Questing regarding Windows 7 vs. 10 game compatibility

[Getty]

I don't wish to start a flame war, merely asking a genuine question. I have non-steam games as well (Lords of the Realm from 1994, run on DOSbox. Might and Magic 6 from 1998 run normally, Oregon Trail 2 from 1996, runs normally with a little tweaking, to name a few). I know having the original OS, or an OS that is newer than the original, but still closer than brand new, could help in playability. Will I lose the ability to play any games if I make the switch from Windows 7 to 10? If not, I could download 10 on this system.. If I could, I could make a new machine. Thanks!

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originalmente postado por metamec:

Does Windows 7 support all DirectX 12 games yet? I have no interest in reverting to it, but that would be my main gaming concern considering how much I like DLSS.

Complete native DX12 support? No. But could get them to run when use a wrapper such as Vulkan, but there can be issues such as ray tracing, or DLSS if that matters, not sure if there any issues as again translating one API to another giving backwards support that barely got DX12 support to begin with, but still that best of the answer I can give.

[Komarimaru]

For windows 7 and DX12, only two officially supported games, Cyberpunk 2077(though no longer supports windows 7) and world of warcraft. But only for DX12 basic, no support for DX12 ultimate for ray tracing, dlss, smart shaders etc.

People have taken the DX12 translation layer file from WoW to use on Diablo 4, but still only DX12 basic.

[metamec]

Originalmente postado por Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Originalmente postado por metamec:

Does Windows 7 support all DirectX 12 games yet? I have no interest in reverting to it, but that would be my main gaming concern considering how much I like DLSS.

Complete native DX12 support? No. But could get them to run when use a wrapper such as Vulkan, but there can be issues such as ray tracing, or DLSS if that matters, not sure if there any issues as again translating one API to another giving backwards support that barely got DX12 support to begin with, but still that best of the answer I can give.

I read that some (not all) DX12 games were officially supported now, but I don't really follow Win7 news any more so I wasn't sure. Thanks for the info (and you too, Komarimaru; I just saw your message after I responded)!

[MonkehMaster]

Originalmente postado por metamec:

Does Windows 7 support all DirectX 12 games yet? I have no interest in reverting to Windows 7, but that would be my main gaming concern going back to it considering how much I like DLSS.

wow, diablo 2 resurrected and cyberflop with a dx12 wrapper, some other games can be used with these wrappers as well.

its not full dx12, but then again dx12 isnt anything to write home about either.

[Aluvard]

Originalmente postado por Getty:

I don't wish to start a flame war, merely asking a genuine question. I have non-steam games as well (Lords of the Realm from 1994, run on DOSbox. Might and Magic 6 from 1998 run normally, Oregon Trail 2 from 1996, runs normally with a little tweaking, to name a few). I know having the original OS, or an OS that is newer than the original, but still closer than brand new, could help in playability. Will I lose the ability to play any games if I make the switch from Windows 7 to 10? If not, I could download 10 on this system.. If I could, I could make a new machine. Thanks!

Lords of the Realm works on win10 (ofc run on DOSbox), Might and Magic 6 works too (7 and 8 too), Oregon Trail will need the same tweaking as on win7 (you may need to skip QuickTime installation).

Overall most problems for really old games is their inability to use modern hardware (as mentioned in other posts previously in this thread), software issues are few and easy to solve.
If you were able to make it run on win7, it will run on win10.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originalmente postado por Aluvard:

Originalmente postado por Getty:

I don't wish to start a flame war, merely asking a genuine question. I have non-steam games as well (Lords of the Realm from 1994, run on DOSbox. Might and Magic 6 from 1998 run normally, Oregon Trail 2 from 1996, runs normally with a little tweaking, to name a few). I know having the original OS, or an OS that is newer than the original, but still closer than brand new, could help in playability. Will I lose the ability to play any games if I make the switch from Windows 7 to 10? If not, I could download 10 on this system.. If I could, I could make a new machine. Thanks!

Lords of the Realm works on win10 (ofc run on DOSbox), Might and Magic 6 works too (7 and 8 too), Oregon Trail will need the same tweaking as on win7 (you may need to skip QuickTime installation).

Overall most problems for really old games is their inability to use modern hardware (as mentioned in other posts previously in this thread), software issues are few and easy to solve.
If you were able to make it run on win7, it will run on win10.

