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Comment by z3t4 | Hacker News Reader

We bought a Windows computer so the kids could play some old classics. Not a single game worked on Windows 10, not even in compatibility mode. But most of them worked in Linux/Wine ...

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Must be some old titles, it's pretty rare for a 32-bit Windows game to flat out not work in Windows 10. I'm even able to run Incredible Machine 3 (a game from 1995), albeit without CD audio. DOS and 16-bit Windows games however require an emulator like DOSBox.

Many 3D games from the mid-late '90s and early '00s relied on now esoteric hardware accelerators and APIs (like Glide) or GPU features that behave differently on modern hardware than the games expect. These might require a wrapper like nGlide or dgVoodoo 2.

Check the entries for your games on the PC Gaming Wiki (www.pcgamingwiki.com).

I've actually had to add Wine DLLs to a few older games to get them running on Windows. Games that use DirectDraw are the main suspects.

DOSBox? ScummVM? Depending one what age you're talking, those games should work fine on either OS really.

Yes, but... that's actually the product that Steam (and GOG) is selling you: The ability to just click 'launch' on a game and it knows what collection of DOSBox, Scumm, Wine, Frotz, WinUAE, whatever is needed to just launch the game.

Trying to get a Windows game running under Linux is an adventure in itself. This opens up the door for people who don't like those kinds of adventure games.

How old are we talking here?

I think they're from 2003-2005 System requirements: Pentium 166 or better. Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or XP. Standard installer, nothing special. They are on PC cd-rom. Got them used for a bargain, mostly learning type games. Could probably run them in an emulator, for example emulating windows XP in the browser. But you shouldn't need to be a sys-op to install a game. And you don't want to fiddle around if you have inpatient children waiting. My point is that the games specially made for Windows, doesn't work on Windows. Byt they do just work on Linux after installing Wine, most of them.

Did you get these games from Steam? I found that games distributed by GoodOldGames usually work pretty well on Windows10. I have a dozen of them and never ran into an issue.

GOG releases often includes compatibility and even unofficial community patches. You can generally assume that even their old games will work on modern computers.

Fallout 3 being an example, where Steam states it is only compatible with Windows 7, and the Steam reviews guide people to the GOG version which apparently works fine with Windows 10.

(It's weird that Fallout 3 is an 'old game'. Am I an 'old man' too?)

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