Vintage 32-bit games on 64-bit OS

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Stringfellow

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I have been feeling nostalgic, and decided to reinstall some of my old games. I just tried to install the original Unreal Tournament, but it does not fire up the intro video, and crashes instead. It used DirectX 7, but won't launch using OpenGL renderer either. Has anyone had success in getting old games to run, a la Half-Life, Delta Force, Operation Flashpoint, Nox, etc. under Windows 7 or higher? Do they run using the Windows XP Mode module? Are these games lost forever to me? :eek:

I do have Wolfenstein Enemy Territory working, which gives me some hope.
 
Stringfellow said:
I have been feeling nostalgic, and decided to reinstall some of my old games. I just tried to install the original Unreal Tournament, but it does not fire up the intro video, and crashes instead. It used DirectX 7, but won't launch using OpenGL renderer either. Has anyone had success in getting old games to run, a la Half-Life, Delta Force, Operation Flashpoint, Nox, etc. under Windows 7 or higher? Do they run using the Windows XP Mode module? Are these games lost forever to me? :eek:

I do have Wolfenstein Enemy Territory working, which gives me some hope.
Click to expand...

I honestly have repurchased all my games digitally at this point from either Steam or GOG. Half Life, OG UT all work as far as the Steam versions go. Getting older disk-based games to work is just a huge headache that i've been dealing with lately too and emulation is no solution b/c of a lack of hardware acceleration in the emulation environment so i've resorted to buying a older WinXP-era gaming laptop for my nostalgia needs for liek $50.

Also, XP Mode was for Windows 7 only, although there are some people who got it running on Windows 10 I have heard. But honestly it's still just a emulation environment and doubt games would run well if at all. I recently setup Windows XP using 2 different emulation software and both of them when trying to run a game said that it couldn't find a Direct3D renderer so I just gave up.
 
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As mentioned above, getting these digitally will improve your experience about 353,000,212-fold. To minimize your expenditure, while most of these old games are super cheap anyway, just wait for a GOG or Steam sale, and pick them up for roughly $1 - $5. You could probably build up a library of all your favorite old games for nearly nothing, and they'll actually work without all the mess.

When I was younger, I loved the challenge of getting games running. Especially on hardware they weren't intended for specifically, or machines that might not meet, (or maybe exceeded) the required specs. Those days are long gone though. If I'm going to spend time with a game these days, I want to spend it actually playing the game. :D
 
Most 32-bit applications should still run, though you may need to fiddle with some OS/registry/configuration settings to keep them happy. As a general rule, OpenGL has better compatibility with DirectX versions prior to DX9. Also keep in mind very old games *hate* resolutions they can not natively display; you can usually force them to run in legacy 640x480 via the compatibility tab, then change them to a higher supported resolution in game later on. A final go is the disable the compositor, which can also be done from the compatibility tab. Also, if you can disable intro movies (which tend to run into codec problems), do so.

Aside from that, High DPI Displays outright break old games; there's a registry fix you can use, but you need to apply it to EVERY application that needs it. It works, but MSFT should really put a checkbox in the compatibility tab rather then force users to add entries to the registry manually.
 
Many older games you'll have to fiddle with individually to find fixes. It's getting close to an era where everyone that plays old games will just need to keep an old 2000 or XP box around just to game on.
 
bigdogchris said:
Many older games you'll have to fiddle with individually to find fixes. It's getting close to an era where everyone that plays old games will just need to keep an old 2000 or XP box around just to game on.
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While that's kind of a fun idea in itself, there really isn't a game I've wanted to play from those eras that I own in either Steam or GOG that doesn't run right from the start. Some are definitely better off than others, some improved or tweaked in modern times, others just barely enough to work, but they all run. I haven't hit one yet that didn't. The only thing I've had to change is that some need some tweaks to run better than they did when they came out (meaning wide screen, consistent frame rates, etc.) There are a couple of old games though, that I'm not sure are available digitally at this point. I've been wanting to fire up Heavy Metal FAKK2 for a while now. I used to love that game. I don't think I've seen it on Steam or GOG (though I haven't really looked either). That one is Q3A engine based, so it should do a ok after a bit of .cfg hackery.
 
