poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Ok then you just plug it in to the HDMI or display port on your TV right? And your PS2 and your PS1 and your GameCube and your Turbogfx 16 and your NES and your SNES. Then just select HDMI 15.
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Annoying shenanigans in old PC games.
- Thread starter Krathoon
- Start date
nkarafo
Member
It's not nonsense. 8 out of 10 games will work. One will need some troubleshooting and one will not work.
This is way better than consoles that, at best, only have last gen backwards compatibility, if at all.
I play a lot of old PC games. In general i find that any game from the XP era or newer will work with no issues. Games from the DOS era will work on DOS-Box. The less compatible games are from the 5 year Win95/98 era. This is where you will find most games that have issues but you can fix that by running them on a virtual PC or emulator such as PCEm.
So yeah, it's a bit more involved but you have the means and freedom to do it since Windows is an open platform.
And let's not talk about console emulators either...
nkarafo
Member
Yup. GTA IV runs beautifully with DXVK and the fusion patch. I don't use any other texture/graphics mods and it looks beautiful with good performance, proper antialiasing, fixed DOF, better LOD, restored effects that were missing from the port and the ability to disable some annoying stuff such as the intense bloom during day time.
The game runs and looks so good, i did a new playthrough and it's now probably my favorite GTA game, the city is the best i have ever played but it was impossible to enjoy properly before.
Team Andromeda
Member
Show me where I said any system does it better. Oh wait, I didn't!
Team Andromeda
Member
Spot on. I also think it's unrealistic to expect a system to play games from 20 or 30 years ago
nkarafo
Member
Any PC can do that.
Theoretically yes. Most of the time it is a software problem. E.g. dune: emporer will work on windows 11, but only if you install everything where the developers intended to install. If you don't install it on c: it just won't run. AC black flag has problems with physx on current systems. I stopped buying AC games on PC because of the crappy copy protection in ac2 (well actually I didn't buy this, it was a birthday present). Always when my Internet connection was lost (and I had a really unstable connection at that time) the game stopped working. That was why I started to buy almost only console games.
Now I almost only buy games for consoles or on gog as they also patch older games so they can run on current systems. I just want to play in my free time and not figure out how to run a game. I just got to old for that shit.
Zathalus
Member
So by process of elimination PC is the king of BC. That doesn't mean it has to be perfect.
Team Andromeda
Member
Mine can't.
Soodanim
Member
I've been reading your posts ITT to try and figure out what your argument actually is, because you seem to be ignoring objective facts. From what I can gather:
PC isn't the BC king because it's not absolutely perfect. Despite the many thousands and thousands of games that can be run that dwarfs any other platform's count by an incredible margin even without counting potential benefits like upgrades, because of the non-zero percentage of unplayable games it can't possibly have the #1 spot. No one can have the #1 spot even though that's not how numbers work because of Ubisoft's poor PC ports.
Not a single person is saying you don't need to put more in with PC, but they are saying if you put more in you get FAR more out. The results are undeniable, and the fact that I can install PS1/2 era games on PC with modern fixes to make them run far better than they ever did with enhancements beyond the originals (e.g. GTA trilogy, RE1-3) is incredible. The closest that I'm aware of is Microsoft, who before the apparent decline in the entire Xbox business were putting in good efforts to support games going back to OG Xbox. That was an effort that should have been applauded and celebrated more.
Even if you take all of the effort away and only include games from Steam and GOG that can be installed and run without issue right here and now, you've still got a library that grossly outnumbers any console ever and goes back decades longer. To deny that undeniable fact doesn't make any sense.
Senua
Member
nkarafo
Member
It can so it's a user issue.
JimboJones
Member
Team Andromeda
Member
Or a game that doent work even in compatibility mode and that's when Geoff doesn't want to play ball .
I can get GP 4 working with some work arounds but that's being economical with the true and it wasnt the case of putting the game in and in worked.