Yep. I have a games collection starting in the 80s and it's quite rare that I run into a game that simply does not run on Win10. A tweak here and there might be needed, but funnily enough for a bunch of 80s and 90s games that already was the case back when they released (ugh, the sound setup with all those midi, ports, irq, dma settings that you had to try if you didn't have one of the popular sound cards (like Soundblaster)).

[RiO]

Originalmente postado por Komarimaru:

Originalmente postado por RiO:

The developer or publisher are not the trader though.
The trader is Steam.

And just as an example: in the EU there actually is legislation on conformance of purchased digital content. Moreover, in situations of continuous supply -- as is the case for Steam and platforms like it that offer on-demand installation of an evergreen version of the content from an online account library -- traders there are liable for issues of non-conformance for the duration of the supply. Which in most cases of such platforms means: for as long as the user's account remains active.

Which is no way affects Steam, nor ever will.

With people like you, you'd want Steam to de- list all the old games, because certain users are ignorant. Even though the games work fine with proper drivers are just a tiny fix that got can found on the pc gaming wiki.

No, "people like me" would want Steam (and other platforms like it for that matter) to apply due diligence in what they're selling and offer installations that are pre-patched to work on the target OS.

If a game is known to exhibit issues on e.g. Windows 10 or 11, that are due to the OS doing certain things differently than what the game was originally was designed to run on; and everyone on Win 10/11 needs some after-market fine-tuning done to those games to have them work correctly; and the Steam client knows what OS it's installing things to ... then why can't it do that for the users?

I mean; quite evidently it can do it for Proton which many times needs fiddling about to work correctly for games as well. Per-game tailored Proton configuration data is literally housed in the /steamapps/compatdata/<app-id>/ folders.

It's apparently worth it for the 3% of desktop systems out there that are running a flavor of Linux. But not for the 90~95% of customers running Windows?

[Komarimaru]

Originalmente postado por RiO:

Originalmente postado por Komarimaru:

Which is no way affects Steam, nor ever will.

With people like you, you'd want Steam to de- list all the old games, because certain users are ignorant. Even though the games work fine with proper drivers are just a tiny fix that got can found on the pc gaming wiki.

No, "people like me" would want Steam (and other platforms like it for that matter) to apply due diligence in what they're selling and offer installations that are pre-patched to work on the target OS.

If a game is known to exhibit issues on e.g. Windows 10 or 11, that are due to the OS doing certain things differently than what the game was originally was designed to run on; and everyone on Win 10/11 needs some after-market fine-tuning done to those games to have them work correctly; and the Steam client knows what OS it's installing things to ... then why can't it do that for the users?

I mean; quite evidently it can do it for Proton which many times needs fiddling about to work correctly for games as well. Per-game tailored Proton configuration data is literally housed in the /steamapps/compatdata/<app-id>/ folders.

It's apparently worth it for the 3% of desktop systems out there that are running a flavor of Linux. But not for the 90~95% of customers running Windows?

Steam can't patch another developers/publishers software.

Steam cannot modify files of other peoples work either.

Proton doesn't change game files.

You again don't know what you're talking about on this subject.

[MonkehMaster]

Originalmente postado por Komarimaru:

Originalmente postado por RiO:

No, "people like me" would want Steam (and other platforms like it for that matter) to apply due diligence in what they're selling and offer installations that are pre-patched to work on the target OS.

If a game is known to exhibit issues on e.g. Windows 10 or 11, that are due to the OS doing certain things differently than what the game was originally was designed to run on; and everyone on Win 10/11 needs some after-market fine-tuning done to those games to have them work correctly; and the Steam client knows what OS it's installing things to ... then why can't it do that for the users?

I mean; quite evidently it can do it for Proton which many times needs fiddling about to work correctly for games as well. Per-game tailored Proton configuration data is literally housed in the /steamapps/compatdata/<app-id>/ folders.

It's apparently worth it for the 3% of desktop systems out there that are running a flavor of Linux. But not for the 90~95% of customers running Windows?

Steam can't patch another developers/publishers software.

Steam cannot modify files of other peoples work either.

Proton doesn't change game files.

You again don't know what you're talking about on this subject.

gog does it?

the person seems to know much more than you on every subject i have seen....

[Komarimaru]

Originalmente postado por MonkehMaster:

Originalmente postado por Komarimaru:

Steam can't patch another developers/publishers software.

