How do they do it?

[JamesJB]

Curious,I have always wondered how Steam,GoG,etc get old games like this and other to work on modern PC's. I have A LOT of old games I want to play but I never have any luck getting them to work :( DosBox and I do not like each other i never have any luck with that program :(

So what programs does Steam and others use? I have played old games and they work perfect when I get them from Steam,GoG etc.,but when I try to run them useing the original CD's and Dos Box I have no luck :(

Old games;

Stat Trek Starfleet Academy
Klingon Academy
Daggerfall
Many Star Wars Games
Ultima Games - In DOS
Plus Many Many More.

[identifiedasbeingdisrespectful]

well Klingon academy works fine on win 7 if you find some fan made patches? for the gfx or fiddle around. There's still the same mission bugs though.

Anything in dos uses dosbox. Steam and GOG just prepackage it for you. The windows ones likely include old directx libraries to get them to work.

[Knight of the Criminally Insane]

Steam and GOG make the games DRM free and in some insances the companies that made the games either re-optimize the games for re-release, or they use DOS Box (which a lot of times comes packaged with the game when it is installed and is set up to activate when the game is activated (most the time the DOS Box that comes installed with the game is set up to play that certain game.) Other times, other programs are used, or someone from Steam/GOG will go into the configuration files and tweak some code and settings so that the game will play on newer operating systems.
There are more ways than you would think to make these old games work on new systems. You just have to know what you are doing to do so. Programs like DOS Box themselves are just tricking the game's internal code to make it THINK it is being played on an older OS. You yourself could learn to go in and make the necessary changes to certain files in a game and make it play on a newer OS, you just have to know how.
Companies as big as Valve (which owns and operates Steam, and GOG.com can easily afford programmers and coders to do those sorts of jobs.

[identifiedasbeingdisrespectful]

Originally posted by The King of SMEG:

Steam and GOG make the games DRM free

No they don't. DRM didn't exist then and in most cases the copy protection from floppy games isn't removed either.

[lostiam]

I think the original 5 CD's required to play this game were enough to put off most pirates at the time.

[Statechap04]

When i try to start it up it just shows a lil black box in the top left of the screen, any ideas ? any help would be great.

[identifiedasbeingdisrespectful]

Originally posted by Statechap04:

When i try to start it up it just shows a lil black box in the top left of the screen, any ideas ? any help would be great.

What OS? Try lowering your desktop resolution as low as it will go, preferrably 800x600. Lots of old windows games mess up because they're based on desktop res/hard coded.

[cknapp2]

Some sites provide older games and I do not mind paying for them (GOG does not have everything!). For some, you have to use Daemon tools to mount the CD image provided by such sites. Sometimes the games are Zipped RAR files or Executable, either of which will self-extract, often providing a SETUP file.

I have only encountered a couple of games I cannot get working of literally hundreds I now have working on my Win10 Rig.
ST New Worlds
Jetfighter 2015 (a bad game from the series, too "arcade" style, no big loss).

Sometimes I find DLL "wrappers" such as for STKA, Redneck Rampage (before GoG and Steam had them) or other DirectX work-arounds...not to mention VDM sound assistance.

I solved an issue with a MaxPayne game (first one I believe) where it installed from the CD on Win7 (have not tried it on my Win10 rig yet) but it always froze when the intro video was supposed to play and I could not find a *.cfg file setting like SKIP INTRO = 0. Since I have several video editing software suites installed, I decided to re-encode the intro video copied to the hard drive during the full-install process to a newer CODEC and the intro video played in-game and the game launched fully,

I often find that getting a game to run on Win10 is more fun than playing them....but I am a data analyst by trade.

I can almost get rid of my Win7 rig but I bought Tiffen DFX years ago for about $300 while deployed and they never broke the XP/Vista barrier..........so I keep the Win7, Win10 and Linux Mint rigs connected to my two monitors via a KVM switch and all is well.

[JamesJB]

Wow this is a old thread lol,Thank you for the info though :)

[Quarren King of Q]

gog takes abandonware. applies fan patches. and resells it. you can just apply the patches yourself.

what i have been researching for hours. is how to turn the dang game down in volume mixer. i cant alt tab to adjust it. even setting window mode in dgvoodoo didnt work. they are blasting loud. if anyone has any idea let me know. and before i get audio menu. how about you start the game and tell me if there is audio sliders for the movie files? i got the game on gog and patched.

[Quarren King of Q]

Originally posted by cknapp2:

Some sites provide older games and I do not mind paying for them (GOG does not have everything!). For some, you have to use Daemon tools to mount the CD image provided by such sites. Sometimes the games are Zipped RAR files or Executable, either of which will self-extract, often providing a SETUP file.

I have only encountered a couple of games I cannot get working of literally hundreds I now have working on my Win10 Rig.
ST New Worlds
Jetfighter 2015 (a bad game from the series, too "arcade" style, no big loss).

Sometimes I find DLL "wrappers" such as for STKA, Redneck Rampage (before GoG and Steam had them) or other DirectX work-arounds...not to mention VDM sound assistance.

I solved an issue with a MaxPayne game (first one I believe) where it installed from the CD on Win7 (have not tried it on my Win10 rig yet) but it always froze when the intro video was supposed to play and I could not find a *.cfg file setting like SKIP INTRO = 0. Since I have several video editing software suites installed, I decided to re-encode the intro video copied to the hard drive during the full-install process to a newer CODEC and the intro video played in-game and the game launched fully,

I often find that getting a game to run on Win10 is more fun than playing them....but I am a data analyst by trade.

I can almost get rid of my Win7 rig but I bought Tiffen DFX years ago for about $300 while deployed and they never broke the XP/Vista barrier..........so I keep the Win7, Win10 and Linux Mint rigs connected to my two monitors via a KVM switch and all is well.

i feel you about the fun of setting up etc.

[Quarren King of Q]

Originally posted by Quarren King of Q:

gog takes abandonware. applies fan patches. and resells it. you can just apply the patches yourself.

what i have been researching for hours. is how to turn the dang game down in volume mixer. i cant alt tab to adjust it. even setting window mode in dgvoodoo didnt work. they are blasting loud. if anyone has any idea let me know. and before i get audio menu. how about you start the game and tell me if there is audio sliders for the movie files? i got the game on gog and patched.

okay well i think i found a solution. the old school control alt delete task manager trick