older games on newer machines

[comda]

Greetings!

I enjoy an odd variety of games ranging from different years. Issue being that some games where not programmed for todays operating systems. I recently updated one of my Towers to windows 10 and have no issues with current software but older software has issues. Specifically some games.
Currently ive acquired a new system thats running windows 7 Pro (i dont want to loose the license by upgrading to 10).
Anyways its a peppy little machine so horsepower for these games is not an issue: its a Dell Percision T5400 that has 2 Xeon E5450 CPU's, currently only 4GB of FB-Dimm DDR2 RAm, a AMD HD 5770 1GB and for hard drives 80GB boot plus 160Gb slave.
The games im trying to run are GTA VC, London Racers: destruction madness, NFS underground, and 18 WHeels of steel american long haul.
The issues im having for the most part is white boxes appearing on menu bars and pause menu's while in the game. A different issue in GTA vice city where the mouse doesnt respond and the colours are stuck at 16bit and resolution at minimum without the option of changing them. ANy suggestions? im about to try XP mode in comparability options.

[Geek-9pm]

Here are impossibilities.
Buy an old PC to run old games. (This is not a joke.)  **
Use a Virtual Machine. Modem PCs are so fast that the VM can run an old OS very well.
This is from Microsoft and is free.
Windows 10 virtual machines now available on Microsoft Edge Dev]https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/08/17/windows-10-virtual-machines-now-available-on-microsoft-edge-dev/]Windows 10 virtual machines now available on Microsoft Edge Dev

Does that help?   

** Old PCs with old Windows can be bought for under $57 with shipping inside USA and Canada. But you have to locate a proven vendor that will warranty it to work.

[DaveLembke]

Buy an old PC to run old games. (This is not a joke.)  **

I second that... additionally you can get a good Pentium D or Core 2 Duo system running Windows 7 for under $100 to run older games. If you have older 16 bit games you will want an OS such as Windows XP 32-bit or older.

I have some games that I love to play that just have issues with modern hardware. Everything from games intended for a single core processor that acts up on a multi-core CPU requiring me to set core affinity as a work around on a dual or quadcore newer system such as Unreal Tournament 99 to Diablo 1 and Atomic Bomberman having issues requiring a bug fix to work on Windows 7 and not look like an acid trip.

I have a Pentium 4 computer that was created in 2002 running Windows XP on 1GB RAM with an old GeForce 4 MX440 64MB Video Card for older games that dont play well on modern hardware and OS.

If you have some really old games like I do intended for a 8088 4.77Mhz CPU you can run into a game that plays way to fast because these were built around execution rate of a 4.77Mhz clock and a modern 4000Mhz system would run it that many times faster. I ran into this issue back in the day with my Pentium 75Mhz with games unable to be played unless I ran another program to bog the CPU down to get the games execution rate to slow, but it wasnt perfect. I ended up finding a 286 12Mhz system and that system ran it slightly faster but ok when a 8088 wasnt available.

[BC_Programmer]

I ended up finding a 286 12Mhz system and that system ran it slightly faster but ok when a 8088 wasnt available.

The 286 I used to own had a Turbo button, when enabled the CPU rat at 4.77Mhz, presumably specifically for this sort of purpose.

Speaking of old PC systems... I rather wish I had tried harder to keep many of my older systems. I discarded them thinking they were worthless since I got sick of having tons of old PCs and boxes of ancient ISA and AGP cards lying around.

Seems they hold their value- that is the model I had, though mine had a IDE HDD/Controller (ST-225 was ESDI as I recall) and a 5-1/4" diskette drive as well as a 3-1/2" drive. (I still have the former).

It is interesting how the prices on ebay/craigslist/etc for systems older then around P4 have skyrocketed massively. my suspicion is that it is a speculators bubble, with people buying up 5150's and old PCs up through Pentium II class systems expecting to be able to sell them at a higher price in a few years.

[DaveLembke]

It is interesting how the prices on ebay/craigslist/etc for systems older then around P4 have skyrocketed massively. my suspicion is that it is a speculators bubble, with people buying up 5150's and old PCs up through Pentium II class systems expecting to be able to sell them at a higher price in a few years.

Interesting... I must have tossed away about 40 computers from 8088's thru Pentium 2's, and gave away Pentium III systems to a friend who needed extra systems for Diablo 2 and UT99  lan partys.

The 286 I had was an early 286 that didnt have the turbo button. I think the 286's that came with turbo switched between 12 and 16Mhz. My 286 was pre AT it was an XT 5162 which came with 640k RAM and had a dip switch bios just like the 8088's so no user friendly BIOS. Hard drive configuration was a pain since the parameters of the drive had to be configured with the controller which was a card. It wasnt IDE it was the older one that skips my mind the specification with the 2 ribbon connectors + power. I ended up finding a 16 bit ISA card that was a 4MB Memory expansion card that I plugged into the 16-bit ISA slot and this allowed me to run Windows 3.1 on it. I also had originally a CGA card in it for video and got a Trident 1MB ISA 8-bit VGA card from a old 386 and good VGA monitor and then was able to play Wolfenstein 3D on it and original Doom 1 & 2, and Commander Keen, and others as well as many many hours playing Leisure Suit Larry... hehe  The hard drive the 286 had was a 40MB that took up the entire 5 1/4 bay. Windows 3.1 took up about 25% of the hard drive, but back then 30MB free was more than most needed with games that either ran direct from floppy drive or were very small like 300kb games or smaller etc. For modem I had a 1200 baud, but those with money had 14.4k at the time. Had it on Prodigy for about a year pre modern internet online service.

