This was my exact experience too, with Bottles.

For instance "Sims 1 is SO DIFFICULT to get running on modern Windows! (Complicated hacky guide)"

...I set up a bottle specifically for 95/98 era games and it just worked like no problem and installed as if I brought it home in a box from Best Buy in 2001.

Sometimes a minor setting tweak or something helped, but otherwise it's CRAZY what stubborn games will run well on Linux now!

And this is using Nvidia, too. Truly awesome times.