Backwards compatability shot in the dark.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

I was trolling along in some old CDs, and I tried loading up a pair of old games, Allied General and Pacific general, by SSI. Anyway, they don't work on Windows seven I'm guessing they'd work in windows 95, which they were designed for, (Dosbox definitely doesn't work, and I don't think they weren't made to be dos compatible).


Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas as to how to get them to work. To be honest, I don't expect anything, but If someone has an idea, I'd like to hear it.



Best wishes,
Corgatha Taldorthar.

[superluser]

Hummm...

What if you tried them in Wine?

[Drayco84]

Yeah, most old games on CDs are usually 95 to 98 era. And Superluser, if they've tried them on Win 7, then I doubt they have Linux handy.

Wikipedia says Allied General was made for 3.1, 95, and 98, while Pacific General is for Win 95.

To note, I'm not finding any Win 9x emulators yet, but I have found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtual_machines

[Tapewolf]

Anyway, they don't work on Windows seven

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas as to how to get them to work.

Install Windows 95 in a virtual machine?  Do you still have the disks kicking around for that?

Also, did you install the 32 or 64-bit version of Windows 7?  If it's 64-bit you aren't going to be able to run any 16-bit (i.e. 3.1-compatible) software, at least, not without some kind of CPU emulation.

[Cvstos]

I honestly wish more companies would start selling updated versions of their old games compatible with newer systems.

The games don't run on newer systems, but I bet there's solutions out there to get them to run. In such a case, they could not only implement the solution but sell it on Steam and keep making money off the game rather than have it sit on some computer somewhere, alone, unloved and unused.

Console games are similar. Older titles that once appeared on the Dreamcast and earlier could probably be made to work on newer systems with much more power, like the PS3 and Xbox 360.

It would be some work to get the emulation working right for things like Dreamcast and GameCube, but once done a publisher could put up all their software on the XBLA or PSN and make a lot of money for relatively little effort.

I can say this for certain: If Sega put up Skies of Arcadia Legends and Jet Grind Radio up on the PSN, I'd sell my old Dreamcast in a heartbeat. (And if they make a sequel or something on PS3 I'd pre-order that so fast...) If Namco then put Tales of Symphonia up on PSN, the GameCube would be out the door just as quickly.

Put Sonic CD, Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles (WITH lock-on, damnit) up on PSN, and my Genesis and Sega CD would get sold. (And actually at this point if Tales of Vesperia PS3 sees a US release my Xbox 360 is getting sold, too.) I could consolidate all my hardware into one console and sell everything else, and yes, pay the publishers cold hard cash for stuff I've already purchased, but can now play on my newer hardware.

For PC? I have PILES of old games I'd buy over again on Steam to always have access to them. Crimson Skies (the first one which I sadly never got to play), Sim City 1-4, SimCopter, the C&C First Decade pack, every Wing Commander game, Freelancer 1 and 2, Privateer 1 and 2 (especially 2), American McGee's Alice, and probably a few dozen more I can't think of off the top of my head. Some of these have lost or damaged disks or just don't work anymore, and I'd love to revisit them, and I'd pay some real money to get them working natively once more and forever via Steam.

I know that this is actually happening to a limited extent, but not as much as one might think and I'm honestly AMAZED that more developers haven't taken advantage of this kind of thing. If I was at the head of Sega or EA or something I'd hire a team specifically tasked to take old games and put them up on those services to sell again, and not stop at anything. Put up the entire catalogue, pronto.

(Please forgive any typos, I'm real tired right now and about to head to bed.)

[Turnsky]

http://www.dosbox.com/

this might help

[Tapewolf]

every Wing Commander game, Freelancer 1 and 2, Privateer 1 and 2 (especially 2),

Origin wasn't great at keeping the source code.  They lost Ultima 7, for instance.  In any case, those games were 16-bit real mode code, except for Pagan which was 16-bit protected mode.  Getting them to compile cleanly on a 32 or 64-bit platform is at best going to be a challenge.  For one, you'd have to rewrite and/or replace all the assembler.  Dosbox or something like Exult/Pentagram which interprets the game scripts and bytecode is a better bet.

http://www.dosbox.com/
this might help

He tried that, apparently they're win16 and win32 binaries.