J3RK said:
While that's kind of a fun idea in itself, there really isn't a game I've wanted to play from those eras that I own in either Steam or GOG that doesn't run right from the start. Some are definitely better off than others, some improved or tweaked in modern times, others just barely enough to work, but they all run. I haven't hit one yet that didn't. The only thing I've had to change is that some need some tweaks to run better than they did when they came out (meaning wide screen, consistent frame rates, etc.) There are a couple of old games though, that I'm not sure are available digitally at this point. I've been wanting to fire up Heavy Metal FAKK2 for a while now. I used to love that game. I don't think I've seen it on Steam or GOG (though I haven't really looked either). That one is Q3A engine based, so it should do a ok after a bit of .cfg hackery.
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Even then, some games on GOG for example do not play well with Windows 10 x64. A good example is Icewind Dale II.
 
bigdogchris said:
Even then, some games on GOG for example do not play well with Windows 10 x64. A good example is Icewind Dale II.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I can definitely see that happening, just haven't had it happen with the games I have yet.

There is one game that gives me some trouble. Escape from Butcher Bay. (one of my favorite games too) It runs, so that's not the problem. It just doesn't look as good as it did when I originally played it. I'm not talking nostalgia-glasses either. Something is wrong with the texture rendering or the lighting or something. It looks like its displaying low-quality mip map levels or something when I know for sure it shouldn't look the way it does. I've seen some supposed fixes mentioned, but I haven't quite got it looking the way that I know it should yet.
 
J3RK said:
Interesting. I can definitely see that happening, just haven't had it happen with the games I have yet.

There is one game that gives me some trouble. Escape from Butcher Bay. (one of my favorite games too) It runs, so that's not the problem. It just doesn't look as good as it did when I originally played it. I'm not talking nostalgia-glasses either. Something is wrong with the texture rendering or the lighting or something. It looks like its displaying low-quality mip map levels or something when I know for sure it shouldn't look the way it does. I've seen some supposed fixes mentioned, but I haven't quite got it looking the way that I know it should yet.
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GOG does their best to make games compatible, but it doesn't always work. They do have many games that do not list newer OSes as compatible, and as I mentioned, even some that do list it really are not.
 
J3RK said:
There is one game that gives me some trouble. Escape from Butcher Bay. (one of my favorite games too) It runs, so that's not the problem. It just doesn't look as good as it did when I originally played it. I'm not talking nostalgia-glasses either. Something is wrong with the texture rendering or the lighting or something. It looks like its displaying low-quality mip map levels or something when I know for sure it shouldn't look the way it does. I've seen some supposed fixes mentioned, but I haven't quite got it looking the way that I know it should yet.
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Worst case scenario for old games that refuse to run on Win 10, is generally running the old OS using virtualisation (or virtualization if you prefer american spelling). If you didn't want to install a full copy of say VMware Workstation, you could download a pre-built VM (there are lots of them around for things like Windows ME, Windows 98 and XP etc) and run that under VMware's player application, which doesn't allow editing of VM settings, but it is free. A nice thing about using VMware is you can run generic old hardware settings within the VM and get 3D acceleration through the virtualization software.

That might be an option for you to try and there's obviously other products you could use instead of VMware.
There is also a couple of free software tools out there that allow you to run a substitute direct3d driver / api and provide backwards compatibility for old games that don't support current versions of DirectX. That's another option too.
 
muz_j said:
Worst case scenario for old games that refuse to run on Win 10, is generally running the old OS using virtualisation (or virtualization if you prefer american spelling). If you didn't want to install a full copy of say VMware Workstation, you could download a pre-built VM (there are lots of them around for things like Windows ME, Windows 98 and XP etc) and run that under VMware's player application, which doesn't allow editing of VM settings, but it is free. A nice thing about using VMware is you can run generic old hardware settings within the VM and get 3D acceleration through the virtualization software.

