Good games that run on Windows XP?

[pacman000]

Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2

Puzzle Bobble 2 (by Interplay, if memory serves.)

[Gamevet]

I have an XP machine from @2001. It has 750MB of RAM, a DVD drive, a 2Ghz Celeron CPU and an FX5200 Ultra. It ran games like Halo, Half Life, StarCraft, Star Wars: Jedi Knight, Star Wars: Empire at War and Unreal just fine. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was a buggy mess, that crashed way too often. I ended up getting an Xbox to play KOTOR, because of how poor it ran on PC.

[wizardofwor1975]

Edmond, if it hasn't been mentioned I would recommend Vietcong. It a great FPS for XP. I wish GOG would release a version of this game for Win 10. But that seems to be a pipe dream for a while now no matter how many people wishlist it. Who knows maybe its in the works. But in any event you may want to try Vietcong for XP.

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/vietcong

[Aswald]

There are many:

Deepica
Plumeboom: The First Chapter
The Golden Path of Plumeboom
Eternity
Wizard's Curse: Deadly Spell
Spunky's Supercar
Mahjong Dimensions: Tiles In Time
Gingertip's beautiful "Foxtail" (go to GOG and buy it!)
Inherit the Earth
Sanctuary Black
Elementals: The Magic Key
Ancient Wonderland
Azteca
Roller Coaster Tycoon
Exorcist 3: Stalker
Stargunner

Among many others. A number do depend on your hardware.

If you haven't already find and download "DOSBox 0.74." This incredibly easy-to-use emulator allows you to play MS-DOS games, like "Darkseed," the remarkable "Dreamweb," "The Legend of Kyrandia," "Dino Park Builder," "Bubble Bobble," "Arkanoid," and so many others. Since many great games are abandonware they are free to use.


Have fun!

[wizardofwor1975]

If you haven't already find and download "DOSBox 0.74." This incredibly easy-to-use emulator allows you to play MS-DOS games, like "Darkseed," the remarkable "Dreamweb," "The Legend of Kyrandia," "Dino Park Builder," "Bubble Bobble," "Arkanoid," and so many others. Since many great games are abandonware they are free to use.

Great suggestion on Bubble Bobble and Arkanoid! I remember playing them on a Tandy 1000 SL. If I remember correctly my Tandy 1000 had 384 KB of memory and an Intel 8086 processor running at 8 MHz! At the time it was a real step up compared to the earlier Tandy's with there 8088 processors. Good times...

[gbpxl]

A game I bought when I was younger that I really wanted to play was Neverwinter Nights. Took it home, installed it, and found out my PC was too weak to run it. Looked really cool though. I ended up buying Morrowind for Xbox and playing that instead.

[Edmond Dantes]

If you haven't already find and download "DOSBox 0.74." This incredibly easy-to-use emulator allows you to play MS-DOS games, like "Darkseed," the remarkable "Dreamweb," "The Legend of Kyrandia," "Dino Park Builder," "Bubble Bobble," "Arkanoid," and so many others. Since many great games are abandonware they are free to use.


Have fun!

Just pointing out that "Abandonware" isn't an official designation, its something websites made up to justify essentially the PC equivalent of rom downloads. So yeah its a means of playing games but we probably shouldn't give people the impression its legal.

One reason I ask about Windows XP specifically BTW is because I already have a separate comp that does a lot of older Win98 and DOS games (and Dosbox runs on anything really), I was wondering if there was anything on XP specifically that made it worthwhile.

I have found a few--Doom 3 (not the BFG Edition tho--that requires later hardware. Original Doom 3 will run fine tho), the later Myst games, freeware puzzler Hex-a-hop, the freeware ports of the Marathon trilogy (they're supposed to run on Windows 98 but in my experience they refused to).... I've also gotten a lot of mileage out of my XP desktop as a video-watching machine.

[Aswald]

Just pointing out that "Abandonware" isn't an official designation, its something websites made up to justify essentially the PC equivalent of rom downloads. So yeah its a means of playing games but we probably shouldn't give people the impression its legal.

