Good games that run on Windows XP?

[jb143]

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.

[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

[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...

[pacman000]

Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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