That might be an option for you to try and there's obviously other products you could use instead of VMware.
There is also a couple of free software tools out there that allow you to run a substitute direct3d driver / api and provide backwards compatibility for old games that don't support current versions of DirectX. That's another option too.
Click to expand...

I've actually wanted to give a VM a try at some point, but to be honest I just haven't needed it with any of my games yet. They all run on Win10 (so far). I use VMs all the time for my design work, (and manage a pretty large environment at work). I use DOS Box fairly heavily though. (generally if there's not a newer source port for an old game I like, like say Exult for Ultima 7 or the like.) I actually recently beat Pagan on my Macbook using Pentagram. :cool:

I guess I really just don't play a lot of Win9x/2k era early DX version games, or I'd probably run into this more. I play System Shock 2 a lot, as well as Tron, and some others, but those have all been fixed or community patched over the years.
 
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I've had fairly good luck running old games even like Tie Fighter on Win 10. You do have to play with settings, and like everyone else has said... get the digital versions. Do not even bother with floppy/cd versions.

Video resolution is the biggest kick in the nuts I have noticed.... running Tie Fighter 640x480 fullscreen on my 27" 1440p monitor is.... painful to look at. Get used to playing in a window.

The VM option can work well too... even modern cheapo systems now have plenty of horsepower to handle old Win 98 games that used to run on 300mhz systems.

I work with some guys that kept their old systems, complete with old Geforce 3's etc, running XP or 98. I don't keep relics hanging around as I tend to sell off old stuff when upgrading. Someone on here mentioned buying an old $50 laptop, that's another option for ancient stuff.
 
bigdogchris said:
Even then, some games on GOG for example do not play well with Windows 10 x64. A good example is Icewind Dale II.
Click to expand...

Can I ask what the problem is with it?
I've had a copy of it for a while and just tested it on Windows 10 Pro and it seems to run fine - well it gets into the game and looks ok so far.
Screenshot attached...
IceWindDale2_windows10_screengrab.jpg
 
J3RK said:
I've actually wanted to give a VM a try at some point, but to be honest I just haven't needed it with any of my games yet. They all run on Win10 (so far). I use VMs all the time for my design work, (and manage a pretty large environment at work). I use DOS Box fairly heavily though. (generally if there's not a newer source port for an old game I like, like say Exult for Ultima 7 or the like.) I actually recently beat Pagan on my Macbook using Pentagram. :cool:
I guess I really just don't play a lot of Win9x/2k era early DX version games, or I'd probably run into this more. I play System Shock 2 a lot, as well as Tron, and some others, but those have all been fixed or community patched over the years.
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Sweet. similar to me then.
I've fired up a couple of old games under a VM - mainly for nostalgia - but every time I've done it, I take one look at the hideous graphics, remember how simple the game play was and turn it straight off again.
Ultima Pagan - nice. I have the whole Ultima collection - as you probably do too, but like my comment above - everytime I go back and fire one up, I wonder how I found them so fascinating years ago. Ultima Underworld 2 is one of my favorite games ever though.
Watch out for Underworld Ascendant and System Shock 3 from Otherside Entertainment. https://otherside-e.com/wp/
I really, really hope those two end up being amazing when they are released.
 
muz_j said:
Can I ask what the problem is with it?
I've had a copy of it for a while and just tested it on Windows 10 Pro and it seems to run fine - well it gets into the game and looks ok so far.
Screenshot attached...
Click to expand...
GOG version or disc version? I tried GOG and it didn't work for me.
 
muz_j said:
Sweet. similar to me then.
I've fired up a couple of old games under a VM - mainly for nostalgia - but every time I've done it, I take one look at the hideous graphics, remember how simple the game play was and turn it straight off again.
Ultima Pagan - nice. I have the whole Ultima collection - as you probably do too, but like my comment above - everytime I go back and fire one up, I wonder how I found them so fascinating years ago. Ultima Underworld 2 is one of my favorite games ever though.
Watch out for Underworld Ascendant and System Shock 3 from Otherside Entertainment. https://otherside-e.com/wp/
I really, really hope those two end up being amazing when they are released.
Click to expand...

