Good games that run on Windows XP?

[Cornelius]

Just out of curiosity (and because I have several of these games on my backlog), is there anything that keeps these from running on a Windows 10 system? Most of my older software runs just fine so I never gave it too much thought. I know you have to install any DirectX components that aren't included anymore but that's not too big of a deal. Is there any gaming reason to keep an XP system around? Other than maybe hardware issues, such as old controllers not working anymore.

As a rule, no, not in my experience. I've recently run StarCraft and Diablo II. The former can be downloaded from Blizzard free now, so they have it working. DII I had to set compatibility mode and put to 16-bit, then there was some wrapper or glide thing that was recommended and super easy. I've also run Neverwinter Nights 2(?) without much problem. Diablo 1 took a bit more doing, but even that wasn't too bad.

[jb143]

I figured as much. I got the free Starcraft a while back, and all my Steam games still ran. I just wasn't entirely sure if most games would work in general.

[Edmond Dantes]

I've never heard of an XP game that won't work on later versions of Windows (hell for a long time modern-ish games were backwards compatible with XP IIRC).

Like was said most of it might be down to program issues. I know Riven: the Sequel to Myst will have graphical glitches if you install a version of Quicktime higher than (I think) Quicktime 5 or so--I had to go to Reddit for help on this once but wound up mostly soft-troubleshooting (see the responses). But then I think Myst III actually requires Quicktime 6...

I think some games also have speed issues where the comp can be just too fast. This mostly happens with really old MS-DOS games tho, but I know the PC version of Sonic & Knuckles (which was for Win95/98) has this issue too. That version also changed some of the music for some reason--I need to reinstall it to hear all the differences but I remember the Sonic 3 levels near the end having a lot of different music.

....

As for why have an XP machine, to be honest its because I mostly do older games and thus don't have need for modern OSes, but also because older OSes have little conveniences--like if you accidentally bork your installation, you can just wipe the C:\ Drive and reinstall (which isn't that big of a deal actually). Nowadays with DRM and Windows "licenses" I tend to not experiment as much because if I screw something up, I'm likely stuck with it. I remember having Windows 8 for awhile and absolutely hating how nothing was familiar and it even integrated with the BIOS which just bothered me to no end (you literally could only access the BIOS thru the OS, which is just wrong on so many levels. Fortunately removing the OS also made BIOS usage more traditional).

It's largely a matter of older OSes being simple and convenient and I don't have modern hardware (outside of this non-gaming laptop) anyway.

[Niku-Sama]

you should be able to get away with MechWarrior 3 and expansions on that hardware in xp.

but yeesh ti4200?

[Nz17]

First of all, yes, yes you should install and play Quake III Arena. It is excellent, and people still play it online frequently even today.

Second, I still run Windows XP on my main computer, and even "modern" games like the completely-up-to-date 2018 release of Team Fortress 2 runs just fine on WinXP. It is surprising how many new and recent games will run on XP even if they don't claim as such.

Third, search GOG.com if you want good DRM-free games that will run on Windows XP. Some of them won't, but they will state as such in their requirements and those are rare.

Fourth, are you principally interested in physical copies of the games (CD's / DVD's) or downloads? Knowing which will make recommendations simpler.

[gbpxl]

Did anyone keep their old computers from the 90s? I think we trashed ours every time we upgraded. It's harder to play those games on original hardware compared to console and portables from the same period

[jb143]

I still have my first PC from 94 or so. I keep telling myself that I'll set it up as a dedicated dosbox one of these days but lack of time (and DOSBox) has kept me from it. I mostly have the next PC I got around 97 but it got parted out over the years.

[Nz17]

I upgraded and upgraded my original 1993 PC until it couldn't be upgraded any more. Some time before the summer of 2002 though, it finally got recycled. However, as a memento, I kept its original floppy diskette drive from when the drive got replaced. I also kept that floppy diskette drive which replaced it after I recycled the computer.

When I finally got a newer desktop PC, I installed the still-working floppy diskette drive from my prior PC into it, and it's still there today. It was a way to pass the torch to the next generation. That newer computer, by the way, is the one I still use every day.

[Gameguy]

Did anyone keep their old computers from the 90s?

Yeah, we kept our old computers instead of getting rid of them. Ours from the 90's is an actual tower, but everything else bought new was a laptop as they took less space. I'm not sure if everything is still running properly but I'm planning to test it all out again and have it set up to actually use. It's been years since I've played old games properly on actual old PCs.

To the original topic, it's kind of hard to think of Windows XP specific games that run well. It's hard because I found Windows XP barely ran well on it's own.

