does windows 95/98 games work with Vista or dual/quad core pcs?

[Rhodes]

Since Vista 64 wont work with 16 bit games...
Thats dos based right? I can forget about those.

What about Vista 32 bit for Dos games or imported Queen of Hearts 98 and 99 SE... as well as a few other Dojinsoft titles... should or will they work with Vista or should I stick to XP?

I still on occasion go back and play Fall Out on my PC so... will Vista kill that?

Since most of these games werent made for dual core let alone quad core pcs... will they even function?

Is there a list of what games work with these new systems?

[Ty]

Nobody will be able to say for sure until they actually try, but my guess is probably not. Anything designed for Windows Me and back is iffy for compatibility. There are specific compatibility modes you can try when you install that may save you. Anything DOS has to be emulated (the entire DOS operating environment) just like it does in XP. If somehow your DOS games run in XP they may run in Vista also.

As for the multi core processor question that really has no impact on compatibility at all. Old software obviously cannot take any advantage of the additional cores or threads but there would be no need even if they could.

[lostnomad84]

To answer your question simply, hardware shouldn't be a problem, the operating system is the problem.

As for the long answer, hardware is not an issue. In fact, as long as the software can run on x86 based processors, it can work. Any program designed to run off an 8-bit x86 processor can theoretically run on a 16-bit x86 processor, same with 32 and 64, just as long as the program is designed is not trying to run on a lower end processor (ie. 64 bit game on a 32 bit system).

Cores should not matter either. Just saying dual core basically means 2 processors. Just make sure, once again, the cores are 32 bit or 64 bit.

Now, as for actually running the software, it depends on the operating system. Windows has gone under dramatic changes over the years and it is harder to run older games on the OS. Microsoft tries to emulate the old settings in capabilities, but emulation doesn't always work for everything.

Hope this helps you.

[Soulblazer]

If the games do not work in Vista, you could try using vmware to install the old operating system on the box. I believe you can even get the low end version of vmware for free now.

[beatmania]

Don't know about AMD, but Intel chips are backward compatible. You can install win98 on it and run the games if Microsoft doesn't cooperate

[stfram]

Originally Posted by bemani

Don't know about AMD, but Intel chips are backward compatible. You can install win98 on it and run the games if Microsoft doesn't cooperate

Sometimes even that doesn't work.

As an example I had a hankering a couple years ago to play Shogo: mobile Armor Division.

I had a dual boot of 98SE and XP, so when I found Shogo wouldn't work with XP, no biggie.

Actually, it was. Even though it installed fine on 98, it still wouldn't play, with many graphical glitches. This was with an Nvidia card.

Then, a few months later, when I upgraded to an ATI card, I decided to try it again...and it worked.

The video card apparently didn't want to work with the DirectX calls that Shogo was making.

[Bullfrog]

As many have said, can't tell until you try. However, having a multiple processor system may in itself be enough to stop the system.

Alpha Centauri was a Win 98 game, which was not licensed for "servers". Servers were, in part, defined by the multiple processors (at that time). So a multiprocessor system (such as some Pentium IVs of several years ago), regardless of OS simply would not work with that game.

[Ty]

Something I should have said the first time but forgot about: if you have lots of old games and own older copies of Windows that they'll run on just setup your computer for dual boot and actually use the older OS when needed.

[frijoles]

Originally Posted by Soulblazer

If the games do not work in Vista, you could try using vmware to install the old operating system on the box. I believe you can even get the low end version of vmware for free now.

VMWare player is free but it requires a ready made virtual machine to use. You would hafe to buy the full version to install a guest OS. However, Microsoft just released their latest version of Virtual PC for free download and it runs on Vista. I've managed to get a couple of DOS games running on Win98 via Virtual PC with no problems.