[Turnsky]

every Wing Commander game, Freelancer 1 and 2, Privateer 1 and 2 (especially 2),

Origin wasn't great at keeping the source code.  They lost Ultima 7, for instance.  In any case, those games were 16-bit real mode code, except for Pagan which was 16-bit protected mode.  Getting them to compile cleanly on a 32 or 64-bit platform is at best going to be a challenge.  For one, you'd have to rewrite and/or replace all the assembler.  Dosbox or something like Exult/Pentagram which interprets the game scripts and bytecode is a better bet.

http://www.dosbox.com/
this might help

He tried that, apparently they're win16 and win32 binaries.

oof, aside from the whole "compatability mode" that windows does have (right-click properties menu) i'm out of ideas.

[RobbieThe1st]

Apparently, You can play Pacific General via Wine properly. Allied General on the other hand...

Your only other option is going to be to download a copy of VirtualBox, acquire an ISO of W95 and install it - This should actually be fairly simple to do. The only issue is going to be making sure the virtual hardware has w95 drivers.
Here's a tutorial.

Note: According to that tutorial, most W95 disks apparently need a dos boot-floppy; This is odd - I (still) have a couple of sets of W95 install media - no floppy needed. If it comes down to it, I could probably get a copy to you if you can't find any other way...

-Robbie

[Tapewolf]

Note: According to that tutorial, most W95 disks apparently need a dos boot-floppy; This is odd - I (still) have a couple of sets of W95 install media - no floppy needed. If it comes down to it, I could probably get a copy to you if you can't find any other way...

IIRC the earliest ones didn't, because PCs couldn't when it was released.  It was fixed in later revisions of the OS.

Also, it is possible to install Windows 3.1 inside DOSbox.  No idea about sound and video support, though.

[Turnsky]

Note: According to that tutorial, most W95 disks apparently need a dos boot-floppy; This is odd - I (still) have a couple of sets of W95 install media - no floppy needed. If it comes down to it, I could probably get a copy to you if you can't find any other way...

IIRC the earliest ones didn't, because PCs couldn't when it was released.  It was fixed in later revisions of the OS.

Also, it is possible to install Windows 3.1 inside DOSbox.  No idea about sound and video support, though.

considering that windows 3.1 and 3.11 were technically just a gui shell for DOS, this makes sense... i do wonder whether it's plausible to run win95 within such an enviroment, too.

[Tapewolf]

considering that windows 3.1 and 3.11 were technically just a gui shell for DOS, this makes sense... i do wonder whether it's plausible to run win95 within such an enviroment, too.

It's said that it can be.  Though given that the Win95 DOS and GUI components were held together with a very fragile interlocking mechanism - it involved overwriting parts of the DOS kernel in-memory with the lower-case letter 'c' - that would be quite a feat, especially to have it running on multiple versions.  E.g. Win95A had different offsets to 95B and 95C and if they were wrong it would just crash.

[Drayco84]

Freelancer 1 and 2

I want info because as far as I know, Freelancer 2 was never released. Plus, Freelancer is an XP game. Do you mean FreeSpace?

And I still have a Win 98SE disk, btw. Played pretty much all the 95 games I had without complaint.

[Jack McSlay]

And Superluser, if they've tried them on Win 7, then I doubt they have Linux handy.

as strange as it sounds, I've already seen Wine builds for Windows in Wine's website, but they don't distribute them anymore.

It is actually a possible option, but It will take quite some work to build, and I'm not quite sure about 16-bit support

[Mao]

Not to mention the amount of resources that would take, or the fact that he'd have to install a different OS over (or in addition to) the one he has which isn't really practical for this situation...

I do believe that some of the more expensive options of Windows 7 come with a decent emulation of the older versions of the OS, but I'll admit to being somewhat ignorant on the matter.  It may be worth looking into in this situation though.

[Cvstos]

Freelancer 1 and 2

I want info because as far as I know, Freelancer 2 was never released. Plus, Freelancer is an XP game. Do you mean FreeSpace?

And I still have a Win 98SE disk, btw. Played pretty much all the 95 games I had without complaint.

Yep, I meant Freespace. I said to forgive my typos, I wrote that up when I was real tired and about to go to bed.

