What is the best way to play old PC games?

[Johnsmith45]

I have tried to play a number of old games on steam, ubisoft connect and origin. The games work however the games have glitches and they do not run properly. For example gta 3 has an invisible menu and Bully scholarship too zoomed in. Assassins creed 2 where the triggers do not work and gta san andreas the introduction does not play. How do I get old games to run properly?  

[emosun]

try GoG instead of steam if you can.

if not , then an old pc and the original discs work quite well. Keep in mind these games were designed to be played for a few years decades ago , then thrown away and forgotten. the fact they still work and are compatible at all is a sheer miracle of prolonged stagnation in x86 development

[AndreiArgeanu]

Mods.

There's mods/modpacks that fix the game. For GTA Games I would recommend looking at the definitive edition project they have definitive edition mods for 3, LCS, VCS, VC, SA, Chinatown Wars, Bully, The Warriors and Manhunt. They are mod packs that not only fix a lot of bugs but upgrade them by bringing features from other versions of these games but also adding some of their own for example longer render distances, LOD lights and so on. These mod packs are generally speaking the best way to play these titles today, much better than the mess that the remastered trilogy is.

https://www.definitive-edition-project.com/ -> this is their website. You do still need your own copy of GTA.

 

[aisle9]

Option 1: GoG

Option 2: VM

Option 3: Buy a Dell Optiplex 755 through 780 SFF, drop in a high-clocked Core 2 Duo, pick up a dirt cheap low-profile GPU (GT 730 or HD 7570 would be perfect for this, imo) and a 128GB SSD

 

Option 1's the easiest but not a guarantee. Option 2's a little more reliable, but still not a guarantee. Option 3 is just about guaranteed to work and shouldn't cost you more than $40 to assemble, but now you have an extra PC lying around.

[cretsiah]

16 hours ago, Johnsmith45 said:

Assassins creed 2 where the triggers do not work

or is it the key bindings have changed from what your used to or expecting??

 

and which Operating System are you using with what kind of Hardware??

[Avocado Diaboli]

PCGamingWiki typically has a lot of fixes, patches or relevant mods along with the corresponding guides that help keep older games playable on modern systems.

[Mark Kaine]

Original hardware,  or at least close to, ie a windows xp or windows 95 game or app will run *fine* on vista hardware (maybe a bad example because ik many people somehow hate vista for some reason, but i did that for 10+ years and no big issues whatsoever "sp1" for the interested, sp 2 and 3 were garbage on my amd athlon system )

 

20 hours ago, Caroline said:

the CRT monitor is mandatory.

honestly,  for games from like 2006 onwards a nice lcd screen is fine,  i know i had a cheapo 4:3 samsung that could do 1080p and i absolutely loved it 

 

 

21 hours ago, aisle9 said:

Option 1: GoG

Option 2: VM

Option 3: Buy a Dell Optiplex 755 through 780 SFF, drop in a high-clocked Core 2 Duo, pick up a dirt cheap low-profile GPU (GT 730 or HD 7570 would be perfect for this, imo) and a 128GB SSD

 

Option 1's the easiest but not a guarantee. Option 2's a little more reliable, but still not a guarantee. Option 3 is just about guaranteed to work and shouldn't cost you more than $40 to assemble, but now you have an extra PC lying around.

agreed.  except the pricing lol... that thing could easily cost you several 100 euros here...

[cretsiah]

11 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Original hardware,  or at least close to, ie a windows xp or windows 95 game

nah not sure i  could go there ........ have bad memories of star wars Tie  Fighter with windows 95b specific requirement NO NO NO

[Vishera]

21 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Original hardware,  or at least close to, ie a windows xp or windows 95 game or app will run *fine* on vista hardware (maybe a bad example because ik many people somehow hate vista for some reason, but i did that for 10+ years and no big issues whatsoever "sp1" for the interested, sp 2 and 3 were garbage on my amd athlon system )

Any system that supported Vista supported XP as well,

But i have a machine that is truly special - A machine that works with Windows 2000 and newer (with drivers and everything) and has a FX 8320E, 8GB of RAM and a HD 6970.

I think that any GIGABYTE Z77 or AM3+ board is capable of this.

[Mark Kaine]

59 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Any system that supported Vista supported XP as well,

yeah that's what i recall,  all my xp software worked without issues (iirc)... which is why i dont get all the bitching about vista, like "it blue screened all the time" "my games don't work!"...

 

well, it didn't and they did ~

 

gonna have to assume "user error" here first and foremost. 

 

59 minutes ago, Vishera said:

A machine that works with Windows 2000 and newer (with drivers and everything) and has a FX 8320E, 8GB of RAM and a HD 6970.

I think that any GIGABYTE Z77 or AM3+ board is capable of this.

ah, i have a am3 board... and 2 am3 cpus... (i think athlon x2 and something newer) 

so i could just throw my 1050ti in there? (that's what i was planning anyway lol)

only problem is I don't get how to activate windows when everything is offline lol (I'll also need a new drive, i think the current one with Vista installed is bad...)

 

ps: reason I didn't do any of this yet is i also need a case because the mobo is atx and the case is some HP M-atx and probably a new psu... i don't trust the old thing that used to be in the old system (its loud as hell too lol)

[Vishera]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

ah, i have a am3 board... and 2 am3 cpus... (i think athlon x2 and something newer) 

so i could just throw my 1050ti in there? (that's what i was planning anyway lol)

only problem is I don't get how to activate windows when everything is offline lol (I'll also need a new drive, i think the current one with Vista installed is bad...)

A 1050 Ti won't work, there are no drivers for it.

An AMD HD 7970 should work, the performance is on par with the 1050 Ti.

[Mark Kaine]

7 minutes ago, Vishera said:

A 1050 Ti won't work, there are no drivers for it.

An AMD HD 7970 should work, the performance is on par with the 1050 Ti.

ah, suxx, well i also have a ATI X1950GT (i think that's the name?) and i *know* that'll work, it's just like average performance wise (but era accurate lol)

 

edit:  yeap this one (look at the price haha...)

https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-X1950GT-256MB-retail/dp/B000PEWDBK

 

 

[Vishera]

7 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

ah, suxx, well i also have a ATI X1950GT (i think that's the name?) and i *know* that'll work, it's just like average performance wise (but era accurate lol)

 

edit:  yeap this one (look at the price haha...)

https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-X1950GT-256MB-retail/dp/B000PEWDBK

 

 

By the way for Windows 2000 to work on AM3 you will need to go through some workarounds,

But once it's setup it works like a charm.

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, Vishera said:

By the way for Windows 2000 to work on AM3 you will need to go through some workarounds,

But once it's setup it works like a charm.

ah... that's a misunderstanding (probably on my part) the point i want to do this is to have a Vista machine xD (almost all my old games and stuff are from this era)

 

i also have rb338 which im pretty sure should work 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReBirth_RB-338

 

^ best 303 emulator to this day!

 

[Vishera]

5 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

ah... that's a misunderstanding (probably on my part) the point i want to do this is to have a Vista machine xD (almost all my old games and stuff are from this era)

 

i also have rb338 which im pretty sure should work 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReBirth_RB-338

 

^ best 303 emulator to this day!

 

I said that just in case you want to in the future