Which is what I take true BC to be
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BlackTron
Gold Member
TBH I think both camps are "right". Is PC the BC "king"? Well, yeah. Because PC gives you the most options overall in one device. Despite this opinion I still have a preference to play certain systems natively like N64. This is after we got 3D gaming but before we settled on a standardized controller design and analog input, so the emulation can be a hassle to make satisfying compared to "newer old games". This doesn't really change the fact that PC is the king of BC though lol. It technically can play all those N64 games, and Saturn games, and 20 other systems. If you want to put 20 game systems in a massive box and say "THIS box is the king of BC" then okay I guess.
For many systems those considerations are hardly there. Like almost everything before 3D gaming. I still have old consoles like NES, SNES, Genesis, portables like GB and GG, they just aren't that necessary because I can play those games on numerous less chunky devices I'm already gaming on with little downside. The inverse is also true...knocking old systems because of the connections. New sets still have analog inputs. If they don't, you can get an adapter. Believe it or not, back in the day not all people had the right inputs either. And had to get a RF adapter. Imagine someone telling you that PC was the master race back then...reason being because if you game on console you need to buy a RF adapter. Mental illness.
nkarafo
Member
It's true that not all games will run out of the box. Some will have issues, others won't run at all at first. But these are not the majority.Theoretically yes. Most of the time it is a software problem. E.g. dune: emporer will work on windows 11, but only if you install everything where the developers intended to install. If you don't install it on c: it just won't run. AC black flag has problems with physx on current systems. I stopped buying AC games on PC because of the crappy copy protection in ac2 (well actually I didn't buy this, it was a birthday present). Always when my Internet connection was lost (and I had a really unstable connection at that time) the game stopped working. That was why I started to buy almost only console games.
Now I almost only buy games for consoles or on gog as they also patch older games so they can run on current systems. I just want to play in my free time and not figure out how to run a game. I just got to old for that shit.
Most of the games will run, i can't give you an exact percentage though because it also depends on the system. And the ones that don't will do so with some adjustments/patches/mods/additional free software. With some effort you may have 100% compatibility, in my case at least there hasn't been a single game yet that i couldn't manage to run one way or another since i got my first PC in 1999.
So it's a user issue, yes. I mean... sometimes even newer games that are supposed to run officially may not do so depending on the configuration, drivers or the condition of the OS. The PC is not a "plug and play" platform (even though nowadays it almost is compared to the past) and it needs some help from the user in order to run smoothly. The better the user, the more things it can do. A user who doesn't know what they are doing will eventually end up with a system that can't run half of the software it's supposed to run, let alone old games or janky software.
On the other hand the console doesn't need the user input to be functional, which makes the system plug and play and easier to deal with, but at the same time there's zero user control. There's not much you can do to add backwards compatibility or make older games work if there isn't any official support for it. At best, you can hack the system (if possible) so you can add emulators and other homebrew software but then you essentially turn your console to a PC and start having the same user issues you complained about before.
There is no perfect solution where a user doesn't have to put any effort and at the same time have 100% compatibility with all software that exists, if that's what you are looking for in order to declare a system as the "BC King". Knowing this, which system would you say is the best for backwards compatibility?
As i said above, there is no perfect solution. You are expecting all PC games in gaming history to work out of the box 100%, that's how many games? 200.000? 250.000? I don't even know. And you are expecting all of them to work without issues, across god knows how many different hardware and driver configurations?
You said "it's unrealistic to expect a system to play games from 20 or 30 years ago" but that's not what's unrealistic. You can play games from 20 or 30 years ago, i know because i do so all the time. What's unrealistic is expecting every game that exists to work perfectly, all the time, without some effort to help it.
So i'll ask the same question then, which system is the best for BC in your opinion? Not asking you for a system that runs every game in existence because nobody will test and run everything. But one system/platform has to be better than the others, correct? So which one is it, in your opinion?
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poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
We aren't talking about emulation - because if we do the conversation gets really lopsided and complicated.
