an old PC from 20-25 years ago, but in mini format. HP Compaq's with Pentium 4 were good back then, and they are barely free if you find one. My other approach is pretty new, but it's been working good so far: Use a Thin Client. HP and Dell have tons of them very very cheap, and you can find some of them with specs similar to a 2004-2005 PC.

I bought a Wyse CX0 with a VIA C7 1Ghz CPU, 1GB of RAM and I am using a IDE to SD adapter which works great, and it costed me 12€ in total. I installed Windows XP and so far I've tested Tears to Tiara, Utawarerumono and Resident Evil 1 & 2 and all of them work great. You only need either to configure Unicode programs with Japanese language or use the Locale Emulator.

The best way to play Windows 98 Japanese games is playing them on NEC PC-9821 in Tokyo in your small ass apartment during a big Earthquake while trying to eat ramen!!! lolol

マジありえないんだけど！
(The user saying "No fucking way!!! Sweet mother of fucks" in Japanese)

lolol

 

[TruxtonTatsujin]

Win XP games usually works just fine on modern system
sometimes you need to do stuff like put XP compatibility on exe
and in some rare cases i use DDrawCompat usually fix most problems if game have any

As for japanese games i use Legui Locale Emulator
really good software allow you to just right click and run game as jp locale
i never bother to use virtual machine for old games

Thank you SO much for this. I've been fumbling with virtual machines for hours today. Finally got fed up and gave this a try. It really was that simple, turns out the only thing causing errors and crashes in these games on modern OSs is the Japanese text not being able to display properly.

However I was able to get 1 and Zan running in an XP VM and 2 on a Win7 VM. Only problem was performance was terrible and I had no idea how to fix it. I'm just glad I don't have to deal with that headache anymore.

 

[qw90700]

Thank you SO much for this. I've been fumbling with virtual machines for hours today. Finally got fed up and gave this a try. It really was that simple, turns out the only thing causing errors and crashes in these games on modern OSs is the Japanese text not being able to display properly.

However I was able to get 1 and Zan running in an XP VM and 2 on a Win7 VM. Only problem was performance was terrible and I had no idea how to fix it. I'm just glad I don't have to deal with that headache anymore.

That's good, you got very lucky then. However for some other games you gotta go deep into the bothersome route lol.

As for virtual machine performance, it had lots of work to be done that may even involve your BIOS setting for your motherboard but it would be the topic for old PC games you can't play that easily.

 

[DorfleFlorp]

Get virtualbox and then go find a windows xp 64 bit iso file or buy a cd off ebay, make a windows xp virtual machine and then install the games in there.

 

[Redwall Muzyczka Redwall Muzyczka Redwall Muzyczka's icon]

I have heard that virtual machines and apps like DosBox-X really help, but beware of bugs, weird compatibility issues and the super infamous audio glitches that come from having a much larger buffer than what was available when the games you tried to emulate were made.