Windows XP Compatibility List
As for sound blaster sound, Windows XP does have some emulation for this built in, but it is not very good. Many games will detect a sound card, but nothing can be heard. A much better alternative is VDMSound, which is free! VDMSound has a much better compatibility rate and is updated all the time. That's why I'm also testing the sound in each game this time around. Notice in the screenshot to the left, VDMSound can be used on any .exe, just select it on the right click menu.
Note on Mo'Slo: The faster your computer, the less chance a game will run without slowing your computer down first. All Apogee games run fine on 486s, but Pentiums and greater have problems with many games. If you see a "Runtime Error 200", this means your computer is too fast. I have heard this bug only exists in games programmed in Turbo Pascal. To fix this, use Mo'Slo or other software that slows down the speed of your PC. To use Mo'Slo, type the following:
mo'slo game.exe or mo'slo /25 game.exe
The first command will run the game at 1% of your PC's speed and the second will run at 25%. A good rule of thumb is to try 75% then 50% then 25% and so on until you find a sweet spot where the game will run on your system. Once the correct percent is found, you can create a batch file to accelerate the launch process.
Update: Mo'Slo is still required in Windows XP. I haven't seen a utility to slow down programs, built in. But this time around, with a 900Mhz, I could not get Mo'Slo to get around any Runtime 200 errors. I tried 1%, 10%, 20%, but could not find a number to get the game to run. Maybe Mo'Slo can't handle around 1Ghz and up? Anyone find a similar program that works better?
Update #2 (Nov 2001): On Mo'Slo's webpage, it says that the evaluation version may not work on speeds over 700Mhz. I haven't tested the full versions, so I don't know how they compare. 3D Realms seems to recommend CPUKiller 2.0 now, but I don't. This program just starts a high priority thread that uses up CPU cycles. It slows down every process you have running, not just the game you're running. In my opinion, this isn't the best way to handle the problem; Mo'Slo is along the right track.
Update #3 (Sept 2002): Updated the chart once again for SP1 and VDMSound's Update 1.
Update #4 (Jan 2004): It seems more and more that full DOS emulation is the way to play these games, as opposed to slowdown utilities. DOSBox seems to be the best right now.