Playing Old PC Games on New Computers

[enderfall]

I recently built a new PC and I was looking through all the games I never played when I was a kid since I never had a PC (my family was a 'Mac' family...long story). I was hoping that I could play some of these wonderful games like Monkey Island, Baldur's Gate, Dark Forces, Heroes of Might and Magic, Dungeon Keeper, Command & Conquer, Carmageddon, etc.

Is trying to get these up and running on a new PC with Vista or Win 7 too much of a pain? Or am I left with DL only sites like Steam, and Good ol' Games, etc. to get my retro PC game fix?

[Hobie-wan]

DOSBox for the ones that won't cooperate on their own or with setting compatibility in the properties box.

[MrPopo]

You can also look in to source ports. I wouldn't be shocked if Dark Forces had a source port that runs easily on modern OS's.

[Ziggy]

Just run an old OS in a virtual box, works great!

[GSZX1337]

You can also look in to source ports. I wouldn't be shocked if Dark Forces had a source port that runs easily on modern OS's.

Wouldn't the engine have to be open source for a source port? IIRC, DF doesn't have an open source engine.

Also, for point and click adventure games, there's ScummVM.

[enderfall]

DOSBox for the ones that won't cooperate on their own or with setting compatibility in the properties box.

Thanks. I quickly reviewed the DOSBox website, and it looks like it's for use in games that were originally on DOS. What about games designed for Windows 95/98?

For reference, I bought the Diablo Warchest several years ago, so I installed Diablo 1 and while it ran, the FMV was crap and the info bar along the bottom was all screwed up.

You can also look in to source ports. I wouldn't be shocked if Dark Forces had a source port that runs easily on modern OS's.

Good advice, thanks.

[GSZX1337]

DOSBox for the ones that won't cooperate on their own or with setting compatibility in the properties box.

Thanks. I quickly reviewed the DOSBox website, and it looks like it's for use in games that were originally on DOS. What about games designed for Windows 95/98?

IIRC, most Win95 games can run in DOS.

EDIT: There is Dark Forces source port. The engine was made completely from scratch. It's in alpha, though.
http://www.darkxl.df-21.net/index.html

[Ziggy]

I quickly reviewed the DOSBox website, and it looks like it's for use in games that were originally on DOS. What about games designed for Windows 95/98?

Just run an old OS in a virtual box, works great!

[enderfall]

Just run an old OS in a virtual box, works great!

Where do you get the old OS's?

[GSZX1337]

Just run an old OS in a virtual box, works great!

Where do you get the old OS's?

Legally? Buy them. Illegally? BitTorrent.