older games not running

[Rouge]

ive purchased a few older games in the last year or so that were on sale and i have never been able to play them. its mainly been the older assassins creed games like 1 and 2 along with gta 4. i originally thought they just weren't optimized well for newer systems and decided to take the bullet with those. but i recently tried playing assassins creed 4 black flag and im having the same issues. i will boot up the game just fine then problems start to occur. sometimes its something like loading into the game but everything runs at like 15fps, other times its so slow it takes like 5 mins to select play game, and for almost all of them ive gotten stuck in endless loading screens. after this started happening with ac4 i was really confused because its not that old of a game but then i realized that all these games are being ran as 32 bit. im not sure if that has anything to do with it as im pretty sure that all 32 bit software should be able to run on 64 bit just fine but it was something i noticed. id really like to play these older games but im not sure what to do and would love some help. thanks:)

[Iceira]

if you cant play gta4 then update your pc BIOS and chipset driver. and do not have a windows not totaly update.with extra.


Do not have other pc issue

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /Restorehealth
SFC /Scannow
check disk (chkdsk)


other thirdpart app VC++ all in one from power tech. ( or do it yourself at MS own VC++ support page ) do not trust steam and game devs, trust MS latest updates. ( problem with older games also can point at older VC++ )

and thats actual a problem, you need to check windows install VC++
( + any validating and install of games also can make double entry of 2 version not same try avoid this )

google them cmd.

[Iceira]

+ you also make a mistake in anti virus maybe, you need to whitelist games today.

alot of games in the past, now need exception rule added.
also why game devs can be tough at security, aient a game devs problem that your security app now block it,

game devs do not go back and fix what security now has a issue with. ( special older games ) respect for them game devs that try.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Iceira, your suggestions are not necessarities for playing old games.

Bios updates is certainly not necrssary for old games. And can even go very wrong.

Antivirus should make a note if it blocked something.

If newer games run, also there is not a problem pointing to a disk problem.


I would suggest to ask in the forum of each game separately, describe the effect. Then see what you get.

[Iceira]

Muppet it cant be a blocking issue then game do start, then he has other issue its 2 folder issue here.

also sounds like it has working before.

[metamec]

Originally posted by Rouge:

sometimes its something like loading into the game but everything runs at like 15fps, other times its so slow it takes like 5 mins to select play game, and for almost all of them ive gotten stuck in endless loading screens

Assuming you are using a dedicated graphics card and not integrated graphics, are you sure your monitor is plugged into the graphics card's HDMI or DP connector, and not the connector integrated into the motherboard?

[IFIYGD]

It would really be more helpful if you gave your full system specs (OS/CPU/GPU/RAM amount)- so if someone with a similar build palys the same games, they can tell you if they were able to get it running smoothly.

Much older games that were developed and made to run on older dual core or quad core CPUs, or really old games that were made to run on single core CPUs (like an old AMD Athlon 64) will often bottleneck because the game will try to only use Core 0- you'll see Core 0 carrying most of or all of the load. Older games (really old ones) tend to be more CPU bound than GPU bound
Try setting core affinity to all cores *except* Core 0. This will often force your machine to spread the load more evenly across all other cores in a multi-core CPU, allowing the game to run more smoothly.

May or may not work, but it's something to try (and something that has helped some 10+ year old games run smoothly on my newer multi-core Windows and Linux machines. Grim Dawn is one of these games, though they have updated it a bit to run better on newer machines. But setting affinity all but Core 0 makes it run more smoothly, at a better framerate, and takes care of the micro-hitching that can happen if I don't set core affinity.

And yes, 64 bit machines can run both 64 bit and 32 bit games and programs just fine.

[Rouge]

Originally posted by metamec:

Originally posted by Rouge:

sometimes its something like loading into the game but everything runs at like 15fps, other times its so slow it takes like 5 mins to select play game, and for almost all of them ive gotten stuck in endless loading screens

Assuming you are using a dedicated graphics card and not integrated graphics, are you sure your monitor is plugged into the graphics card's HDMI or DP connector, and not the connector integrated into the motherboard?

yes its all plugged in correctly, ive never had this type of issue except to when it comes to playing older games like the ones i mentioned

[Rouge]

Originally posted by IFIYGD:

It would really be more helpful if you gave your full system specs (OS/CPU/GPU/RAM amount)- so if someone with a similar build palys the same games, they can tell you if they were able to get it running smoothly.