One reason I ask about Windows XP specifically BTW is because I already have a separate comp that does a lot of older Win98 and DOS games (and Dosbox runs on anything really), I was wondering if there was anything on XP specifically that made it worthwhile.

I have found a few--Doom 3 (not the BFG Edition tho--that requires later hardware. Original Doom 3 will run fine tho), the later Myst games, freeware puzzler Hex-a-hop, the freeware ports of the Marathon trilogy (they're supposed to run on Windows 98 but in my experience they refused to).... I've also gotten a lot of mileage out of my XP desktop as a video-watching machine.

I don't think that's the case with what I found. Some of the links directed me to sites like GOG Games, so whatever site I was on was likely legit. Since many games were created by companies that no longer exist and were never bought up (including the rights to the games), many of them are in fact in a Limbo- abandoned.

Funny thing- there are two Mobile versions of DosBox-type software that run on my crummy Windows CE Sylvania netbook (with a whopping 50MB available...offline...): pckDOS and PocketDOS. The former is overall superior to the latter except for its inability to properly display CGA games like "Wizardry" and "Shadowgate." You get a jumble that looks like two small screens next to each other. PocketDOS handles them, but sound is inferior or non-existent.

Still, you do get the following (with a little help from SCUMMVM CE v1.3.1): Wizardry 1-3, Ultima (1 only), Shadowgate, Secret of Monkey Island 1 & 2 (play very well), Discworld (very well), Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, Lemmings games (cursor is clumsy and sound effects only), Dreamweb, Darkseed, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Legend of Kyrandia 1-3, Blackjack!, Hold `Em Pocker, Crimson Crown, Sid Meier's Civilization, Dino Park Builder (sound effects only), Inherit the Earth (both versions), LOOM (both versions), among others. Remember this was a pitiful little netbook so even if sound lags a bit or is lacking at times this was an amazing leap in its game playing abilities.

DOSBox 0.74 runs almost as well on the 2001 Sony XP VAIO as it does on the far more formidable 2012 ASUS. Thus a vast collection of MS-DOS games run on just about anything out there since most people here are probably not into tinkering with antique computers as I am.

There is also SCUMMVM. It allows one to play games on systems those games were never intended for. The actual game files must be available for it to work so it's not a pirate program. It has gotten a number of games to work just fine on the netbook, albeit only in 320h x 240v mode. I also needed the GAPI application to get it and pckDOS running. But what a difference it made.


Truth be told, even now that netbook is quite useful. It has good multimedia players (240p being the practical limit though), SoftMaker CE gives it document abilities nearly equal to modern Office (plus PDF-making ability AND the ability to handle things like Apache OpenOffice documents), pretty good art and photo programs, browsers like Opera Mini 5 give it decent regular browsing abilities, a good Hex Editor, Foxit PDF Reader, an alarm clock application, and a few others. It's the weakest of my gadgets but still surprisingly handy. Now that its game collection has been so greatly improved it's well worth keeping.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

SimCity 4 (make sure to get Deluxe Edition)
SimCity 3000
RollerCoaster Tycoon 1, 2 or 3 (take your pick)
The Sims 2 (the more expansion packs the better)
Mall Tycoon 1-2
Capitalism II
Oregon Trail 5th Edition

[Edmond Dantes]

I don't think that's the case with what I found. Some of the links directed me to sites like GOG Games, so whatever site I was on was likely legit. Since many games were created by companies that no longer exist and were never bought up (including the rights to the games), many of them are in fact in a Limbo- abandoned.

Just pointing out that abandonware is not a proper legal term. Granted yeah companies that don't exist anymore are unlikely to care if you download their games, and honestly I'm no legal eagle.... but just, yeah, don't get blindsided if someone with legal authority contradicts you on this.

I've seen weird cases where a page will link to GOG.... but then still offer the game for download for free. Like, seems like a bit of a conflict of interest there.

