Old classic PC games appear to get no love!

[Anthony1]

Man, it must suck to be fan of old PC games. Who the hell collects and plays old PC games? I would think that alot of the older games wouldn't really run right on a new type PC.

Plus, where do you find the old PC games? I guess on the web. You really can't find them in the stores.

It's funny how the video game hobby has all this nostalga behind it, and the whole retro thing, but old PC games really don't get any attention at all.

[Flack]

Well, I think it's just a matter of where you're looking. I love old PC games. I have been an active member of the #oldwarez community for the past 9 years now.

You're right, many older games don't run on current machines. One thing that helps them run are programs that slow down your PC, like Mo-Slo. Mo-Slo slows your machine down so you can play old games without them running a million times faster than they were intended to.

Then there are some games that simply won't run in Windows 2000. To play those you'll either have to have Windows 98 and boot up in DOS mode, dual boot your machine, or just get over it and skip those games.

Lots of these games can be found on the web by searching for "abandonware". "Abandonware" is the (false) theory that these games are so old that they are no longer copyrighted. The truth of the matter is, it is still illegal to copy and download these games; however, it's pretty unlikely that any company is going to come after you for downloading a game that was released 10, 15, or even 20 years ago.

[Anthony1]

Hey, don't get it wrong, there are lots of great and classic PC games, that should get as much love and admiration as classic video games, but in terms of mainstream pop culture, it just isn't there.


I'm sure there are groups of gamers that are loyal to early PC games, but there numbers would probably pale in comparison to the number of people playing classic video games.

You know, Maybe Digital Press should have a section just for old PC games. I wonder if it would get enough traffic in it though, to be worth it's existence.

I really didn't play PC games, until the 3DFX came out. I switched from Video Games to 3DFX based PC games for a few years. Basically from until the Dreamcast came out, and then I went back to video games and basically left PC games.

But still, I remember alot of classic PC games during those 3DFX days. Remember MDK? What about the very first time you played Unreal? Or the first time you played the 3DFX version of Tomb Raider? I know that 3DFX PC gaming is acutally very recent compared to the PC games that you are thinking about, but that was what I used to remember. Games like SIN and stuff like that. When the PC could first really handle 3D and fast action. In those days, the PC games rocked because of the Higher Resolutions. Consoles just couldn't compete with that. Games like Jedi Knight were absolutely awesome. EA Sports games on the 3DFX were pretty amazing too. Way better than the console versions.

Of course with the Dreamcast came progressive scan gaming on Big HDTV's. Then we got the XBOX and Cube and more progressive scan love. And the PS2 finally could hanlde progressive scan.

Computers still have the advantage in terms of wicked high resolutions, but consoles will catch up next round with full 1920 x 1080i support for HDTV.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've been thinking about classic computer games recently. I saw a new Donkey Kong for Apple 2 go unbid on eBay, $10. I look at a lot of the PC stuff and wow...some of it is pretty low quality stuff. Some of it's awesome, though. Console games seem better made and more playable overall than PC stuff, but the difficulty of installing an old PC game isn't high enough to warrant the decrease in popularity...I guess that's why people aren't so interested in collecting it (huge boxes? bleh)

Saw a new Ultima 1 (1983; Apple ][) on eBay the other day as well, though...$200 and climbing; the seller asserted it was a better copy than one which had sold at $500 a while before. Rather neat o_O

[hydr0x]

But still, I remember alot of classic PC games during those 3DFX days

you count those as classic? that's like saying later PSOne and N64 Games and DC games are classic

i have a few hundred pc games, no copies ;) i must admit that most of them are part of compilations though, only few are the original release as it would take up way to many space to store them

i've got Win 2000, Win98 SE and Linux installed to be able to play as many games as possible, but i'd need an old-style 2D graphics card and an Sound Blaster 16 to be able to play them all, i can't get ***** Kyrandia 3 to run because of my graphics card....

[Lady Jaye]

I still have my old Carmen Sandiego games as well as SimEarth for the Mac from circa 1990. The Carmen Sandiego disks are finished, but last time I tried them (before the diskettes got corrupted), my iMac crashed (too fast I guess for an early System 7 game). SimEarth does run fine, although way too fast too, but at least it doesn't crash.

