- finding a sound card that works properly on NT, and
- using a joystick with NT
However, there really is no rote formula for getting all Windows games to run on NT, no matter what your setup. So I'm going to point to Dave's Games for NT, a database of Windows 95 games which tells you if you've got a prayer of getting any particular game to run on NT, and if so, how to do it (and, sometimes, what to expect).
Version 3
NT 4.0 ships with DirectX v2, which is pretty basic (read: antiquated), but usually gets the job done. You'll get better game play, performance, and sound with the DirectX v3 drivers for NT, which are automatically installed with Service Pack 3, an 18MB download.
Note: this service pack also has the latest joystick driver for NT.
These Service Pack 3 drivers are full-featured DirectX v3 drivers, except they primarily use software emulation (instead of requiring you to replace your current video and sound card drivers with something like "Creative Labs AWE32 for NT with DirectX for NT" versions). In other words, they don't take advantage of the latest features in hardware devices.
That means two things: NT users don't have to hunt down specific DirectX drivers for their peripherals and worry about getting them all to work well together. However, nor do we get the pleasure of seeing them all work together: we won't get fast 3D video and sound while playing the latest games on the latest hardware, no matter what we do!
For a description of the improvements in the latest DirectX drivers, see the DirectX section of SP3 Readme - New in SP3.
Version 5?
Of course, the latest version of DirectX is Version 5 (there never was a Version 4, so we NT-users are really only one version behind!). NT isn't slated to get DirectX v5 until NT 5.0.
Do we need v5? Not yet, really. Most games require only v3 still, and if you follow the DirectX end-users newsgroup for any amount of time, you should find that even some Windows 95 gamers are having problems with the newest drivers (and thus reverting to v3), so don't despair.
A Word of Caution
Notice that DirectX drivers for NT are for NT, and come only as part of an operating system update. You can't download and install DirectX drivers without royally screwing up your system. You have either DirectX v2 (installed with NT 4.0), or DirectX v3 (installed with SP3). If you install Internet Explorer 4, you'll get one DirectX v5 driver in order to run ActiveMovie, and that's a beta.
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