Steam cannot modify files of other peoples work either.

Proton doesn't change game files.

You again don't know what you're talking about on this subject.

gog does it?

the person seems to know much more than you on every subject i have seen....

GoG has agreements with 5% of it's games, if that, to do it. Steam doesn't do this.

And no, they've been dead wrong so many times, it's laughable.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originalmente postado por MonkehMaster:

gog does it?

Only for a small part of the games. They acquire the right from the IP-holders to modify the games and sell them. That was talked about by one of the top guys when they talked about the proces to get such games on their platform in an interview. They commented how difficult it sometimes can be to find out who actually owns certain IPs.

It's what GOG was great at and sadly they've lost that focus. Most likely as it's not as profitable as it might seem.

[xBCxRangers]

This is getting ridiculous, having to upgrade in fact to downgrade, to play 2005 era games. Can't make this up.

We want, demand, and deserve a Legacy Launcher for the games we rightfully purchased, and we want it NOW, Mr Newell

[Start_Running]

Originalmente postado por xBCxRangers:

This is getting ridiculous, having to upgrade in fact to downgrade, to play 2005 era games. Can't make this up.

We want, demand, and deserve a Legacy Launcher for the games we rightfully purchased, and we want it NOW, Mr Newell

People said the same thing about windows 7 vs Windows XP

[MonkehMaster]

Originalmente postado por Crazy Tiger:

Originalmente postado por MonkehMaster:

gog does it?

Only for a small part of the games. They acquire the right from the IP-holders to modify the games and sell them. That was talked about by one of the top guys when they talked about the proces to get such games on their platform in an interview. They commented how difficult it sometimes can be to find out who actually owns certain IPs.

It's what GOG was great at and sadly they've lost that focus. Most likely as it's not as profitable as it might seem.

they need to get it in gear, i have never bought from them, but mostly due to having so little games, though i do see some really old games on there i wouldnt mind buying, but sadly gog's 8k+ games is no where near steams 50k+ games...

do they sell games with drm? or no? and is that why we dont see as many developers putting their games on the platform? never used it so i dont know what they got going on.

[Azure Fang]

Originalmente postado por RiO:

Originalmente postado por Azure Fang:

Every game can be coaxed to run on Windows 10/11. You just have to actually try with some.

Honest question:
Why should it be the consumer's responsibility to try to get the software they bought to run correctly?
Why is it not the trader's responsibility to ensure old software that they still continue to sell in modern times, actually works on modern day environments correctly? E.g. by pre-applying the necessary workarounds right out the gate?

Because the "trader" isn't responsible. The End User, Developer, and Publisher, in order of responsibility, have ALWAYS been responsible for getting a game to run. The "trader" - the storefront - has always just sold the game. Steam is no different than Software Etc., Babbages, GameStop, and every brick-and-mortar in between. They do not have the tools nor business model to ensure that you have the proper hardware, software, and baseline intelligence to run a game. GOG set a really bad precedent on this by taking over some of this responsibility and for some eras of games they did an extremely poor job; NEVER use packaged DOSBox configs from GOG unless you want the level worse game experience. But, they TOOK OVER the Publisher end by buying the rights to old games so that they could support them and effectively overstep the storefront position.

Today, when playing a "classic", we need to jump through compatibility hoops to get a game to run, all of which take a couple minutes tops. When the games were new, you needed to know how to write your autoexec.bat and config.sys to ensure your audio and CD drive were functioning properly and your RAM was properly flagged, heaven forbid your CMOS battery dies and you have to go in and manually configure your HDD parameters, and you STILL needed to make sure you had a supported video and/or sound card, middleware software, and drivers. That or you needed to pay someone to do it for you and HOPE the game installer didn't overwrite both files because it was configured poorly. People look at XP through rose-tinted glasses, but hashing out compatibility for "old" Windows-based games was a NIGHTMARE in that era compared to today with zero automation, a lot of guess and check, and still having to keep an underlying DOS environment correctly configured on top of it. Windows 7 made things a lot easier, but you still had to download an optional tool until it was integrated near it's EoL. Windows 10+ integrated the tool from the get go.

Nothing has changed: the end user is and always has been responsible, first and foremost, for ensuring that a game will run on their system. Actually, I take that back. EVERYTHING has been made significantly easier, but people keep getting lazier.