I have a question regarding these old games (and not necessary for Mac, but also for old PC/DOS or Apple ][, etc.). If I find a copy of a game on diskette and manage to transfer it onto the computer (let's say through a Zip cartridge), can I run that data directly with an emulator? For instance, if I ran an old Mac emulator with System 7, would I be able to load my SimEarth game from my Mac OS 9 desktop? Because if that's the case, maybe it's the best solution for running old games from the 80s and even early 90s. After all, I've been able to load old System 6 games that I found in abandonware sites. Then again, maybe that'd be easier to achieve (regardless of the original OS) using a Mac than a PC.

Of course, there's one last solution that I used until a few months ago: have an older computer accessible somewhere to play those games. I had an old Mac IIcx running System 7.2.1 (until the backup battery died and the computer refused to boot up anymore). It was great for my old Chessmaster game (granted this is not as old as a game from the 80s, but I'm not even sure how it'd run on OS 9.1).

[YoshiM]

Lady Jaye: I'm not a Mac expert, not a Mac emulator expert but I would think some of the better emulators will probably allow you to transfer the disks into a type of DSK file that the emu would understand. That's probably the best as your floppies will eventually succumb to "bit rot".

Hydrox: Kyrandia 3 should be able to run on modern cards but you may need to scrounge up a universal VESA driver. What kind of card do you have? With Windows 2000 you can download a "plug in" called VDMSound which will emulate a Sound Blaster 16. Just right click on the program and select "Run with VDMSound" and away you go.

I think one of the reasons classic PC games probably isn't popular is because it may be a pain in the butt to run. For one you had to make sure you had enough base RAM to run a game. That required some tinkering with your EMM386 in your CONFIG.SYS file and what TSR programs were "loaded high". The non-tech people didn't like DOS and now having to adjust settings scared them to death. Sure you could let MEMMAKER or QEMM386 do their magic automatically but sometimes it would screw up windows (the former) or their special drivers or modes (like "Stealth mode" in QEMM386) would cause games to crash. Even then sometimes you couldn't squeeze enough base RAM to run so you'd have to make a boot floppy, something ELSE the common person didn't want to have to deal with. Then when there was multiple hardware available the user would have to choose what kind they had. What sound card do I have? Do I gave VGA or CGA?

Another reason is that PC games sometimes don't age too well. It's kind of a weird phenomenon where a person would be all nostalgic for Pitfall but would wonder what they saw in Commander Keen. I think it may be because the PC doesn't really "change" per se, it just gets upgraded but the old games don't follow the upgrade. Take Legend of Kyrandia (as referenced by Hydrox). It was a beautiful game. It kept my wife strapped to the computer back in the day and made her spend cash on the hint book. Fire it up today and it just looks and sounds like ass. I think this is a perception issue: it's still a PC, I can still RUN the game but the modern hardware can't improve the game visuals or audio. It gets diheartening.

[metal_head]

I have actually got a pile of old PC games, and I'm really fond of some of them. I'm particularly attached to my boxed complete Dooms 1 and 2.

Also got complete Zork trilogy and a whole pile of other stuff (Gabriel Knight games, Quake, etc.

Not as collectable as console stuff, but still a valid part of our hobby, maybe they will have their day at some point.

Funnily enough I recently picked up Quake for the Mac at a charity shop...I dont have a Mac but its nice to have it.

[Nature Boy]

The other alternative nobody has mentioned is keeping old PCs.

Can you use the switchboxes we have for our servers (which let you access, say, 8 servers using one mouse/keyboard/monitor) on older machines? Would the software work I wonder?

If it did it might be cool to keep something running. If it didn't the prospect of one monitor per machine *totally* doesn't appeal to me.

[Flack]

Well if you are interested, come quick -- I have 12-15 old computers in my trash dumpster right now. The fastest thing in there is a 486/66, the slowest was a 386/25. I called a couple of different places and nobody even wanted them as a donation. The schools said they don't take anything less than a p200, and even those go I guess to the vo-tech for kids to learn how to work on them, they don't actually get used.

I kind of chuckled when I thought we were talking about old games and then someone mentioned switching from Dreamcast to play them. When I say "old games", I'm talking about old CGA and EGA stuff. King's Quest I and the like.

One reason I think not a lot of people collect and play them is because if you're going back to that era (mid to late 80's) then the C64 and Amiga blow the PC out of the water in gaming respects. And there ARE lots of people collecting for those systems -- I know, I just picked up Hardball in the box for $3 the other day, which booted right up on my SX64.

