Windows XP gaming laptop

64-bit windows XP had a lot of compatibility problems, you'll probably have better luck installing 32bit XP instead, and some old games only worked in 32-bit mode.

Drivers will be your challenge if the hardware is too new that they never made XP/32-bit drivers for it. But otherwise I think it should work no problems.

The main potential issue I see is a lack of drivers for WinXP.
BTW which games do you mean by "that are not working with newer OS-s"?

I have only encountered a handful of games that i could not get manage to work on Windows 10 64 bits..

Best option is just Vmware with XP, and 95 while you are at it.

Besides what other people already pointed out, you might want to check if the games you want to play run on Proton/Wine, it can be easier to just dual boot Linux for a few games than dedicating a whole laptop to XP.

I wouldn't recommend the 64 bit version of XP. It has many compatibility issues because it's in fact based on Windows Server 2003, with an XP skin on top of it. 64 bit is going to be useless for running XP era and older games, anyway.

Also, if you want it for Win 95/98 games, 64 bit versions of Windows can't run 16 bit code, which you'd need for that (many game installers of the time were 16 bit).

You might consider running Windows 98 as an alternative. If you are using this machine to run games from approx. 1995 to 2000 or so, and don't plan on having it with internet access, you should be good with that.

I'm not sure why you want a laptop instead of a desktop. I think it will be more difficult to get XP working on a newer laptop and a desktop computer or components will probably be faster and cheaper.

There will definitely be a point where it becomes difficult to get XP working on newer hardware, but I don't know where that is. The manufacturers of the hardware will stop making drivers for older operating systems at some point. Some people get it to work, but I think you need modded drivers.

I was running XP on a desktop until 2017 with a Z77 motherboard, 3570k, and a GTX 580. I switched to Win 7, but can still boot into XP on my current computer. I haven't used XP in a long time though because all the games I have played worked fine on Win 7. I have been looking to build a new computer, but Windows 7 hasn't been supported in many generations of hardware and it gets harder with each generation to run older operating systems. I really don't want to switch to Windows 10 or Linux, but I also don't want to deal with the probably never ending headache of trying to get Windows 7 working.

I have never used a virtual machine, but maybe you can just run Windows XP on your current computer through a virtual machine. I think that works with any OS and hardware.

If the laptop is from the WinXP era (so pre-2007), it will work. You'll be able to install XP and do anything on it that you would do back in 2007. New laptops shouldn't be used, especially if they have SSD. XP doesn't understand what these are and they will deteriorate much faster than normal, not to mention any other driver issues you might have (eg. no USB, no graphics card drivers, etc).

I wouldn't connect it to the internet either, XP hasn't been updated for almost 9 years, it might not be safe anymore.

Wouldn't it be easier to use a virtual machine? I used XP on a VM to play some old games, worked fine once I got it running. No need to use an old laptop either.

try it in VM on your modern computer ;)

You can try the pcgameswiki site, just search for the game and it will have a list of issues and fixes for older games on new os's.

You know that in Windows 10 you can just spin up a VM and install XP on it, right? Why use a dedicated machine? It might be tricky to get things like controllers to work in the VM, but otherwise it should work for 95% of your old games without needing another machine. You just need to carve out a couple of gigs of storage on your gaming box and you're done.

How to create a virtual machine on Windows 10

This is reason #9576 as to why Windows, despite the issues it has, is still by far the best OS for gaming (although various flavors of linux keep getting stronger...and MacOS still sucks entirely). The massive support for peripherals and multiple solutions for backwards-compatibility are so underrated.

Using a dated OS is definitely not recommended also like others mentioned 64-bit XP is pretty much problematic. Depends on the game but most likely you'll be fine with a VM. Another point of view, running old Windows games on Linux could be a better choice. You can check those games here. You can think of it like checking games for Steam Deck (kinda same thing).

One more thing to consider is that a lot of Windows games in the 1990s were also released on the original Playstation. If you want to play someething like Dune 2000 or Magic the Gathering: Battlemage, it's probably easier to do with a PS1 emulator.