best windows for older and newer games ,the dilemma!!

[caprirey77]

my build is: gigabyte b75 ,Intel b75 ,8GB ram ,GT-710 2gb,Toshiba p300.

I like older games from the 98 till 2010,and emulating PS2 ,gamecube etc.. games ... and used to use windows xp ,and had no problem with older games ... till I treid windows7, 8 and 10..
and found out that those operating systems ran faster and better such games emulators...
still both windows 8 and 10 32 bit have games compatibility problems with those old games..even if I try compatibility mode...some of them never open ,other would play but would hang or bad graphics...

windows seven would open most old games smoothly without problems....

my conclusion is windows 7 ,seems to be the best to get both of the two worlds.....

any suggestions?

 

[Alabalcho]

Have dual-boot on your PC - Windows XP for really old games, and Windows 10 for modern ones.

 

[Karadjgne]

Windows 7. Download DX9.0c sdk. Play anything released in the last 20 years.

 

[caprirey77]

thank you Albalcho ,karadjne...

regarding the idea of having two operating systems .. long time ago I used to have windows ME and Xp ,for the same reason ...because xp won't play some older games !

but I no longer like such idea... I prefer only one system...
I have 2 windows 7 versions
one is windows 7 pro without any updates ...another one with updates including sp1 and all the updates till last month...

which one better for gaming?
I don't need any security updates ,just need fast performance and games ,and hardware compatibility ...which one is better for me?

thanx

 

[Karadjgne]

I ran 7pro on both my systems for years without a hitch once I downloaded that sdk. I play old games too, like Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic etc. Some games I do run into issues, but that's less with the OS and more that it's on a 1080p wide-screen and many of the old games seem to run either 800x600 or 1024x768. Took some serious mod delving to finally get Kotor to work right.

For gaming purposes, there's not really any difference between 7 and 7pro, the basics are the same. 7pro just has more networking and explorer abilities, 7home is more for media type programs and files.

 

[caprirey77]

how about the light old games as Air strike 3d, air assualt etc..

I tried it in windows 7 and never works ... tried compatibility mode ,various resolution and now way...always gets error Airstrike has stopped ...

any idea?

 

[Karadjgne]

Did you have the DX9.0c sdk loaded? Win7 is dx10 native and many of those older games use DX9. Compatability mode doesn't work so well on games as the OS is missing essential files. All it does is trick the program into thinking its on the older OS as many programs aren't able to recognize an OS that's not in its scope.

You don't install the DX9 as such, just move all the files into the DX folder. There's no overwrite as the filenames are different, so no conflicts with DX11/12 as neither one has use for those names. It's basically just extra files that any DX9 game will recognisr/use if needed, kept in a location that's known.

 

[caprirey77]

Did you have the DX9.0c sdk loaded?.

I installed it as you told...but I'm gonna tell you about a mystery !!

It didn't work with the DX9 sdk..neither with any windows 7 whatever version it is ... whether the original untouched, or the fully updated till August 2017... but yesterday I had surprises:
1- I have a laptop HP g61 with intel graphic , I once installed a lite version of windows 7(size 580M !!) on it,and used it sometimes for going online nothing more .... I tried to open the old light game Airstrike 3d on it and it worked immediately !!! so I came to the conclusion that the problem with my pc was the full windows 7 versions I tried !! so I formatted my pc and installed such lite version on my build ,(it took windows 5 minutes to be installed !!) ...I installed the graphic cards drivers(official versions) as well... I have both geforce GT 710 and CPU G2030 integrated Intel hd graphics ivy bridge ..
I tried to open the game...but the surprise it won't open on none of both the cards!!!!
I thought maybe the monitor resolution(it is sony TV full HD)? I changed it to all of the available resolutions, from 1080 till 800-600 ..and no way!
I played the same game on the same build,the same TV before ,when I had the windows XP without any problem !!
what a mystery !! how could that be explained? the same operating system (windows 7 lite) on both the laptop and the PC build,but only would open such old games on the laptop but never on the pc...the operating system is exactly the same, without any updates on any of them ...
the problem :not the windows 7 ,not the graphic card . not the monitor
what is the hell is that?!!
pardon my ignorance !! just it seems incredible..

 

[Karadjgne]

Oh. Question. That laptop I'm goin to assume is running a 32bit (x86) version of windows 7. If the version you installed on the pc is 64bit (x64) you might have issues with some older games. Default installation for most every program is 'C:\usernamestuff\program files\whatever'. Problem is is that's the 64bit program files run through Syswow. An older 32bit game that's not 64bit compatible (all really old games aren't since 64bit really didn't exist then) will have all kinds of errors. Those programs absolutely need to be installed to (or run through at a minimum) 'C:\usernamestuff\program files (x86)\whatever' as those drivers in windows\system32 folder will be running the game,not the Syswow 64bit drivers.

WinXP was a 32bit version of windows and worked great, only issue was it was limited to 4Gb of ram, which was why win7 was a blessing. So, you may need to reinstall the game, use Program Files (x86) as the install directory, not plain Program files, if that doesn't get it, manually expand or install the DX9 drivers to the System32 folder and run the game not only as elevated (admin rights set up through the shortcut) but in compatability for XP. That's every trick I can think of to get that pc to run a program as 32bit, which should work.

Oh. And some older games have issues with multiple core usage, they were written to run on single/HT/dual core cpus. There's a setting, somewhere, (I forgot exactly it's been so long) where you can usually turn off multi-core usage.

 

[caprirey77]

Oh. Question. That laptop I'm goin to assume is running a 32bit (x86) version of windows 7.

yes it is ,I mentioned before that, the same exact version of windows 7 ,installed on both of the laptop and the pc... and that is where the mystery comes from !!...
anyway,I'm now sure that windows 7 would play such old games...
remains still the mystery : why the same operating system won't play the games on my pc,and play them on my laptop instead?
reagarding windows xp.... I have only 4 ram (more than enough for me), but the only reason for me to skip it was its laggy slow performance with emulation..

I emulated games such as crash nitro kart (my favorite kart race game), etc.. with both windows xp and windows 8 and 10...and the difference was very obvious ..
xp is not good with emulation compared to 7 etc...

I will reinstall windows again on the pc and see what will happen,may be the mystery get solved....
thanx Karadjgne

 

[caprirey77]

already found out ,what is wrong... it is not a matter of windows 7 or windows XP... it is the game itself (Airstrike 3d) is the problem , I tried to open it again where it worked (on windows 7 lite version installed on laptop) ,but it didn't open ,I reinstalled windows 7 again, and it played only once then when i close the game and open it another time ,it won't open ... I installed windows xp ,and tried the game... what happened on windows 7 repaeted itself on windows XP..it played one time and if i close it and open it again it won't.... conclusion: the old games I have ,if work on xp, then would work on windows 7 and vice versa....
may be the game has problem with my hardware(may be it needs ancient graphic card?) ,or may be it need far older windows as windows ME or windows 98 ...
so let me forget about such specific game ,and enjoy all other games on such great OS windows 7 ....

 

[Karadjgne]

Sorry it doesn't seem to work out, but good luck with the rest

 

[caprirey77]

Sorry it doesn't seem to work out, but good luck with the rest

thank you.. and I have lots of similar and better shot'em up games, and right now thrilled, playing the wonderful shooter game " Ikaruga" ...