That being said, if they ever do release a Freelancer 2 I would buy it in a heartbeat. I LOVED Freelancer 1.  

every Wing Commander game, Freelancer 1 and 2, Privateer 1 and 2 (especially 2),

Origin wasn't great at keeping the source code.  They lost Ultima 7, for instance.  In any case, those games were 16-bit real mode code, except for Pagan which was 16-bit protected mode.  Getting them to compile cleanly on a 32 or 64-bit platform is at best going to be a challenge.  For one, you'd have to rewrite and/or replace all the assembler.  Dosbox or something like Exult/Pentagram which interprets the game scripts and bytecode is a better bet.

http://www.dosbox.com/
this might help

He tried that, apparently they're win16 and win32 binaries.

Well, we know that Wing Commander IV is still around, it's up on PSN (of course that's the PS One version of the game), so there are most likely others. Wing Commander I is also available on PSP.

If GameTap and Good Old Games can get games from that era working on modern systems there are mostly likely scalable solutions out there and available. (Now freakin' get them on Steam!)

On another note, I'm real sad there are more space shooters on the market. A real dev team could make one look UNBELIEVABLE on modern systems, as there's no "level" - it's space. Yes, there's stuff flying around, but compare it to, say Uncharted 2. The characters look amazing, but so does the scenery. But in space, all the clock cycles you spend making the scenery are freed - it's just open sky with a single high-res texture behind it. So you can then up the detail on the characters - in this case, the ships and stations and what have you. I'd be willing to bet that if EA put real resources behind a true, new Wing Commander game it would look absolutely STUNNING.

[Drayco84]

Yep, I meant Freespace. I said to forgive my typos, I wrote that up when I was real tired and about to go to bed.

That being said, if they ever do release a Freelancer 2 I would buy it in a heartbeat. I LOVED Freelancer 1. 

Eagle Forever! But only because the Titans were flying bricks, The Saber didn't have all the hard-points it was supposed to, and the Hammerhead didn't have any lvl10 gun mounts...

[Cvstos]

Yep, I meant Freespace. I said to forgive my typos, I wrote that up when I was real tired and about to go to bed.

That being said, if they ever do release a Freelancer 2 I would buy it in a heartbeat. I LOVED Freelancer 1.  

Eagle Forever! But only because the Titans were flying bricks, The Saber didn't have all the hard-points it was supposed to, and the Hammerhead didn't have any lvl10 gun mounts...

I remember that! Ultimately that's the ship I settled on. Wish I could've gone back through the campaign with all that high-level equipment!

I loved exploring the outer systems in Freelancer. Dangerous though they were, they had some of the absolute best-looking systems in the game. The ones you saw in the main campaign were bland and boring in comparison.

That being said, I'm pretty sure Freelancer 2 was once in development but from what I hear it was cancelled real early.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Wow, I wasn't expecting such a strong response. Thanks for all the help guys.  I don't use Linux, and I'm not up to trying to squeeze Wine into working on Windows. I pulled up Virtualbox, but I don't have a Windows 95 CD or floppies on hand. Made an order, but it should take a little while for it to arrive. I'd need to do that with anything I'd tried, I think, so at least for me, this looks like it's on hold until the stuff gets mailed to me.


Still, many, many thanks for all the help.


P.S. I *love* wing commander. IIRC, I could get 3 to work in Dosbox, and Wing commander 1 always has. Wing commander 2, however, I could rarely get to work even back in the days when Dos was the actual operating system. Never really liked IV. (And don't remember what it ran on.) I found that ImRec missiles seemed too powerful. I knocked Seether off at the end by simply popping him with a single missile. I'd often die in long missions just from running out of chaff pods. Added lots and lots of frustration.

And no, I never managed to beat Kurasawa 2. *foams at the mouth* Beat all the other ones  though, eventually, even that one in SO2 with the double Fralthra run.

[RobbieThe1st]

Yep, I meant Freespace. I said to forgive my typos, I wrote that up when I was real tired and about to go to bed.

Freespace 2 should work fine on modern systems; IIRC I had it working on win XP(could have been 2k) with no trouble.
Also, the fact that the source code was released, and there is a group working on it says that there will be a way to play it - at least the modified version.

