Legacy PC/Mac gaming

[Jon1]

I could see myself getting a 486 again one day. Throughout my childhood until the late 90s PC gaming occupied almost as much time as consoles. It's sad to see great developers like Dynamix get sort of lost in history. I wish there was a place that reviewed these games from the golden age of PC gaming, 89-95.

[eraserhead1]

There's no grading or other critique, but dosgames.com and dosgamesarchive.com both have brief descriptions, screenshots, and publishing info next to their downloads. Good resources to browse, discover, and decide if trying is worthwhile.

[Wallyworld1]

I keep 2 PC 's hooked up to one computer monitor. A new gaming pc and an old pc for running my collection of old pc games. That works for me.

[Pimphand_Gamester1]

Can't you just install Windows ME or 98 as a second OS and still play all the old games on modern hardware or does it not work?

[ptdebate1]

[QUOTE=Pimphand_Gamester]Can't you just install Windows ME or 98 as a second OS and still play all the old games on modern hardware or does it not work?[/QUOTE]

It is impossible. There are no Windows 98 drivers for modern motherboards. Windows ME, on the other hand ...*shudders*...you can't even run that properly on the hardware it was designed for.

[PinMike86661]

I'm not really an avid computer gamer, but I wish there was a Windows alternative to DOSBox where older Windows-only software can be played quite well on modern PCs as DOSBox has. If y'all are interested in legacy PC gaming, I'd highly reccomend the Youtube channel Lazy Game Reviews; the owner of the channel is an avid legacy PC fan and owns many vintage computers.

[Pimphand_Gamester1]

What about virtual machines? Does windows 98/ME work and play games on them?
I actually dislike the pre windows 95 Dos games, the audio is terrible compared to Amiga's version which imo were far superior.

[PinMike86661]

From what I've researched, virtual machines aren't quite as viable and accurate as DOSBox; however, with some trickery most Windows 95 games and up work okay with modern operating systems. I myself built a computer with Windows 7 64-bit and my games seem to work okay; Slam Tilt (a Windows 95-only game) works fine by using Windows 95 compatibility mode, the Pro Pinball series works fine, as well as Addiction Pinball. I've never really figured out DOSBox yet, but the games I do reportedly have work well with the program.

[SpiceWare1]

[QUOTE=PinMike8666]I'm not really an avid computer gamer, but I wish there was a Windows alternative to DOSBox where older Windows-only software can be played quite well on modern PCs as DOSBox has. If y'all are interested in legacy PC gaming, I'd highly reccomend the Youtube channel Lazy Game Reviews; the owner of the channel is an avid legacy PC fan and owns many vintage computers.[/QUOTE]

That Wineskin Winery I linked to is just a Mac specific port of Wine.  It looks like they've been working on Wine on Windows in order to run older Windows games that fail under current versions of Windows.  Doesn't look like they have it all figured out yet, but would probably be worth monitoring.

In the mean time, you could probably use a virtual machine to run Linux, then install Wine in the virtual machine to run those old games. If you don't have have one, check out the free VirtualBox.

[jon]

I've been getting nostalgic about the old days of PC gaming. I miss the old Front Page Sports Football games and how amazing they were as well. I think those were the first games ever to have a dynasty mode. And NHL Hockey, which was released in 1993, was the computer port to NHL 94, but it had a lot of additional features. It had a season mode, which the console versions lacked. There's a ton of other games too like Doom that I'm looking forward to playing. Oh, the good old days.