[YoshiM]

I had to sell the old to buy slightly better. My first "current" and brand new PC was put together in 2002/2003ish- an AMD Athlon XP system. I used that until about 2007 or so when I started doing video for a local flag football league and picked up an Intel Core 2 Quad media machine-the most machine I ever had. And I still use it.

[Edmond Dantes]

Ok, was offline for a long time and forgot to check in on this topic...

you should be able to get away with MechWarrior 3 and expansions on that hardware in xp.

but yeesh ti4200?

What's wrong with the ti4200? It had good recommendations on places like Vogons (and I was told at the time that it was the best that would work in both 98SE and XP, though I've now heard contradicting info but the later cards that apparently still work are only slight improvements).

First of all, yes, yes you should install and play Quake III Arena. It is excellent, and people still play it online frequently even today.

Second, I still run Windows XP on my main computer, and even "modern" games like the completely-up-to-date 2018 release of Team Fortress 2 runs just fine on WinXP. It is surprising how many new and recent games will run on XP even if they don't claim as such.

Third, search GOG.com if you want good DRM-free games that will run on Windows XP. Some of them won't, but they will state as such in their requirements and those are rare.

Fourth, are you principally interested in physical copies of the games (CD's / DVD's) or downloads? Knowing which will make recommendations simpler.

That last one is tricky as I've played a lot of downloaded games, usually freeware and GOG purchases. Was an excellent puzzle game called Hex-a-Hop that I was hooked on for a bit.

But for the sake of narrowing it down let's say "commercial games that had a physical release back in the day."

Altho I also found that the fangame Mega Man Unlimited runs just fine on this doohickey, and using a Playstation-to-USB controller makes playing it indistinguishable from playing a console Megaman game...

[Nz17]

A ti4200 sounds good to me!

I actually was casually playing Hex-a-Hop for quite a few years. That's a good pick-up-and-play game all right!

Funny enough, I also use a Playstation-to-USB adapter for my current computer gaming. It works really well for the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night-esque game Timespinner, and Timespinner (which releases this month on September 25th) is compatible with Windows XP or newer as well as Linux and Mac OS.

Do you know that Steam still runs on XP? It might even run on 2000 still. Why do I mention this? A few years ago, Steam's refund policy changed. Now the general rule is, if you play a game for less then two hours, then you can get a full refund. So, as there are so many thousands of games on Steam which are compatible with XP, you can just buy what you find interesting, download them, and try to run them. In the minority of cases where they won't run, just request a refund. Simple as pie!

[Edmond Dantes]

The thing is, this XP machine has no internet access. There's no modem installed and I would have to literally drag it to another physical location to get a wireless signal (my internet situation is... weird).

If things ever change I'll look into that.

In the meantime I've been watching anime with it. This machine can play most videos fine.... tho I've noticed it have trouble with some, and I'm not sure if that could be fixed just by putting more RAM in it. Seems to always be stuff with larger file sizes (its using Media Player Classic with the CCCP by the way).

[Nz17]

Well, you could always buy computer games from eBay. There's a lot of XP-compatible software for sale on there, and most of those games don't require an Internet connection, just the DVD / CD to always be in the drive. That is, of course, unless you make ISO copies of the CD's / DVD's and use Daemon Tools to create a virtual DVD drive and then have the images mounted via Daemon Tools so that, to the program's CD checker, it appears that a real disc is in a real disc drive so you don't need to actually have the CD ever-present and spinning in the drive.

As far as Internet connectivity, I'm guessing you can't just run a CAT-5 Ethernet cable to your machine?

With regards to video playback, have you considered using SMPlayer or VLC? VLC is easy to set up and has a friendly interface, but SMPlayer has better performance. Either way, even their newest versions are, last I checked, compatible with XP, but if they are not, let me know and I'll find older releases that are. Make sure that frame-dropping is enabled and you should have really good video playback with them. Either VLC or SMPlayer should give better playback than Media Player Classic with the CCCP.

[Edmond Dantes]

I'll try VLC, but thing is the files that tend to have problems tend to be like.... it seems like if the file is either 1080p or else 400+mb then it'll have problems playing on this machine. Now, the machine has 512mb of system ram and a 128mb video card so I'm not sure if that's the problem or what.

Then again, if I load a DVD movie with Daemontools and play that, MPC has no issue, and DVDs are far bigger than 500+mb so.... not sure how that works.

[Gameguy]

I'll try VLC, but thing is the files that tend to have problems tend to be like.... it seems like if the file is either 1080p or else 400+mb then it'll have problems playing on this machine. Now, the machine has 512mb of system ram and a 128mb video card so I'm not sure if that's the problem or what.