No the argument is that consoles (as a concept I guess) have better backwards compatability because to play a PC game from 1996 on a modern PC may require a bit of googling and patching, but to play a console game from the same era all you have to do is have that console and plug it in. I was just pointing out that it still isn't that easy as you still have to do some legwork either sourcing a display that still has the correct inputs or finding an adaptor. And to access the console (as a concept) library you would need multiple consoles, multiple adaptors, multiple controllers etc. And unless you get a CRT or a super expensive adaptor in a lot of cases the games will still look like shit and nothing like they were supposed to.
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Kataploom
Gold Member
Then if you're too fond on keeping old hardware, why don't you just keep your old windows versions around "just in case" lol
nkarafo
Member
Why not? They are free to use and Windows compatible.
Consoles may also use emulation to an extend for their own BC compatibility.
Problem is, consoles have more limited BC, usually covering only one previous console. It's particularly annoying with Nintendo where they make sure it stays that way. The GBA plays GB games. The DS plays GBA but not GB games. The 3DS plays DS but not GBA games. The Wii plays Gamecube discs. The WiiU plays Wii discs but not GC discs.
So you can never get rid of your old consoles unless you re-buy your old games digitally and hope the company allows you to transfer them on the newest console.
Compatibility isn't always 100% with all consoles either. Pretty sure the og XBOX compatibility in later XBOX consoles is much lower than that.
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
By that logic what is impeding you to play a PC game from 1996 in your 1996 PC?
Husky
THE Prey 2 fanatic
Ah man, I was skimming through the thread and got excited about fanmade Saints Row ports.
Hugare
Gold Member
FF XV on PC sucks so much to work properly
Steam version has framepacing issues that were introduced with the latest patch, so you have to downgrade the game to an old patch. But from what I remember, downgrading causes problems with the DLCs, so you have to download the SpecialK mod to make it work properly with decent framepacing.
Alaso, image quality sucks with either FXAA or TAA. The only decent option is DLSS, but its locked to 4K, so its heavy on PCs even today.
GTA IV also sucks, even today. You have to add some lines into the launcher to make it use more of your GPU's memory, and also download dxvk to make it use Vulkan to mitigate stutters. Even then, it runs terrible for a game from 2008.
Steam version has framepacing issues that were introduced with the latest patch, so you have to downgrade the game to an old patch. But from what I remember, downgrading causes problems with the DLCs, so you have to download the SpecialK mod to make it work properly with decent framepacing.
Alaso, image quality sucks with either FXAA or TAA. The only decent option is DLSS, but its locked to 4K, so its heavy on PCs even today.
GTA IV also sucks, even today. You have to add some lines into the launcher to make it use more of your GPU's memory, and also download dxvk to make it use Vulkan to mitigate stutters. Even then, it runs terrible for a game from 2008.
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Krappadizzle
Member
I could have sworn I watched a video not too long ago addressing almost all of the GTAIV issues with one or two mods. I'd have to dig around to find it, but you aren't kidding, that game ran like shit for a long time.
Tying framerate to CPU speeds made sense 30 years ago when there was only a handful of CPU's and they all were the same speeds, but it really started to rear it's ugly head when they started hitting higher clocks and then multiple cores.
Soodanim
Member
The problem with the era of Crysis and GTA4 on PC is that it was expected that per core speeds would continue to rise. Instead it switched to core counts, and as such modern CPUs aren't well utilised to dominate the old games. Games still work, just not in the way you would hope for by default. That's why DXVK makes a big difference.
Dr.Morris79
Gold Member
I have a much easier time now than I did running games in the early 2000's. Utter pain in the arse that was. Sound drivers, graphics drivers etc
Kataploom
Gold Member
I mean, your PC clearly can, problem is you can't lol
Kataploom
Gold Member
BTW another issue with old PC games: Some games would refuse to run even if your computer had enough power, just because of song instructions set verification. Original RE4 port had this issue, it ran better on my moms PC which required some software to bypass Vertex shader verification (in theory, wouldn't launch because it lacked it) than on my computer that didn't need that lol.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
That one is a very easy fix - Red Dead Redemption wasn't released on PC. Your Xbox or PS disk won't work I'm afraid.
