Running 90's era games today- what are my options?

[Hyp81]

Alright, handful of questions I hope you all can help me out with.

I really want to be able to play my 90's era PC games, like Age Of Empires, TIE Fighter, Doom, etc, today, in modern times.

I have a brand new HP Pavilion that I bought to replace the PC desktop unit my ex took when she left. Hers was about two years old, circa 2010 or so. When I installed Age of Empires on it, the game was odd looking. The colors were off and it looked very "pixelated." I never tried to install any of the others after that, since they were quite a bit older.

I have my original PC from college. It is a Dell custom-order from 1999. Up until I moved out of my parents house five years ago, it was working fine for me. When I moved out I did not take it, and they disconnected and stored it. It has TIE Fighter and all the others already installed, but I no longer have the monitor it came with (my parents gave it away).

When I tried it today with my new monitor, nothing appeared on the monitor, and the monitor said it was getting no signal. The cord fit fine, but no images appeared.

So here are my questions in no particular order.

1) Are modern monitors incompatible with older PC's like my '99 Dell? If not, what could be wrong with it-- something internal to the PC, or just a different monitor connection needed? There are numerous other types of ports on the back of the Dell that are similar to the plug in I used for the monitor. I honestly don't recall which specific port I used when I had the original monitor with it.

2) If modern monitors are not compatible, will it be possible to make my older games work on my new HP Pavilion? Or am I "doomed" to never fly missions for the Empire again?

I am not a computer guru, so I am definitely willing to consider other options posed by folks smarter than me in this regards. So if you have a thought... please share it!

[Hazerd]

Windows 7 doesnt work too well with Windows XP and older games, some work with patches, or compatibility mode.

As for your computer from 99, it's probably no good, hard to say for sure unless i looked at it, im not very good at explaining stuff lol.

The monitor shouldnt matter, you can use any monitor as long as you can plug it into DVI/VGA, if nothing comes up, it's probably the video card, and if it's onboard video (meaning your plugging it into the motherboard) it's trashed.

Also if you could figure out the specs of said dell computer from 99, i might beable to recommend you a replacement video card for cheap that you could test out.

I have a "retro" gaming computer for games from the late 90's to mid 2000's

This is from late 2003

1gb DDR SDRAM
Radeon 9800 128mb AGP x4/x8
AMD Athlon XP 2400+ @ 2.0ghz
Windows XP Professional 32 bit

Haven't used it in about a year, but im pretty sure it will turn on and if something was wrong with it, i could fix it for cheap.

[isiolia]

I have a brand new HP Pavilion that I bought to replace the PC desktop unit my ex took when she left. Hers was about two years old, circa 2010 or so. When I installed Age of Empires on it, the game was odd looking. The colors were off and it looked very "pixelated." I never tried to install any of the others after that, since they were quite a bit older.

Age of Empires is known to have those issues with Windows 7. There are a few suggested workarounds - disabling themes, an app called D3D Windower, simply minimizing and maximizing it, and so on.

That one is actually a Windows application though. Some of the others you have aren't.

DOS games typically you can look to DOSBox. Earlier Windows games may work similarly fine in a virtual machine - though most modern VMs aren't really tuned for 95/98 anymore.

When I tried it today with my new monitor, nothing appeared on the monitor, and the monitor said it was getting no signal. The cord fit fine, but no images appeared.

A few possibilities there. Could be that your monitor was not set to the correct input. Could be that your old Dell has a video card that requires sync on green, and your new monitor doesn't have it. Or it could just be that your monitor doesn't support the particular video mode your old PC is putting out. More likely if your "monitor" is actually a TV.
On the PC side, if you have a discrete card in the PC, that will disable the onboard video. If you have a discrete card, and plugged the VGA cable into that, you might pop the machine open and just double check that the card is seated. If it's been in storage or moved around a bunch over the years, it's possible it shifted.

