[–] 2080876? 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
One thing that helps on many older games is to create a folder on your C: drive named Games and install them there instead of the Program Files folder. This is because many older games assume they can just do what they want inside their own folders but OS from Vista on protect anything in Program Files. But C:\Games is not protected and they can do what they want there. Try it and see if it helps with some of them. Just replace C:\Program Files\ in the path with C:\Games\
[–] SkepticalMartian 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
This is entirely correct, and it's surprising this answer is not being given the love it deserves. Post Windows XP systems do in fact have reduced privileges for program files and program files(x86). This is why modern games store save data and other things inside your user directories instead of where the game resides.
Some people opt to get around this by running the games with administrator privileges, but this is a very bad idea from a security perspective. No game should ever have to run with admin. Installing to a different location is the best way to go about it.
[–] SkepticalMartian ago (edited ago)
The problem with virtualization is that unless your hardware directly supports it, you can't dedicate physical video hardware to a virtual machine. This means that the VM will use emulation for video which is often bad from a performance perspective. This may or may not matter depending on the game. Software emulation may be fast enough depending on the title.
If your mainboard and CPU both support hardware virtualization you can install a second video card and dedicate it to the VM. Here is an example of a Linux host operating system running a windows virtual machine with hardware virtualization and two video cards, one of which is dedicated to windows while the VM is running. Performance is quite good, and both the Windows and the Linux displays can be hardware accelerated at the same time.
On intel processors, you can check if you have virtualization technology by downloading the cpu identification tool. Once installed and run, you can check under the "CPU Technologies" tab. If you see Virtualization Technology and VT-x Extended Page Tables as supported, your CPU has support. In supported mainboards, your BIOS will have a setting to toggle virtualization support. My old intel i7 920 supports this quite nicely, and many other modern CPUs in the last 5 years should too.
AMD has a similar technology called AMD-V, but you'll need a different tool to test for support. I don't have any AMDs here to test it with, but the information is definitely out there.
UPDATE: tried playing need for speed Porsche unleashed on an XP VM. Slightly laggy but definitely playable. http://imgur.com/PMWcgA8
[–] Arotaes_Forgehammer 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
What's your main OS?
[–] WhyWasIHere 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I'd advise checking out PCGamingWiki, just in case. I recently got Metal Gear Solid 2 to work on Windows 8, which required some stupid workarounds I never would have thought of to try, but I've never been disappointed with their support and explanations. If that fails, though, I guess you should check another comment.
I'd suggest using a third-party hypervisor, rather than Hyper-V, as there are only a few cards that are supported for direct passthrough with Hyper-V, and they're all expensive. I know that VirtualBox has some support for 3d graphics processing.
[–] ChillyHellion 0 points 6 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago
I'd give virtualization a try, since you can always fall back to dual-booting if using the VM doesn't work. It's much harder to undo a dual boot than it is to remove a virtual machine.
[–] Arkhound 3 points -3 points 0 points (+0|-3) ago
Hard to remove a virtual machine? You just delete it. It's harder to die from holding your breath than it is to remove a VM.
[–] ChillyHellion 0 points 5 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago
Right, that's my point: