Will Windows 95/98 Games play on properly with XP? (1 Viewer)

[Brian Mansure]

We have lots of "older" kids games and learning software which mostly only runs on Windows 95/98...
Will installing XP allow those games to play?
The computer now has Win2000 on it for OS stability/reliability reasons but 2000 isn't extremely gamer friendly (I know, it wasn't made to be), would installing XP give me the best of both worlds?
I appreciate any suggestions/comments.
Thanks,
Brian
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BAM

 

[Carlo_M]

Theoretically, yes. Although they don't guarantee 100% compatibility to Win95, they say most games that run on Win98 will run on XP.

 

[Brian Mansure]

Thanks Carlo.
That's pretty much what I'm hearing.
A friend of mine installed XP on his computer and went to Windows Critical Update site and it already had 3-4 patches for XP which was kinda funny IMO since the OS has only been introduced to consumers a week ago.
Oh well, I think I'll wait alittle longer to see if any major bugs pop up before "taking the XP plunge".
Thanks again,
Brian
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BAM

 

[SteveBjr]

You can run any program in a compatibility mode of previous Windows all the way down to Win 95. I'm not sure how well it works because i've never had a problem running any programs but a friend of mine had no problem using it with some CD burner software he ran in Windows 98/ME compatibility mode.
All you have to do is right click the program, click on properties and go in the compatibility tab and select which one you would like to run in. Pretty handy feature
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Steve,
DVD Collection

 

[MikeH]

I just got burned.

I bought High Heat Baseball 2002. The game loads fine but the sound is garbled and any gamepad doesn't work. I tried to blame it on the sound card but switching PCI slots didn't work, tried to blame it on an old gamepad but the new one I just bought

doesn't work either. Seems that HH doesn't like the NT kernel and they won't be fixing the code.
$80 down the drain.
Mike

 

[Joel Mack]

Have you tried the compatibility modes?
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"The internet is a place where people from all over come together to
bitch about movies and share pornography."

 

[Jason Merrick]

I bought High Heat Baseball 2002... (snip) Seems that HH doesn't like the NT kernel and they won't be fixing the code.

$80 down the drain.

MikeH,

Don't know if you are still reading this thread, but your money may not be gone... I had this problem trying to run SWAT 3 on my Win2000 machine (which box claimed it was compatible with) and after having repeated problems with video (probably my cheap card) I contacted the software maker through their website, they had me ship the disk & manual to them and sent me a check refund. Might be worth a try...

 

[Carlo_M]

A friend of mine installed XP on his computer and went to Windows Critical Update site and it already had 3-4 patches for XP which was kinda funny IMO since the OS has only been introduced to consumers a week ago.

Which only reinforces my personal SP1 theorem.

I do not install a new MS OS before they release Service Pack 1.

Here's my belief: it takes MS at least SP1 to fix all the release bugs, and then an SP2 to fix the things that SP1 screwed up. :bg:

 

[Michael Silla]

Hello All. I just installed XP tonight and so far I have had no problems. I am actually impressed with the product. The only issue I had was with locating a driver for my intel 2200 dsl modem. Turns out that the Win2000 modem driver works for XP too - problem solved.

For me, the best feature so far has been the automatic rollbacks done after a bad driver install (for my Hollywood plus). While I wish there wasn't a crash involved with this (So much for it's infallability!) the system allowed me to start as if the install never happened. This seemed even better than what Windows ME offered. I haven't gotten into some of the newer features - to be quite frank, I'm not sure if I will.

Why I can certainly understand the wish of some to wait for that first service pack, for me there wasn't any reason not to upgrade (beyond having the dough for it!).

Michael.

Athlon 1.2 GHZ

EPoX 8KHA+

256 MB DDR PC2100

Geoforce 2 GTS

Hollywood Plus card

Soundblaster PCI 512

Maxtor 40 (5400 RPM)

 

[Chris Bedard]

I had the same problem trying to run Forgotten Realms: Legen of Myth Drannor. Popping, audio drop out in music and FMV's. But Max Payne and Hitman: Codename 47 both play fine.

Oh, hardware is:

AMD Athlon 1.3Ghz

512 MB SDRAM

SB Live PCI

GeForce2 GTS

 

[Romier S]

The compatibility modes dont really help much when trying to run most games. I have gotten some older games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3d running in the comp mode but am having trouble getting the sound to work.
I have tested a large amount of games on XP and have found that a majority of recent games run fine. XP also offers excellent performance. My Geforce 3 3d mark 2001 scores actually increased by 200 points in XP!
If you dont want to worry simply setup a dual boot with Win98. Once setup you can boot to 98 when you want to run your games and use XP for any other situations like Web content creation of basic Internet applications. I have this particular setup on my system and have had no issues as of yet. Its the best solution for this particular dilemma.
Oh and hardware is as follows:
P3 700
Soundblaster Audigy 5.1 EX
Elsa Geforce 3 64mb
256mb crucial RAM
30 GIG Sea Gate HD

 

[Rob Gillespie]

I had a problem with Unreal Tournament and the compatibility modes didn't help. Run it first time and it's fine. If you close it and go back into it later the sound goes crap.

 

[Roland_Sjouw]

Hello all,

Another Neat feature in Windows 2000 is that it also has

the compatibility feature.

You have to have Sp2 installed

Than go to the windir there is a dir apppatch, in that dir

is the file slayerui.dll and if you type in the following

run command :

regsvr32 C:WINNTAppPatchbackupslayerui.dll

The compatibility is installed on WINDOWS 2000 !!!!

Regards,

Roland

 

[John Torrez]

How do I go about setting up a dual boot with Win98 and WinXP?

 

[Carlo_M]

Here's a simply way, I'm sure there are others who are more techno-savvy who can help: Win98 has to be set up first. Put this in a C: partition, you don't have to partition and format the rest of the HD yet. Set W98 up as normal, make sure everything runs. Make the C: partition between 4-10GBs (depending on the size of your drive, you want at least the same amount left over for your D: partition).

Now reboot after setting up all your drivers and such for Win98 with the WinXP CD in your drive and have your PC load off of the CD. The autoloader for XP should sense the Win98 on your HD and there should be some instructions as to what you want to do. Choose the dual boot option and make a new D: partition and format it. You can choose NTFS if you want. Install XP on that partition. You will have to reinstall all your drivers and devices on that OS as well.

At next reboot (remove CD) from HD, there will be a point at which your PC will ask which OS to load, Win98 or XP. You simply make that choice from here on out.

 

[Samuel Des]

Michael, how's the EPoX 8KHA+? Stable? Has it performed well for you?

 

[Mark Kalzer]

You can choose NTFS if you want.

Actually, if you're setting up a dual-boot, I'd recommend against using NTFS, simply because Windows 98 then would not be able to read your D: drive at all. Just my advice.

 

[Michael Silla]

Sam, the 8KHA+ has worked quite well for me. I don't overclock though, so I can't comment on the boards ability to acheive high FSB speeds (I hear this is it's strong point). I ran Win me for about 2 weeks, then upgraded to XP. Even with ME it operated MUCH better than my PIII on a ABIT VT6X4 ever did. With XP I can leave this puppy on for days without worrying about that "eventual" crash. I couldn't do that with ME.

My Sandra scores (CPU, Multimedia and Memory) were on par with some of the benchmarks available within 2001, occaisonally being slightly FASTER but probably statistically meaningless.

Michael.