The graphics don't look hideous if you still have a CRT, preferably no larger then 25" in size. LCDs ruin the look of old games and multiply the perceived effect of technology aging.
 
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muz_j said:
Sweet. similar to me then.
I've fired up a couple of old games under a VM - mainly for nostalgia - but every time I've done it, I take one look at the hideous graphics, remember how simple the game play was and turn it straight off again.
Ultima Pagan - nice. I have the whole Ultima collection - as you probably do too, but like my comment above - everytime I go back and fire one up, I wonder how I found them so fascinating years ago. Ultima Underworld 2 is one of my favorite games ever though.
Watch out for Underworld Ascendant and System Shock 3 from Otherside Entertainment. https://otherside-e.com/wp/
I really, really hope those two end up being amazing when they are released.
Click to expand...

For me there is a specific cutoff era for MOST (but not all) older games' visuals. I love DOS games. Even at 320x200 on a large modern screen, the hand-drawn graphics still look good to me. It's when you start getting into early polygonal games with horrible textures that I start thinking things look hideous. There are exceptions. I will still play System Shock 2 with only SHTUP. I love all of the old id games (Dooms, Quakes, etc.) though they were exceptional for their time, so it's not surprising.

However, there are a lot of older games that I think I'd still like to play again, where I end up thinking how you do. Just that most of them are from the awkward 2D to 3D transition period, early DirectX, etc.
 
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VIC-20 said:
The graphics don't look hideous if you still have a CRT, preferably no larger then 25" in size. LCDs ruin the look of old games and multiply the perceived effect of technology aging.
Click to expand...

True in terms of pixel size and shape - but you know what I'm getting at.
eg: Ultima Underworld does not have the graphics or game play complexity of a modern RPG - like Oblivion or Skyrim etc. That's really the point I was trying to make.
 
J3RK said:
For me there is a specific cutoff era for MOST (but not all) older games' visuals. I love DOS games. Even at 320x200 on a large modern screen, the hand-drawn graphics still look good to me. It's when you start getting into early polygonal games with horrible textures that I start thinking things look hideous. There are exceptions. I will still play System Shock 2 with only SHTUP. I love all of the old id games (Dooms, Quakes, etc.) though they were exceptional for their time, so it's not surprising.
However, there are a lot of older games that I think I'd still like to play again, where I end up thinking how you do. Just that most of them are from the awkward 2D to 3D transition period, early DirectX, etc.
Click to expand...

Yep - that's pretty much it. It really depends - old arcade games and sprite based games generally look good. Early 3D stuff tends to have very low polygon counts, low quality textures compared to modern stuff and given the age gap and hardware of the time, you can't have the same level of complexity in the game's engine or the underlying code - as you didn't have the horsepower to achieve that stuff back in the day.

Like you said - lots of old games hold up well, but others just make you shudder...
 
Interesting. I am able to run several old games in Win10 on the rig in my sig. No special compatibility modes or reversion to DX7 needed. All at 1024x768. Win7 same set up was just as painless.

Unreal Tournament runs in Direct3D. Serious Sam (both 1st & 2nd encounters) and Quake2 in OpenGL. All from original media acquired back in the day. Not sure this matters. All games files were transferred to storage drive long ago, and have installed from there.
 
