Pemalite said:
It's a native install and play for StarCraft/Age of Empires etc'.
Just drop in the 30 year old CD Rom, install, play.
DOS games regardless if you buy them physical or digital tend to require DOSBox or another emulator unless you run a VM of Win9x.
sc94597 said:
I am not getting in this is argument with you given our prior discussions and your tendency toward inflexible black and white thinking.
But no it isn't blatantly false that I can more easily play a digital version of games released in 2004 on most current hardware than it is to play a disc version that depends on me accessing an optical drive in the year 2026. I am not carrying a fricken external optical drive everywhere I go with my laptop.
And that is without considering compatibility issues that Steam streamlines and reduces.
This is my last post on this topic in response to you. Already seen where it is going with language like "blatantly false."
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Optical drives are still readily available on PC.
I noticed you are American, you can still easily buy a USB DVD Rom drive that will work on all PC Laptops, Desktops and Tablets running Windows or Linux.
https://www.newegg.com/p/105-00EH-00089
A quick look on Amazon also showcases dozens of USB Drives.
You can even buy them from Wallmart.
https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/dvd-usb
Games released in 2004 tend to be extremely god damn compatible with Windows 10/11 as all games at that time tended to be released with Windows XP in mind which is based on the NT Kernel which has extremely good interoperability with Vista/7/8/10/11 Windows OS's as they are also based on the NT Kernel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Releases
It's Win9x where things can start being hit or miss as it was built on top of DOS and thus needed 16-bit compatibility which modern 64bit windows versions tended to be poor at supporting due to a lack of NTVDM.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/ntvdm-and-16-bit-app-support
But Win9x is much much much older than 2004 and is thus not an issue for any game released in 2004.
Whether you want to continue this discussion is entirely up to you, but you have really provided no technical reasoning in this discussion or even provided evidence for your claims... Just blurted out an opinion that is blatantly false and claimed everyone else is incorrect.
Keep in mind I was also a PC gamer during this era, before you were born, so I have first hand experience.
So with the evidence I have presented... And you running away. I have won. Wish it was always this easy.
Cerebralbore101 said:
You are both sort of right. On one hand he can play his physical games. On the other hand playing them via a software emulator instead of a period-correct PC is like slapping an original NES cart into one of those crappy $25 NES clones that retrobit or hyperkin puts out. It's just not authentic or accurate anymore. Might as well run an emulator with a digital rom, because without the original hardware or an fpga solution it's not going to run right.
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It depends how far back you go.
At around the year 1996 games started to have 32bit executable's and started to support NT based OS's.
But at around 2001 it was no longer an issue.
But you don't need to emulate or have a period correct PC or an FPGA solution. Virtual Machines essentially fixed the issue entirely.
Things like texture formats etc' have all remained supported natively in hardware over the decades... The biggest change that often makes games seem "different" today compared to when we first started playing (Even natively) is actually the display.
Back in the mid 90's PC's were running high-resolution 4:3/5:4 aspect CRT displays at very good refresh rates, so games looked really really really good... But run those same old games (Which for example may use checkerboard sprites to simulate transparency on a CRT) on a modern pixel-perfect display, iyou see all the tricks and shortcuts developers took... Those same sprites will look terrible and not transparent. - Then stretch it to a 16:9/16:10 aspect (Unless you have black bars) and the original artist intent is lost.
But for all intents, you don't need emulation of any kind for Windows PC games, you may need a patch, even a community patch to make it work however in some cases.
The oldest game I play today that doesn't use DOS or emulation is probably Age of Empires (1997), Diablo (1996), Command and Conquer (1995), WarCraft 2 (1995) as they all are native 32bit apps.
Games like Dungeon Keeper are a hassle to get working on a modern 64bit PC due to the games 16bit executable, but I run OTVdm (winevdm) that translates the 16bit set to let me run those games natively on Windows 11. (As modern x86 CPU's can still run 16bit code natively)
https://mendelson.org/otvdm.html
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I'm still learning about retro PCs so I may have been wrong. Will respond in detail later on.
Just wanted to say that I am well aware of how essential a CRT is. I own a multi-format BVM with an FPGA clone card to output 480p, 720p and 1080i. Also have a GCDual mod and a bunch of other goodies.
In fact join the new retro forum because I'm going to make a new hardware and software thread with pics quite often in there. Your knowledge of retro PCs would be more than welcome there.
Last edited by Cerebralbore101 - 1 day ago
