I've got a bunch of old games that I can no longer run on Windows 8/10. If they can get some of those running smoothly, ReactOS will see a surge in new users.
Even though ReactOS' current main architecture is 32-bit x86, I would hope that the NTVDM gets ported over to the 64-bit version, which would be quite awesome.
Something I rather enjoy about Wine is that it supports 16-, 32-, and 64-bit applications all from the same prefix. Quite a nice advantage over Windows :)
As a hardcore gamer, gamedev and old games lover, I am finding sadder and sadder that certain games are getting increasingly forgotten by everyone, and noone even remember they are in dire need of tools to make them work.
It is the games from Windows 98 and XP era, many used some combination of GDI and DDraw that doesn't work at all on new Windows versions, DDraw emulation is mostly broken, and pity you if the game used DDrawEx (it was to mix DDraw with D3D).
For example I am currently trying to figure a way to play SimCity 4 properly, the game is too demanding to run in an emulator, so some kind of native implementation is needed, but it also uses DDrawEx, that is very poorly supported in all OSes except Windows 98, ME and XP (it doesn't work in XP contemporary NTs either).
I think this is the kind of games the OP is happy ReactOS maybe will implement... because for DOS games, DosBox is more than enough already in most cases (there are some exceptions, like Noctis that is incredibly CPU-intensive and runs at 3 FPS in DosBox).
Those old operating systems are quite a pain in VirtualBox. Qemu does a much better job, in this case. VirtualBox's emulated hardware is too new for some systems, and Win98/Win95 flood the CPU during idle time (because that's how things worked back then), causing the input processing from the VM to lag significantly.
Regardless though, this would legally require you to acquire a licensed copy of Windows 98, which will only become harder and harder down the road. Unless Microsoft decides to "free" all legacy software at some point.
ReactOS and WINE solve this problem in a different way, by providing open source solutions that everyone can use, copy and archive without cost or consequence.