Funny thing- there are two Mobile versions of DosBox-type software that run on my crummy Windows CE Sylvania netbook (with a whopping 50MB available...offline...): pckDOS and PocketDOS. The former is overall superior to the latter except for its inability to properly display CGA games like "Wizardry" and "Shadowgate." You get a jumble that looks like two small screens next to each other. PocketDOS handles them, but sound is inferior or non-existent.

That sounds perfect for Wizardry, which didn't have sound anyway.

Did you ever see my post about Wizardry with my "Tales from Wizardry" stories? I really should do something similar soon.

[buteau57]

GTA Vice City and San Andreas are all you need in a computer with XP. In addition Unreal Tournament, KOTOR, Battlefield 2 are the great games which I used to love playing on my previous PC. I've stuck with an XP recently, we came to Montenegro 2 weeks ago to visit my uncle and find a property for sale in Montenegro. He has this very old computer, you can only play GTA Vice City on it. Anyway it's always fun to play this game.

[Aswald]

No, the site I went to didn't do both- for some games just a link leading to those other sites. The button even said "Buy It Here." "Might and Magic" was one such game.

Is it possible the cases you saw actually involved just a free demo version? But I get what you're saying.

Yes, Wizardry did too have sound- a little "puht" here and there. Truly awesome soundtrack...but trust me, in 1981 that game was THE BEST. Funny thing...it still is great. Curiously enough the Wizardry games alone are shown with RED, blue, black and white rather than purple. This is not the case for any of the others.

Currently that netbook can reasonably play 50 such DOS games nicely enough, but is incapable of playing others (e.g. Q*Bert and Crimson Crown). However, its gaming abilties have been increased many times over now, all thanks to the GAPI app that lets those other three apps run.

I am trying to contact the CORE Player programmers to find out if it can be made to skip video frames by default. Tests with converters indicate that if so the netbook can play 360p and even 480p videos reasonably well; imagine what this technique can do for the 2001 Sony VAIO (480p already) or even the 2012 ASUS!

What I'm doing is to try and show that older hardware need not become obsolete. Puppy Linux, installed as one of a Dual Operating System, has made that old Sony into a viable and 100% safe online device thanks to Opera Mini 8, which is sandboxed. There are other abilities too. Considering what that underpowered feeble netbook can actually do, more recent devices- which are overpowered for mundane things, as is the 2001 Sony- should be useful for a long time. That way they don't end up in those horrible landfills, which you see in Third World countries. Considering the rotten economy this will help everyone.

[Nz17]

freeware puzzler Hex-a-hop

Hex-a-hop is an awesome open-source game and it has a Linux port too!

lot of mileage out of my XP desktop as a video-watching machine.

Same here, but I also play a lot of games on it and even program software. The thing is, when you can find DRM-free software from places such as GOG (Some software downloaded from Steam is DRM-free too, though that's rare.), you can often get it to run without Steam /and/ on Windows XP even if the requirements don't list it.

Shadowgate, Secret of Monkey Island 1 & 2, Discworld, Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, Lemmings, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Legend of Kyrandia 1-3, Sid Meier's Civilization

Excellent games!

Truth be told, even now that netbook is quite useful. It has good multimedia players (240p being the practical limit though), SoftMaker CE gives it document abilities nearly equal to modern Office (plus PDF-making ability AND the ability to handle things like Apache OpenOffice documents), pretty good art and photo programs, browsers like Opera Mini 5 give it decent regular browsing abilities, a good Hex Editor, Foxit PDF Reader, an alarm clock application, and a few others. It's the weakest of my gadgets but still surprisingly handy. Now that its game collection has been so greatly improved it's well worth keeping.

Nice setup! It sounds like you have really gotten the most possible out of the hardware. I also used to run a lot of those apps on my Windows XP desktop computer.

SimCity 4 (make sure to get Deluxe Edition)
SimCity 3000
RollerCoaster Tycoon 1, 2 or 3 (take your pick)
Oregon Trail 5th Edition

Cool picks!