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muz_j said:
Yes - GOG. On Win 10 Pro 1703.
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Hmm, I'm on 1709, but I can't imagine that matters. What directory are you installing to? What GPU do you have? Making any other changes/mods to it? I run it and it just flashes on my screen then disappears.

I do remember back in the 7 or 8.1 days, I had the IWD2 disc version at that time. It didn't work on those OS's either. The only way to get it working was running the Windows Application Compatibility Toolkit. Here is an example, it's the DDraw emulation support component that is needed.
 
bigdogchris said:
Hmm, I'm on 1709, but I can't imagine that matters. What directory are you installing to? What GPU do you have? Making any other changes/mods to it? I run it and it just flashes on my screen then disappears.
I do remember back in the 7 or 8.1 days, I had the IWD2 disc version at that time. It didn't work on those OS's either. The only way to get it working was running the Windows Application Compatibility Toolkit. Here is an example, it's the DDraw emulation support component that is needed.
Click to expand...

Weird. I'm now at work - so I can't check my PC right now.
But it's installed to my games disk - in a folder "G:\Games\Icewind Dale II".
NVidia GTX 1060 6GB GPU running a reasonably new GeForce driver (I haven't got the version handy - but it's 6 weeks old at the most).
No changes at all - default installation.
My OS is pretty heavily tweaked, so perhaps it's an OS configuration setting somewhere - but I can't think of anything that would cause the behavior you are experiencing.
You should already know this - but the GOG installer doesn't have any of the options that the older installer shown in that article does. It's the typical GOG "choose a directory" and hit the installation button.
 
muz_j said:
Weird. I'm now at work - so I can't check my PC right now.
But it's installed to my games disk - in a folder "G:\Games\Icewind Dale II".
NVidia GTX 1060 6GB GPU running a reasonably new GeForce driver (I haven't got the version handy - but it's 6 weeks old at the most).
No changes at all - default installation.
My OS is pretty heavily tweaked, so perhaps it's an OS configuration setting somewhere - but I can't think of anything that would cause the behavior you are experiencing.
You should already know this - but the GOG installer doesn't have any of the options that the older installer shown in that article does. It's the typical GOG "choose a directory" and hit the installation button.
Click to expand...
I just reinstalled it into the default directory and it now works. I was installing it on a different drive and somehow that must of made a difference.
 
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You may want to google for your particular game. Many old games not only run well in windows 10, but can also run at 1080p like Rogue Squadron or even 4K like Mafia, using HD patches.
 
muz_j said:
True in terms of pixel size and shape - but you know what I'm getting at.
eg: Ultima Underworld does not have the graphics or game play complexity of a modern RPG - like Oblivion or Skyrim etc. That's really the point I was trying to make.
Click to expand...

I agree completely. Some gameplay mechanics of old titles are frustrating, but some have aged well. I played through XCom Apoc again and its still a joy to me.
 
muz_j said:
Yep - that's pretty much it. It really depends - old arcade games and sprite based games generally look good. Early 3D stuff tends to have very low polygon counts, low quality textures compared to modern stuff and given the age gap and hardware of the time, you can't have the same level of complexity in the game's engine or the underlying code - as you didn't have the horsepower to achieve that stuff back in the day.

Like you said - lots of old games hold up well, but others just make you shudder...
Click to expand...

Same kind of deal for me. I find that there is something of an "uncanny valley" in early 3D games, at least most of them that makes me not like it. Really old games, like pre-VGA I usually can't do, just too crappy. Once you talk VGA era I find they hold up pretty well (if the game/graphics was good originally) and that continues with later sprite based games. Then you get to early 3D and I just can't do it, too shitty. Then as it gets better I'm fine. There are exceptions, some games made really good use of what they had and mixed it with a good art style, but in general I find early 3D to be something I just don't enjoy.
 
