In 97 I was still regularly booting to DOS to play all kind of games. I'd use Windows 9x for internet (Netscape) but Windows for gaming? Nah. Space Cadet Pinball maybe.
Dune 2, C&C, WC2, Duke3D (the nemesis of Quake), Twilight, Crazy Bytes.
And MSDOS was relatively stable, quick to boot. Windows 95 wasn't. OSR2 was better. Windows 98 SE was OK, ME was not. NT didn't become dominant for home users until XP. Which was when Windows got reliable for home users. Although 2000 was also very stable.
1997 had:
Quake 2
Age of Empires
Jedi Knight
Total Annihilation
Diablo
All Windows. Granted there were still a few DOS games trickling out, but most of them also shipped with Windows versions (Carmageddon comes to mind).
I was still dropping to DOS when I absolutely had to but it was getting annoying fast thanks to the internet. I wasn't just using Netscape, I was downloading stuff. If I launch games under Windows then sure they might not run as good, but at least that download keeps crawling along.
Stability was also an annoyance admittedly, I was an early adopter of Windows 2000 because of that. That came with it's own caveats though.
True, Quake 2 with Lithium mod I did play on Windows. Because I never got my winmodem (which I had in the beginning) working in DOS.
Never played orig. Diablo (I'm sure I'd have loved it).
Wacky Wheels. Tomb Raider. Settlers 2. Battle Isle 2, 3. Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Duke Nukem 3D. Most of these are from '96.
At some point DOS games also worked kind of OK in Windows. Though NT regressed on it.
But let me tell you this: I've never been a sucker for needing the latest and the greatest game at launch. So I lagged behind. And some games I could replay and replay.
And I came from OS/2. Which couldn't run DOS games well.
PS: Carmageddon I remember playing on MSDOS, too. But I also remember that (I guess Carmageddon 2?) was also optically quite nice on Windows with 3D / GPU.
Wacky Wheels was 94. Tomb Raider was DOS, but it's sequel was Windows-only. Red Alert was enhanced on Windows (4x resolution, DOS was stuck on 320x200). Duke3D and the rest of the Build engine pack got left behind on DOS but they also ran acceptably well under Windows in spite of that. Carmageddon had both DOS and Windows executables, Carmageddon 2 was Windows-only.
It simply became impractical to drop to DOS by the late 90s. Once I got broadband in 2000, DOS was a memory.
Dune 2, C&C, WC2, Duke3D (the nemesis of Quake), Twilight, Crazy Bytes.
And MSDOS was relatively stable, quick to boot. Windows 95 wasn't. OSR2 was better. Windows 98 SE was OK, ME was not. NT didn't become dominant for home users until XP. Which was when Windows got reliable for home users. Although 2000 was also very stable.