Puppy Linux, installed as one of a Dual Operating System, has made that old Sony into a viable and 100% safe online device thanks to Opera Mini 8, which is sandboxed.

I run Puppy Linux too. That's a very good and very efficient Linux OS! It is awesome for "live" USB drives.

[Aswald]

Since XP can run DOSBox 0.74 there are a number of great games out there- I'm just beginning to find out about them.

There is a game called "Troddlers." It was inspired by "Lemmings" in that you are trying to get mindlessly marching critters to an exit, but instead of granting certain Lemmings certain abilities you control a hapless creature that makes boxes appear and disappear to accomplish this. You work for a wizard whom is slightly more tolerant of failure than Darth Vader. The graphics even by today's standards are BEAUTIFUL, the music is great, and the gameplay insanely addicting. It works surprisingly well on the netbook.

Then there is "Sixx." Another addicting puzzle game with good graphics and great music.

"Tiny Skweeks" is another great game, where you guide angry critters to resting places.

"Jinxter" is an odd text-based adventure with images. It was a Magnetic Scrolls game.

"Blockout" is a top-down version of "Tetris."

The classic "Digger," a "Mr. Do!" type game.

"Locomotion" can look like a ColecoVision game- change tracks, guide trains. Great fun.

And there are new DOS games, such as "EGACGA."


With the netbook, it's curious. "Last Half of Darkness" crashes every time, but with PocketDOS "Last Half of Darkness 2" works just fine.

To be honest that netbook's limits are showing. The libraries around here recently have agreement pages that block it from getting online, the Yahoo! search page does not work properly, the Youtube search page does not work properly, and since one cannot download 240p Youtube videos any longer from sites it can use- minimum 360p- that is a serious blow because its players cannot go beyond 240p for good playback. This is why I want to get either the TCPMP or CORE Players to deliberately skip every other video frame- converting 360p and even 480p videos to 12 FPS versions allow decent playback. But man, just try to find out how to get started on any of these projects, it would count as one of the Labors of Hercules.

The Sony of course has advantages. Now, if that technician can reinstall XP Home Edition in it, so it works again that would be great- it was clearly allergic to Professional.

And it's worth mentioning yet again

[Edmond Dantes]

With the netbook, it's curious. "Last Half of Darkness" crashes every time, but with PocketDOS "Last Half of Darkness 2" works just fine.

Last Half of Darkness 1 and 2 are finagly beeches. I can run them on my MS-DOS machine if I slow the machine way down (they have an issue where one mouse click will detect as multiple clicks which can cause text to clear away too soon). I recall the third game having a glitch that makes it unbeatable--there's a part where you're supposed to use something on a dog and it turns into a woman but whenever I played it just corrupts like hell.

There's apparently six games in the series, one a CD-ROM game just called Last Half of Darkness, which nobody seems to have an actual CD-ROM of but ISOs can be found online (I would love to have a complete boxed copy of this as it apparently came with feelies) plus two more that both have a subtitle like "The Souls of Soemthing or Other"

[Nz17]

youtube-dl can download 240p, 144p, and audio-only variants of YouTube videos. It is a Python program. So as long as you can run Python on the computer then you should be able to download videos in the resolutions you can use.

[Edmond Dantes]

Thanks, but I actually already have a way to download youtube videos.

Actually funny thing my XP machine can handle 720p... for some reason tho full 1080p can stress it (the audio often desyncs).

[Canija]

GTA Vice City and San Andreas are all you need in a computer with XP. In addition Unreal Tournament, KOTOR, Battlefield 2 are the great games which I used to love playing on my previous PC. I've stuck with an XP recently, we came to Spain 2 weeks ago to visit my uncle and found that some time soon local property would go down in price according to different articles. Hope to live next to him in a year or two

Are you sure that XP runs these games? Even Microsoft Office is too hard for this OS.