This is the exact type of experience I've had with XP, when watching any videos online above 240p it would play back choppy or worse. I maxed out the RAM to 512mb too. It's just a bloated OS that sucks up all resources.

As for DVDs, they can be played on Win 98 hardware so they better play fine on XP.

Also I remember trying to play the PC version of Shadow of Destiny and even though my hardware all surpassed the minimum requirements, it ran so poorly it was unplayable. This is a game from 2002, I used this PC from 2005-2009ish. I could play other games but it was common for me to have issues in some way.

[Nz17]

Edmond, the problem isn't the file size of the videos, it is the bit rate (the number of bits per second) and the level of compression. Basically, a low-compression DVD plays back fine with your setup, but a high-compression video file that requires a lot of CPU power to decode that ends up decompressing into a high-bitrate video stream is probably just too demanding for the hardware.

Personally, I still run XP, and the YouTube videos run just fine with it even at 480p, 720p, etc. I don't usually try to view anything at 1080p or higher because my monitor's resolution is only 900p.

Then again, I spend most of my time on the same machine booted into Linux, so I am using Window XP and Windows in general less and less.

And, as for running Steam with Windows XP, it looks like that is going to end with the end of this year. It was just announced that starting January 1st, 2019, Steam will no longer be compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. It's too bad as XP is where I run most of my Steam apps and games. I guess this is just like years ago when I was saddened when Steam dropped support for Windows 98 and Windows ME. Otherwise Half-Life (1) would have continued to run just fine on my old computer! Alas.

[Edmond Dantes]

And, as for running Steam with Windows XP, it looks like that is going to end with the end of this year. It was just announced that starting January 1st, 2019, Steam will no longer be compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. It's too bad as XP is where I run most of my Steam apps and games. I guess this is just like years ago when I was saddened when Steam dropped support for Windows 98 and Windows ME. Otherwise Half-Life (1) would have continued to run just fine on my old computer! Alas.

Half-Life 1 _still_ runs fine on Windows 98 in my experience. But I got the game before it got Steamed (somehow I actually wound up with two physical copies... the first was the Adrenaline Pack which I bought new at Wal-Mart, but later the same pack but now including Blue Shift got released, and a friend who went full digital-only gave me his copy of those discs. So ummm.... I guess I have extra discs of HL1, TFC and OpFor which I don't need...)

Why the hell did Team Fortress Classic need a separate CD when its literally just an update patch (indeed its auto-installed if you skip the TFC disk and install the OpFor disk)?

On that note... one thing that bothers me about Half-Life is it seems some of its mods actually require Steam now. Back in the day you could go to ModDb and get stuff like They Hunger (which I thoughtfully backed up on a CD-R) and others which only required the latest at the time patch (which I also backed up on a CD-R--I was in the habit of backing up downloads in case the internet went down, and actually still am, I just use external HDs now). Nowadays though? I can't say for sure any mod will work on a non-steam version (they don't tend to say so upfront). I remember trying to play Afraid of Monsters and it decided to be an asshole. Like geez... Half-Life 1 runs in 98SE and XP, its mods should too.

I mean at least Doom WADs tell you when they need a specific source port.

....

So, wound up getting addicted to one of my favorite Windows 98SE games (well, originally a DOS game but there was a slight updated version for 95/98 PCs). You'll probably recognize it from these quotes:

"Skooboo. Zugzug. They're destroying our city!"

Orcs are so adorable.

[Rickstilwell1]

Did anyone ever try running X-Men Legends II on these specs? I never installed it on my old tower, but I am assuming that if Marvel Ultimate Alliance ran too slowly then the average pre-built XP computer from that era would struggle as well. But maybe an upgraded one would work fine. I do have Windows XP installed on a hard drive for use on my Samsung AMD laptop though with SATA drivers. That is much higher specs than what you are comparing to though. But I bet when I swap that hard drive in to my laptop, it should run anything at all that is compatible with XP.

[Edmond Dantes]

I've never heard of X-Men Legends 1 or 2... well, I heard of the first one but I thought it was a console exclusive, surprised there's a PC version.

Anyway, lately I'm looking into adventure games. There was this company I used to see on store shelves all the time, The Adventure Company, whose games all came in these distinctive black boxes. I remember ignoring them because they somehow screamed "budget" and all seemed like Myst clones, but now they're all easy to get... and in fact, I found one by accident in Goodwill recently (Echo: secretso f the Lost Cavern) which it turns out, will run on this Dell but not my older PC, so its just what I'm looking for.

Myst IV and V will only run on my XP comp too... Myst III will run on my older 98 machine, but my XP machine has a better graphics card allowing me to enable some minor enhancements. Finally I can enjoy the entire Myst series....