Windows Compatibility

Question

I know there's some older games that won't run on Windows 10, even in compatability mode, but is that the only version of Windows where that issue comes up?

Answer 1

A few older games I'm interested in are the Croc series, Donald Duck Goin Quackers/Quack Attack, and Beast Wars.

Answer 2

"I don't have a decent computer yet..."

• What specs do you consider 'decent' ? Or, put another way, what is your budget, and are you willing to buy a second hand machine ?

Judging by your other posts, you are already playing video games, so you must have some idea of what games you want to play in future.

"...legitimately run any game"

Crystal ball gazing territory. It's impossible to say if a game is not compatible with Win10 without knowing the title.

Are you interested in playing retro games (basic pixelated old school graphics prior to around 2002) or more 'modern' games

with more realistic or higher quality graphics ( 2004 onward ) ?

You should be able to run one computer and be able to play over 90% of old post 2002 disc based games, but if you don't already have a collection

of old disc based games there is no need to worry as games bought from online retailers such as Steam, Good Old Games, etc. because they

fix issues with DRM , and do other tweaks and fixes so they will run on Win10 (with a few rare exceptions).

• Also, while there are heaps of second hand disc based PC games out there, you have to be careful as many games, starting around '05'06,

have limited activation's (3>5 different mobo ID's ) or are linked to Steam, etc

There is more to it than which version of Windows your are running as well. I have one old game (MS's Crimson Skies) that runs on AMD graphics,

but not on Nvidia or Intel integrated graphics. Two others run on Intel graphics but not Nvidia (haven't checked them on AMD).

These examples are likely due to problems with 'recent' drivers (from the last five years).

Some people still set up their machine to dual boot with Win7, or XP but you would need to be very attached to game 'X' to bother.

I was dual booting with Win7 in the first year of having Win10 because Nvidia 3D Vision didn't work on some games with Win10

and I had only bought into 3D Vision about a six months prior to Win10's release.

Didn't last long though. I couldn't be bothered re-booting into Win7 just for the few good 3D games, so I dropped Win7.

,

Answer 3

Technically none, since I don't have a decent computer yet, but I'd like to set up a few systems so I could legitimately run any game I might be interested in. As such, I wanted to know if I could get by with two computers at the moment.

Answer 4

What are the names of some of the games you are having problems with ?

There are exceptions of course, but vast majority of old games, at least as far back as 2002 and many earlier, do run well on Win10.

Pretty much any game that ran on Win7 will run on Win10. Fixes or tweaks that worked on Win7 generally still work on WIn10.

• However.... MS built a DRM blocking 'security feature' into Win10 that causes a problem with disc based games.

DRM blocking prevents disc based games from loading because MS are blocking the driver ( secdrv.sys ) used by SafeDisk copy protection.

This prevents old disc based games from loading while doing the disc check, unless you use a noCD fix\hack.

Other old forms of DRM also have problems with 64bit Windows. These will also run using a noCD fix.

More details in my post at -- this thread --

btw - MS also introduced DRM blocking into Win7 with one of their security updates back in 2015. Win7 users can uninstall the offending

update, so at least they have a choice in the matter.

Also - Using compatibility with an older version of Windows may be helpful with maybe 10% of old games, but with Win10 the compatibility

option - Change High DPI Settings - can be very useful with old games that don't have wide screen resolution options.

This option centers the image of old low res games that tend to load a bit off screen (down and to the right).

While most games that need this compatibility option will load, there are a few that won't.

.

Answer 5

Hi UnwaryCoin9457

I am Dave, I will help you with this.

No, this happens in most versions of Windows, usually games and software are designed for a particular version of Windows and may also work in the next version of Windows, bit then any version of Windows after that would have difficulty playing the game.

Say for example a game created for Windows 95, that would probably also work in XP, but would most likely not work in Windows 7