PCGamingWiki is your friend. The site lists pretty much everything you need to get most games up and running again. Recently needed to consult the site to get Hitman 2 (Steam) up and running again on Windows 10 x64 (previously worked fine on 7 x64).
 
muz_j said:
Sweet. similar to me then.
I've fired up a couple of old games under a VM - mainly for nostalgia - but every time I've done it, I take one look at the hideous graphics, remember how simple the game play was and turn it straight off again.
Ultima Pagan - nice. I have the whole Ultima collection - as you probably do too, but like my comment above - everytime I go back and fire one up, I wonder how I found them so fascinating years ago. Ultima Underworld 2 is one of my favorite games ever though.
Watch out for Underworld Ascendant and System Shock 3 from Otherside Entertainment. https://otherside-e.com/wp/
I really, really hope those two end up being amazing when they are released.
Click to expand...

Can I ask how you load up old games on VM? What OS are you using? I am asking b/c I tried loading WinXP games on VM and they fail saying I don't have a D3D device. Are you loading up older games than WinXP?
 
zamardii12 said:
Can I ask how you load up old games on VM? What OS are you using? I am asking b/c I tried loading WinXP games on VM and they fail saying I don't have a D3D device. Are you loading up older games than WinXP?
Click to expand...

I use Virtualbox for virtualization at home. It has an extension pack that adds D3D (among other things). I haven't tried it, as I don't have any games I play that don't work on a modern OS (so far) but this is where I'd go if I did. I do use Virtualbox to run some of my design software in, and the 3D previews work as expected, so that's at least a good sign. I think they're OpenGL though. It's really a decent package for being free.

For anything DOS era, I'd either use DOSBox, or find a source port specifically for the game.
 
J3RK said:
I use Virtualbox for virtualization at home. It has an extension pack that adds D3D (among other things). I haven't tried it, as I don't have any games I play that don't work on a modern OS (so far) but this is where I'd go if I did. I do use Virtualbox to run some of my design software in, and the 3D previews work as expected, so that's at least a good sign. I think they're OpenGL though. It's really a decent package for being free.

For anything DOS era, I'd either use DOSBox, or find a source port specifically for the game.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't hyper-v be better?
 
Stoly said:
Wouldn't hyper-v be better?
Click to expand...

Not for my personal uses, but possibly. I need multi-platform support for my design VMs because I use them on Macs and PCs, and I copy them to and from my work machines at my day job to keep my work separate from my work's work. I bounce them all over the place, and even tossed them on Linux here and there. Like I said, I haven't tried it, but they do have D3D support in their extensions pack. I would hope it would be enough to run a few old Windows games. Maybe not though. It's free though, and very small, so no point in not giving it a quick go. It's also really easy to configure.

I run VMWare environments at my day job, and wouldn't go anywhere else for enterprise, but I like to experiment at home more. I've been using Virtualbox since it was a Sun product. Never had a problem with it for the types of things I do. I've even run a Mac VM on Windows before with it.

I'd definitely love to hear what anyone who's used other V platforms for games though has to say. I'm always open to other suggestions. Since I haven't needed it for any of my own games yet though, I haven't had much motivation to try. I'm sure I'll run across something that I just HAVE to play sometime though, and it won't work on Win 10, and I'll have to force the issue. :D
 
My brute force solution was build a new rig around what windows XP was capable of supporting natively.

It boiled down to an A68M, 5600k and GTX 950, all of which have native drivers on a 32bit system, and all of which I got new unopened box, at least as new as you can consider 5600k and GTX 950 to be. The only limitation is that I can't use 4k resolution on my TV for some reason, but It's not a huge loss.

Bonus points for it doubling as a HTPC for my PC with Win 7 dual boot.

I tried VM but I never really got it working for one particular game (not US/EU made, a Taiwanese game), so I didn't try VM very much afterwards, figured running things natively is the best way, period.

Sandy Bridge systems would be even better though, natively supports XP all the way up to 10.
 
As long as the version you are buying again digitally is the original game emulated or not you should have fun. Its when they do a remaster and made edits or changes and things suck :(
 
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