Lady Jaye, I don't know about the Mac world but I do know about the C64 world. With the right combination of hardware and software, you can convert C64 floppies over to the PC into a format that emulators use. I would assume that the Mac world would have similar capabilities. You're already about ten steps ahead if you can read old Mac floppies -- The C64 1541 disk drive is so funky, that PC drives can't read it's data. To convert C64 floppies, you have to wire up a 1541 to your PC using an x1541 (or some variant) cable, and then use software to transfer that software over to the PC. I started transferring my 700+ C64 diskettes over to the PC at one point in time but fell off the path around disk 12 or so.

One thing that has aged horribly in my opinion is Apple II gaming. I owned an Apple II (actually, a Franklin Ace 1000) for two years. Recently I delved into the world of Apple II emulation, and it was horrible! Most of the games I used to play and like (Karateka, Miner 2049'er, Shamus, etc) were all done better on other systems (like the C64). The ones that weren't were so horrible that I couldn't even get into them.

[Lady Jaye]

Thanks for the heads up, guys!

Regarding graphical aging: it's true even for more recent games, not just games that 10 to 20 years old... I recently fired up Baldur's Gate on my Mac (as I've written before, I recently bought the Baldur's Gate expansion pack, plus Baldur's Gate 2, its expansion pack and Icewind Dale. It's probably because I'm used to the graphical sharpness on the GameCube, but I found that Baldur's Gate doesn't look that great (its gameplay is a different story). I can see the pixilation in the image. Of course, the fact that it's a 1999 game is a big factor. When we play Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask on the N64 or the GameCube, the age of the game really shows.

BTW, I too have the Zork Trilogy on CD. Picked it up for the Mac in a clearance bin in a computer store for something like $10 CDN and it runs just fine on my Mac. :D

[Stark]

2 classics that I have that should be played by everyone. Master of Magic and Elder Scrolls arena. Nuff said 8-)

[geelw]

i have a bunch of old pc games around here as well, and when my old computer blew up last year, i lost a load of saved games (yaaaah!)... @_@
graphics have never been an issue with me- if the gameplay is tight, i'm there to stay.

some more of the games that time forgot (and some of these should be remade one day)...

cyclones
anvil of dawn
battle isle 2200
system shock
advanced dungeons & dragons: dungeon hack
fallout
gabriel knight: sins of the fathers
wizardry gold
terranova
missionforce: cyberstorm
lords of midnight
space hulk (imagine this as a great, scary online or system link game on the xbox- i have a script written out somewhere around here)
the elder scrolls: arena/daggerfall/battlespire/redguard
and so forth and so on...

[hydr0x]

Hydrox: Kyrandia 3 should be able to run on modern cards but you may need to scrounge up a universal VESA driver. What kind of card do you have? With Windows 2000 you can download a "plug in" called VDMSound which will emulate a Sound Blaster 16. Just right click on the program and select "Run with VDMSound" and away you go.


yeah i know it's because of the VESA Drivers, there are VESA drivers for win98 or win2000?? never heard of those, i've got a Creative Labs 3D Blaster GeForce 4 Ti 4200 (64MB)

never heard of VDMSound either, sounds like it's worth a try, i always tried the SB16 Emulation that is included in the Creative Package that came with my card but it didn't really work

[IntvGene]

I just starting to collect a couple of my old PC favorites. I don't expect them to work ever in the future, but I do like collecting them for the art and the manual, etc. Plus, they are pretty cheap right now.

[Tom61]

DOSBox, you all need DOSBox. DOSBox is an emulator designed for running old DOS games on newer hardware. Runs under Windows, Linux, and other operating systems. 8-)

www.sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox

[Jorpho]

I have a creaky K6-200 sitting on my floor right now, equipped with an ISA SoundBlaster AWE32, an ATI Rage II+ (wtih TV out), and a Voodoo Rush, among other things. I haven't had much of a chance to make it do stuff just yet, though.

Anyway, the second best solution to DOS compatibility woes is DosBox, available at http://dosbox.sourceforge.net . It is progressing nicely.

Other useful sites:
Axcel216's Speed Up and Benchmark Tools (http://www.mdgx.com/speed.htm) (includes lots of old stuff like UniVBE)
Interesting DOS Programs (http://www.opus.co.tt/dave/)