Much older games that were developed and made to run on older dual core or quad core CPUs, or really old games that were made to run on single core CPUs (like an old AMD Athlon 64) will often bottleneck because the game will try to only use Core 0- you'll see Core 0 carrying most of or all of the load. Older games (really old ones) tend to be more CPU bound than GPU bound
Try setting core affinity to all cores *except* Core 0. This will often force your machine to spread the load more evenly across all other cores in a multi-core CPU, allowing the game to run more smoothly.

May or may not work, but it's something to try (and something that has helped some 10+ year old games run smoothly on my newer multi-core Windows and Linux machines. Grim Dawn is one of these games, though they have updated it a bit to run better on newer machines. But setting affinity all but Core 0 makes it run more smoothly, at a better framerate, and takes care of the micro-hitching that can happen if I don't set core affinity.

And yes, 64 bit machines can run both 64 bit and 32 bit games and programs just fine.

OS- Windows 10 Home
CPU- Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8400
GPU- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
RAM- 16gb

[Rouge]

Originally posted by Muppet among Puppets:

Iceira, your suggestions are not necessarities for playing old games.

Bios updates is certainly not necrssary for old games. And can even go very wrong.

Antivirus should make a note if it blocked something.

If newer games run, also there is not a problem pointing to a disk problem.


I would suggest to ask in the forum of each game separately, describe the effect. Then see what you get.

yes newer games run fine, its just these older games that are usually 32 bit that dont perform well

[Rouge]

Originally posted by Iceira:

Muppet it cant be a blocking issue then game do start, then he has other issue its 2 folder issue here.

also sounds like it has working before.

if you're asking if these older games have worked before than the answer would be no. none of the games i have mentioned have worked properly and all the time played i have on them have been stuck in loading screens or in the settings of them trying to figure out what is wrong

[IFIYGD]

Originally posted by Rouge:

if you're asking if these older games have worked before than the answer would be no. none of the games i have mentioned have worked properly and all the time played i have on them have been stuck in loading screens or in the settings of them trying to figure out what is wrong

Check your anti-virus to make sure it hasn't locked anything into virus quarantine die to falsely flagging a file. Usually AV will block the main .exe file and the game will not launch at all, but it can sometimes block an associated .dll or other file that is needed to progress past the main menu or a loading screen.
Validate game file integrity to make sure any redistributables the game needs to run are installed on your machine.
And again, see if setting core affinity helps- check the game's own forums and Guides section of the game to see if anyone else with a similar build has had the same problem and posted a solution.

You say Windows 10- which version? N and KN versions of Windows sometimes need the Media Features Pack to be downloaded from the Microsoft website and installed for some things to work correctly or for media files to load. N is usually Windows OS released in Europe, KN is usually released in Korea and other Asian countries or regions.

[Rouge]

Originally posted by IFIYGD:

Originally posted by Rouge:

if you're asking if these older games have worked before than the answer would be no. none of the games i have mentioned have worked properly and all the time played i have on them have been stuck in loading screens or in the settings of them trying to figure out what is wrong

Check your anti-virus to make sure it hasn't locked anything into virus quarantine die to falsely flagging a file. Usually AV will block the main .exe file and the game will not launch at all, but it can sometimes block an associated .dll or other file that is needed to progress past the main menu or a loading screen.
Validate game file integrity to make sure any redistributables the game needs to run are installed on your machine.
And again, see if setting core affinity helps- check the game's own forums and Guides section of the game to see if anyone else with a similar build has had the same problem and posted a solution.

You say Windows 10- which version? N and KN versions of Windows sometimes need the Media Features Pack to be downloaded from the Microsoft website and installed for some things to work correctly or for media files to load. N is usually Windows OS released in Europe, KN is usually released in Korea and other Asian countries or regions.

just the home version, idk about the k or kn thing im in usa

[IFIYGD]

Originally posted by Rouge:

just the home version, idk about the k or kn thing im in usa

Yeah, if you're in the US, you won't have the N or KN Windows.

I have Windows 10, and have *almost* no issues running older games. Some games require running in Win XP/7/8.1 compatibility mode, but most run just fine. 32 bit or 64 bit- 64 bit Windows will run 32 bit SW without a problem. As long as I don't have an outside browser open with 30-40 tabs open, it's fine, and as long as I don't have Steam Overlay browser open with a bunch of tabs open.

Check the game's own forums to see if anyone else is having the same issue and has a fix or workaround. That's the only other thing I can and will suggest.