90s Windows ran inside of DOS, and you can run e.g. Windows 98 games (through Windows itself) in DOSBox. Look up exowin9x where they're trying to compile all of the necessary configs for one-click launchers.

I didn't think that regular DOSBox had support for stuff like 3dFX does it? Or other weird APIs?

I had to use PCem to get support for that stuff.

I've had some success with installing windows in dosbox-x which has glide support. Faster and more lightweight than pcem/86box

I tried running the elder scrolls Redguard, on wine, which launches windows version of dosbox with glide support. Redguard is a weird beast which is installed only with windows installer, but the actual game runs in dos mode

Everything works but the frame rate isn't great

If anyone knows a good Redguard setup for Linux please mail me, you can guess my mail easily. Now I just run the gog version

Then you can use dosbox-x which can run any non nt windows version and has support for 3d acceleration

Again, I meant windows games, not DOS games.

Windows before NT is just a dos app, and dosbox(-x) can play all windows games up to those which require ME.

That is really not true.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20071224-00/?p=24...