[comda]

I second that... additionally you can get a good Pentium D or Core 2 Duo system running Windows 7 for under $100 to run older games. If you have older 16 bit games you will want an OS such as Windows XP 32-bit or older.

I have some games that I love to play that just have issues with modern hardware. Everything from games intended for a single core processor that acts up on a multi-core CPU requiring me to set core affinity as a work around on a dual or quadcore newer system such as Unreal Tournament 99 to Diablo 1 and Atomic Bomberman having issues requiring a bug fix to work on Windows 7 and not look like an acid trip.

I have a Pentium 4 computer that was created in 2002 running Windows XP on 1GB RAM with an old GeForce 4 MX440 64MB Video Card for older games that dont play well on modern hardware and OS.

If you have some really old games like I do intended for a 8088 4.77Mhz CPU you can run into a game that plays way to fast because these were built around execution rate of a 4.77Mhz clock and a modern 4000Mhz system would run it that many times faster. I ran into this issue back in the day with my Pentium 75Mhz with games unable to be played unless I ran another program to bog the CPU down to get the games execution rate to slow, but it wasnt perfect. I ended up finding a 286 12Mhz system and that system ran it slightly faster but ok when a 8088 wasnt available.

Ive considered it, and it looks like ive no choice to go back to this consideration. I have a few P4 boards lying around and a nice C2D intel board. Issue is all these machines have CPU fans that are loud and obnoxious. I actually have a MX440 lying around somewhere. I know its the Asus edition. As for your last comment i do have an older IBm and DOS box that i play all my old games such as doom on. but i guess i gotta build me a nice P4. 

[DaveLembke]

I have a few P4 boards lying around and a nice C2D intel board. Issue is all these machines have CPU fans that are loud and obnoxious.

Only fans I have found to be too loud are the HP SFF systems with the squirrel cage air ram that spin up and sound like a jet engine. But this only seems to occur on the 2.8Ghz and faster Pentium 4's that have the Hyperthreading for some reason and higher TDP. The 2.6Ghz HP SFF systems the company I worked for had were quite quiet.

If you have a normal socket 478 or 775 heatsink for your Pentium 4 and the Pentium 4 is adequately cooled it shouldnt be very loud. The only fans that were loud as far as these heatsinks go are the fans that are dying and start to groan and the case resonates and amplifies the sound or you have a high end gaming heatsink with heatpipes and its like a server heatsink with massive airflow and high RPMs intended for a hot blooded overclocked CPU etc.

Here is my list of systems I have gotten for free and have in dry storage:

Pentium 4 1.7Ghz 768MB PC-133Mhz RAM 40GB HDD
Pentium 4 2.0Ghz 1GB DDR 266Mhz RAM 60GB HDD
Pentium 4 2.4Ghz 1GB DDR 266Mhz RAM 80GB HDD
Pentium 4 2.66Ghz 1GB DDR 333Mhz RAM 80GB HDD
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz HT 1GB DDR 400Mhz RAM 160GB HDD Foxconn motherboard has 8x AGP slot available for video card but the motherboard has 1 swollen capacitor in the integrated sound circuit and a darkened area around a VRM that ran hot near the AGP slot "so I dont trust it".
Pentium 4 3.0Ghz HT 1GB DDR 400Mhz RAM 120GB HDD unfortunately no AGP or PCIE slot and PCI video card is limited its an eMachine. I have a Geforce 2 64MB PCI video card in it, but its a sad motherboard crippled by design to not have an AGP slot.

Celeron D 335 2.8Ghz 1GB DDR 400Mhz RAM 160GB HDD AGP 8x Geforce 6200 XFX brand

Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0Ghz 1GB DDR 400Mhz RAM No Hard Drive Gigabyte Gaming Motherboard supports SLI but only have a single Geforce 7600GT in single slot.

Athlon 64 x2 4400+ 2.2Ghz 1GB DDR 400Mhz RAM dual Geforce 6800GT video cards SLI No Hard Drive

My Daughters Core 2 Duo E4500 system is getting rebuilt and I gave her the Celeron D 335 2.8Ghz to use. It plays Minecraft fine with Geforce 6200 XFX video card with 256MB VRAM AGP 8x. Since she likes that computer and isnt complaining about performance, it is actually quite snappy performance for a Celeron D with Windows XP SP3, she might keep that system for a bit. She also likes to program with Scratch on it so she brings programs between school and home that she does in the MIT Scratch program.

As people toss out their old computers I generally get them and scrub their drives clean or give them the drive to take and destroy in which i end up with a system without a hard drive until I add one.

[comda]

How ironic. I do have a HP sff 533 board with the 2.8 but ive changed the heat sink since i had it in a regular case. I also have a p4p-800-mx and a Se board. All these have the HT p4's. i Discarded all the slower model P4 machines i had.