[Hyp81]

A few possibilities there. Could be that your monitor was not set to the correct input. Could be that your old Dell has a video card that requires sync on green, and your new monitor doesn't have it. Or it could just be that your monitor doesn't support the particular video mode your old PC is putting out. More likely if your "monitor" is actually a TV.

No way to fix these issues, I take it?

The old Dell is an Optiplex GX1. Windows 98. Intel Pentium III processor. No idea what type of video card it has, but I can tell you I never purchased or upgraded it, so I am assuming it has whatever a Dell PC for a college student typically came with back then.

[Hyp81]

I have a "retro" gaming computer for games from the late 90's to mid 2000's

This is from late 2003

1gb DDR SDRAM
Radeon 9800 128mb AGP x4/x8
AMD Athlon XP 2400+ @ 2.0ghz
Windows XP Professional 32 bit

Haven't used it in about a year, but im pretty sure it will turn on and if something was wrong with it, i could fix it for cheap.

Did you build this specifically for your old games, or is it simply an old PC you have kept up and running for that express purpose?

[Hazerd]

I have a "retro" gaming computer for games from the late 90's to mid 2000's

This is from late 2003

1gb DDR SDRAM
Radeon 9800 128mb AGP x4/x8
AMD Athlon XP 2400+ @ 2.0ghz
Windows XP Professional 32 bit

Haven't used it in about a year, but im pretty sure it will turn on and if something was wrong with it, i could fix it for cheap.

Did you build this specifically for your old games, or is it simply an old PC you have kept up and running for that express purpose?

It was my main computer in 2003 during high school, also you should open up your computer from 99, and maybe reseat stuff and dust it out with a can of air.

[Hobie-wan]

A few possibilities. The old machine might have dropped to 640x480 as it was connected to a strange new monitor and some LCDs will only go down to 800x600 these days. Or if Windows was set to a resolution higher than the LCD was capable of, it didn't know what to do with that either. For instance I used to run my last CRT at 1600x1200. When I got an LCD its resolution was lower than that. Though you also mentioned that Age of Empires was all block and weird. LCDs have a native resolution you should use, some of them will scale things fine and some double some pixels and it looks like crap.

See Native Resolution info here.

I'd find a free CRT and hook it up to your old PC. Then you can play the older games without all of the incompatibility issues with newer windows and not have to worry about older lower resolution games being stretched ugly on your LCD as it seems yours might not handle it so well.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I have two old PCs, one mid-range 1997 box running Windows ME. I use this one for DOS games and less intense Windows games. It has a Sound Blaster Live, which sounds amazing compared to many of today's audio chips. The analog components must be really good or something.

The other is a Pentium 4 box, which I use for 3D Windows games up till 2006. My laptop isn't much better, heh. Your best option for old PC games a machine running the same operating system and ~5 years older than the games you want to play.

Of course, this is all for games that won't run on your modern PC. Many old Windows games do work on Windows 7, and popular games like Doom have rebuilt OpenGL engines. Look up each game individually for new engines, widescreen mods, etc

Age of Empires II looks good to me on my 1024x768 LCD monitor. That's what I use for my older PCs since my CRT died.

[Hazerd]

Could also check out http://www.gog.com/

alot of old dos and early windows games on there that are updated to run on windows 7/8 without DRM or any online needed.

Think this is the oldest game on gog,
http://www.gog.com/gamecard/ultima_7_complete

[Erik_Twice]

The reason your monitor doesn't work may very well be that its lowest resolution is higher than the highest resolution of the GPU (For example 1280x1024) or has an improper shape (16:9 instead of 4:3) though it's still strange.

Anyways, if you want to play older games in a modern computer you first must divide your titles between those that you can emulate through DosBox and those you can't. Basically, anything Pre-Pentium, including TIE Fighter works through DosBox.

Age of Empires should run without any problems and while you can run Doom through DosBox it has dozens of ports and mods that are easier to get running.

Think this is the oldest game on gog,
http://www.gog.com/gamecard/ultima_7_complete

Not by a long shot! After all, Ultima IV is availble as a free download (1985).