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rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
nkarafo
Member
I disagree. Yes the vanilla game is terrible. But the DXVK/Fusion Fix mod combo pretty much fixes everything and moves it from the "worst PC ports ever" to the "pretty good ports" territory. I also use a third "general fixes" mod that also fixes small glitches and wrongly placed props here and there. Oh and the soundtrack restore mod.
Even so there are still some issues where the game stutters for a few seconds during the day/night transitions and sometimes you might get the odd stutter that feels like cache compilation. So it's not perfect. But it's like 99% better than before. It's smooth enough for me to do full playthrough and actually enjoy the game this time. And it's the best way to play the game right now, it's far superior to the XBOX 360 version.
I don't use any major graphical overhaul mods btw. I don't like those because they completely change the atmosphere of the game.
nkarafo
Member
It's much better to emulate the Switch version in Yuzu. You can get full speed on a much slower PC and the game looks just as good or better. Plus i'm pretty sure it has less emulation bugs since Switch emulation is more complete than 360/PS3 emulation, on top of being less demanding.
dcx4610
Member
My favorite in recent memory was getting Tron Legacy (an actually fun game) to run on PC.
It's long been delisted on Steam because of the license but there are actually a lot of grey market keys available for a Disney bundle which includes the game. First, it was buying a shady key and hoping it redeemed since it was delisted (it did). Then, the game is riddled with DRM. The servers no longer exist so you can't activate the game anymore. You have to first patch the game, then use a emulated server to generate an activation key. Then you have to patch the video driver among other things. When it finally does run, it looks stunningly good and runs in high frame rate. I made sure to backup all of my files after that in case I ever want to play it again.
PC gaming in the mid to late 2000s was rough with all of the DRM but if you can strip it, a lot of those games really hold up and run really well. Especially with community patches if the game has a following.
It's long been delisted on Steam because of the license but there are actually a lot of grey market keys available for a Disney bundle which includes the game. First, it was buying a shady key and hoping it redeemed since it was delisted (it did). Then, the game is riddled with DRM. The servers no longer exist so you can't activate the game anymore. You have to first patch the game, then use a emulated server to generate an activation key. Then you have to patch the video driver among other things. When it finally does run, it looks stunningly good and runs in high frame rate. I made sure to backup all of my files after that in case I ever want to play it again.
PC gaming in the mid to late 2000s was rough with all of the DRM but if you can strip it, a lot of those games really hold up and run really well. Especially with community patches if the game has a following.
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rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Even on Windows?
I is confused.
Arsic
Loves his juicy stink trail scent
DMC had issues on windows too, so did mgs collection.
Dmc to this day you need to tweak to work at 4k.
Capcom fucked that collection.
BlackTron
Gold Member
Honestly, that's even sillier. Grabbing an old console and plugging it in is akin to grabbing an old PC and plugging it in. It will "just work" on the time-appropriate PC just like a console game will on the correct console. This proves nothing except that original native hardware is almost always more reliable as a general rule. Doesn't change that PC is the BC king. The mere fact that it CAN play all those games makes it the king. If you're going to plug in an old ass game system to prove something, you have to dig out an old PC too. That's not BC anymore lol.
kiphalfton
Member
Is that last comment a slight at Kingdom Hearts on PC. Cuz yeah, it's justified if so.
Krappadizzle
Member
Lol, it wasn't, but you understand my pain. Most recent example I could think of off the top that bugged me was Sunset Overdrive.
Soodanim
Member
I love the BC on PS1, being able to play Resident Evil 1 is great. If just works, you know?
BlackTron
Gold Member
Yes and I too love the BC feature on N64. Still using it for Ocarina of Time and Star Fox! Glad Nintendo thought ahead when they designed it.