[Highwind Dragoon]

The ENTIRE (1-3) Empire earth Series. (Available on GoG.com)

[Rickstilwell1]

I just built a Windows XP gaming comp. Its a 2.80ghz Pentium 4 (so single core), 512 ram (though the motherboard can be upgraded to 2gig), with a Geforce 4 ti4200 and a Soundblaster Audigy 2. In other words, a comp I would've considered a powerhouse at the time, but it can only run Doom 3 on medium settings.

But ya know... got new hardware, wondering what games to run on it.

Games I already own are Doom 3, but also the Myst series (I got all of them in a box last year) and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. But this was the period where I basically stopped paying attention to PCs so I'm not sure if there's any underappreciated XP gems to look out for.

(EDIT: It just occured to me that in my "list" I forgot to mention Windows 98 games that also have XP compatibility, so I probably have more than I think I do).

So, suggestions?

I basically have two Dell towers from back in the day with these specs minus the Geforce and Soundblaster. Apparently they are a little bit better than the eMachines and the home built XP era towers I owned before them (both of which died due to being cheap components). I never really played anything graphics heavy for the time and just went with games that the processor and RAM could run on their own. My sound cards are generic so DOS games usually don't play any music when I choose Soundblaster. The disc games I usually played were just Sonic 3D Blast, Diablo, Diablo 2 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 most of the time. I think I was able to run Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee without a graphics card too but I didn't get that on PC until 6 years ago.

It is pretty interesting though seeing you post this because it makes me realize that hey all I need to buy are two parts, plug them in, get drivers and I can have a good retro setup. Then maybe I can get the thing to run 3D games I couldn't run well or at all on these like Sonic Adventure DX, X-Men Legends II, or Serious Sam.

I also used to play with emulators and Mugen a lot on my Dell Inspiron 1100 which had an Intel Celeron Processor, which is supposedly a step below a Pentium of the same generation? My Dell Inspiron Mini netbook is even never and has an Intel Atom which is supposed to be a step below a Celeron of the same Generation. I think Atom is to Celeron is to Pentium as i3 is to i5 is to i7 from my understanding, but only if you're talking about the same generation. My inspiron Mini has Windows 7 on it and can run things just as well as the old Inspiron laptop. 1gb ram is definitely better than 512MB.

Without graphics cards, the best I could do emulation wise was Playstation. Nintendo 64 just wouldn't work well and don't even think about Sega Saturn or Dreamcast. Those start working on i3 era computers.


Looks like Sonic Adventure DX (disc release) might be a stretch because not only does it need a graphics card (GeForce 7300 series or better, which is more advanced than what you have), it also needs the processor to be set to 3GHz and at least 1GB RAM. I don't think I should get my hopes up on trying to run that on one of my XP machines. I could probably run it fine on any of my Windows 7 era laptops on processing power alone. X-Men Legends II however sounds like you could run it with what you have. It will even work on a Pentium 3 with just a GeForce 2+.

I guess to play Sonic Adventure DX for PC when it came out and used Windows XP, you had to have a pretty high end PC build for the time. Many specs of a 7300 are double those of a 4200.


Actually, it turns out the Dell Dimension 4300 I have used for years is an older generation copy of that model that is labeled "Designed for Windows ME/2000 and the Dell Dimension 3000 I have is newer, more compact and says "Designed for Windows XP." I bought the 4300 from a friend for $50 and a shared pizza after my home built PC from a relative died. Now I have no idea if this 4300 was weaker than my original eMachines or not. I am starting to think it probably was. I have no idea what the home built PC was but I am going to guess really cheap. Both of these Dell computers have Pentium 4's but the 4300 has a single core 1500MHZ processor while the 3000 has a dual core 2.80 + 2.79 GHZ processor. All I know is that the 3000 obviously wins among all my old towers and if I were to choose one to upgrade, that would have to be it. My 4300 actually has an old version of LxLe on it right now but that may be subject to change. Maybe I'll look for a Windows ME image and try out the Windows ME activation code it originally came with. I have enough old laptops and netbooks running LxLe.