P.S. Freespace2 == win!

[Turnsky]

Yep, I meant Freespace. I said to forgive my typos, I wrote that up when I was real tired and about to go to bed.

Freespace 2 should work fine on modern systems; IIRC I had it working on win XP(could have been 2k) with no trouble.
Also, the fact that the source code was released, and there is a group working on it says that there will be a way to play it - at least the modified version.

P.S. Freespace2 == win!

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/?cat=37 the team's forums with campaigns, mods, and SCP work. given that they're working on multiple OS builds, might be worth a look-see.

[hapless]

Btw, you know that the more expensive editions of Win7 allow you to download a full-fledged WinXP VM legally from MS's site?

But, virtualization will cut the game from your video card, so it may not work anyway.
Trying Wine under Linux, however absurd it sounds, might be one of the better options, as it offers DirectX and OpenGL translation to soem extent. Well, that or finding a PC old enough you could get Win98 drivers for it. Shouldn't be more than $50 on ebay?

[superluser]

Trying Wine under Linux, however absurd it sounds, might be one of the better options, as it offers DirectX and OpenGL translation to soem extent.

Yeah, to expand on my previous suggestion, I'd try copying the CDs to a flash drive, getting a Linux LiveCD of Linux, booting from the CD, running Wine from there and using that to run your games.

You could also run Linux in VirtualBox, and run Wine in the virtualized Linux.  Though at that point, you might want to run a virtual session of OSX running a virtual session of OpenGenera running a virtual session of Linux running a virtual session of W95.  Y'know, just cause.

[hapless]

OpenGenera...

Yay, someone else who heard of it! They made a port to OSX? I thought it was available for Tru64 only...

... running a virtual session of Linux running a virtual session of W95.

... erm, what?

[Drayco84]

Trying Wine under Linux, however absurd it sounds, might be one of the better options, as it offers DirectX and OpenGL translation to soem extent.

Yeah, to expand on my previous suggestion, I'd try copying the CDs to a flash drive, getting a Linux LiveCD of Linux, booting from the CD, running Wine from there and using that to run your games.

You could also run Linux in VirtualBox, and run Wine in the virtualized Linux.  Though at that point, you might want to run a virtual session of OSX running a virtual session of OpenGenera running a virtual session of Linux running a virtual session of W95.  Y'know, just cause.

While that'll work, it'll also require a fairly hefty chunk of RAM (Installing Wine + game on a virtual dive, plus running Linux, plus whatever the game requires.) and you will probably be unable to save your progress in said game. Well, most of those games DID have a "minimal" install option...

[superluser]

Yay, someone else who heard of it! They made a port to OSX? I thought it was available for Tru64 only...

Sorry, I was just trying to get as many levels of virtualization in there as possible, and I definitely wanted something obbscure but awesome like OpenGenera in there somewhere.

(actually, I still have a DEC Alpha in my closet if I ever want to buy Tru64 UNIX and get OpenGenera running)

[hapless]

You could also run Linux in VirtualBox, and run Wine in the virtualized Linux.  Though at that point, you might want to run a virtual session of OSX running a virtual session of OpenGenera running a virtual session of Linux running a virtual session of W95.  Y'know, just cause.

While that'll work, it'll also require a fairly hefty chunk of RAM (Installing Wine + game on a virtual dive, plus running Linux, plus whatever the game requires.) and you will probably be unable to save your progress in said game. Well, most of those games DID have a "minimal" install option...

That wouldn't work any better (most probably even worse) than putting Win95 or 98 in the VM.
Wine on _real_ hardware can provide access to GPU.
Wine in VM can provide access only to the VM's GPU (which's an S3 Trio, usually... a completely "dumb" framebuffer card).

(actually, I still have a DEC Alpha in my closet if I ever want to buy Tru64 UNIX and get OpenGenera running)

That's cool, indeed. If I'd win a lottery tomorrow, I'd get one from Islandco too.
(Mandatory:) Tho if you'd have a real Lisp Machine (or a MacIvory card) it'd be even cooler.

[Brunhidden]

heck, im still trying to dek dungon keeper 2 to work on vista. for some reason it runs, but only shows a black screen