Games compatibility

falloutdemo

falloutdemo

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
hey guys :V


how does one play old games on windows 8.1?
i know there is dosbox for dos games and sometimes there is a patch available for other games.
also some suggest emulating windows but ive heard there might be some lag.

my problem is that i have a humongous backlog of old games and i think the best solution is to create a new partition and install windows 95 or xp.
but what about the not so old games like manhunt1 or deus ex1?do they work on w95?

for example if i install W95 quest for glory5 will work perfectly but probably manhunt 1 will not work.does everything work on windows xp? i dont remember.



i will keep 8.1 for the latest games but in the new partition which OS should i install?
 
You don't need a dosbox to play Fallout 1-2-Tactics.
They were made in the late 90s/early 00s with long term compatibility in mind.
They still work on windows 8.1. Same for the mods.
 
hi!yeah i know fallout 2 works great after installing the restoration patch
maybe i should clarify that in the original post sorry.

its other games like empire of the ants and manhunt1 do not work no matter how much configuration and patches i apply.
since i have lots of old school games it gets tiring fast to google every time for solutions about every single game :evil:





maybe this thread is useless and probably everything works on windows xp.but i dont really remember and i need more opinions on what OS is better to play old school games?
 
This is a hard pick. Windows 8 is very strange indeed. I've had some games that are REALLY old that I've gotten to work perfectly, absolutely no problems, and then I've had other games from the mid-2000's that have given me absolute hell.

In all honestly, it completely depends on what game it is when it comes to Win 8. I accidentally gave my laptop hardware damage a few years back trying to get a game to work properly (I screwed with and altered my PC's software, hardware, and drivers SO MUCH trying to get that damn game to work. Eventually I pushed myself beyond the point of no return ((literally, even rebooting my entire system doesn't fix the hardware damages. The only thing I can think to do next is to replace certain pieces of my laptop with new parts, but I'm not an expert in that field))), so now every single game I play has semi-serious lagging problems which, even though games are still playable, they can also get very frustrating (some games more particularly than others. For example, Fallout 1 and 2 will lag and the sound will start coming out distorted every five to ten minutes or so, and the lag will last about a minute or two, and then stop. Other games only encounter this problem every hour or two. So I'm serious when I say becareful in the changes you try to make to your computer in order to get old games to work properly.

One game I haven't been able to get to work properly is Return Fire (2 I think). The graphics' colors come up so screwed up that you'd have to be color blind to be able to enjoy that game. And nothing I've tried has ever fixed it (and I've tried a lot of things), and I've never encountered anyone who was able to fix it either.

For most games, a quick Google search will solve the problem. Sometimes it's something as simple as running it in compatibility mode, other times it's downloading a fan-made patch or mod, and sometimes it's a very complex twenty or thirty step process that can range from editing the software/changing the script in the games documents to downloading new drivers and/or software on your computer, editing that newly downloaded software to a precise step-list, and then running to Hell and back in order to get the game working. So trust me when I say it all depends on the game. Nearly every game is different, and a lot of the time the problems you encounter will be different. Sometimes will the problem will be trying to fix the graphics, sometimes your game will simply crash on start-up (Fallout 3), or sometimes everybody will each encounter a different problem trying to get the same game to run.

It all completely depends on the game. And, a tip from one person whose collection consists of nothing but older games to another old gamer, Google is, 90% of the time, going to be your best friend in the world when figuring out how to get old games to run properly on newer OS's.
 
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falloutdemo said:
i will keep 8.1 for the latest games but in the new partition which OS should i install?
Click to expand...
I'd suggest 32 bit Windows XP, haven't had any problems with running older games on that system. Unlike in present 64 bit systems, there's native MS DOS emulation through NTVDM built in. Just two things: I'm not sure if you'll find Win XP drivers for modern hardware, and 32 bit OS can't adress more than 3 GB RAM.
 
naossano said:
You don't need a dosbox to play Fallout 1-2-Tactics.
They were made in the late 90s/early 00s with long term compatibility in mind.
They still work on windows 8.1. Same for the mods.
Click to expand...
Assuming you can put up with the OS's horrendous UI, of course. That's not to say there's compatibility issues. Merely patience-testing issues. XD
 
Thanks for all the replies and info..i decided to stick with 8.1 because some games work after googling.planescape works,nocturne works,Tomb rai:grin:der 1 works and i will play manhunt some other time i guess.

@BigBoss your post describes perfectly what i've been going through.You know what the worse part is?when you finally get to run the game and it sucks.after an odyssey of copypastin,editing patching etc you realize it wasnt worth it all.thanks for the in-depth reply
 
I loved XP. Vista came out and I thought it was terrible, but then Windows 7 came out and it was awesome. And then Windows 8 came out, which is ok except for it's interface setup and the fact that, as per this thread, old games have a lot of trouble running on it. I still haven't downloaded 8.1 because a lot of people are saying there games stopped working on 8.1.
 
Honestly, anything that is an "OLD" game, I mean something before kernel.32, I would dig here for the actual hardware.


http://www.ebay.com/sch/Vintage-Computers-Mainframes-/162075/i.html



If it is anything that is Windows 95 or later, you will be able to find a version of that game, or a emulator/patch that will allow you to run it.


Partitioning your hard-drive with 8.1 as the master is always the best bet.


If you really want to be a pro, honestly using Linux as the master and windows as the slave in multiple partitions is worth the time and effort.

Once Steam goes with it's own OS or moves completely over to Linux with Source 2 I'm ditching windows.


http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/



 
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