Bear in mind if you run windows in a VM on linux host there is only rudimentary support for 3d graphics, no 3d games in VM and no 3d applications. Also it is recommended to have a beefier pc. If you want to run in the VM windows vista or above you need at least 4gb of RAM, better 8gb. the i3 series processor will do it, but i don't know how much power boost an i5 series will give you and if its more in performance warrant the price.
However some old games run just fine with wine under linux, like DW. Wine is an windows API emulator for linux, you can have a look at their Database of games to look if it is supported or not:
https://appdb.winehq.org/
keep in mind that anything with a copy protection like starforce, tages etc. won't run under wine! Games from GOG don't have this problem (but there is no guarantee they run under Wine)
The VM can be installed afterwards.
Also I would recommend to install a 32 bit windows instead of a 64bit windows in the VM client because of the smaller memory footprint of the 32bit versions.