improved game compatibility under XP?

Now, I don't know WHEN this happened, but just because I felt lucky today I tried one of those older directx games under windows xp (sonic r) and with some fiddling I managed to get it to work flawlessly... hm. funky, I thought. Well, while I was at it I thought ...ok, why not pop in good old Daytona USA. And to my surprise, despite the installer hickups, the game itself ran without a hitch instantly. "well, wtf...I am sure it didn't..." ...then tried games of which I was sure didn't work properly before, namely NFS2 and Sega Rally, and they do now!
So either a hardware alteration caused this somewhere somehow or Windows XP improved.
Did anyone else notice this, and if not, could someone try out an older dx game of which he was sure it didn't work before to see if it works now?
This kinda surprised me, to say the least. Not that I'm complaining, of course, but I never read about it anywhere. Or was I the only one who had these problems before?

[cloudvii]

No you weren't , that's why I'm still using win98 (I Wonder if I'll be using it forever)

Originally Posted by cloudvii

No you weren't , that's why I'm still using win98 (I Wonder if I'll be using it forever)

probably not. I was skeptical about winxp and I eventually switched and I'm not eager to switch back
..especially not if it starts to run old stuff again ^_^

[cloudvii]

Ok guys , We (Samor and I) have made a challenge just now on MSN . He said he was able to run Tempest 2000 on XP better than on 98 . So , I'm going to prove it works on 98 as good as xp if not better .
I'll have to find a friend with this game , but if anyone has this game and u r using win 98 , try it and tell me about it here . Thx

....windows version, not the dos version

anyway, I just want to really know if anyone else noticed compatibility improvements in XP recently.

[n_w95482]

I remember not being able to run GTA1 a while back but the last time I ran it, it never had a problem. I should try Daytona USA again, last time I tried playing it it had these weird speed bursts every second or so. It runs fine on my P1 233 though .

the speedbursts I had too...now they were gone, but after I restarted they were back. So I figured what I'd done the last time. It seems Virtual PC influences it, EVEN if it doesn't run an actual configuration at all; just starting virtual pc seems to fix the speed problems (!)
So, I'd suggest you find some virtual pc demo and see if just starting that helps any. It definately does here !
Very odd that just running virtual pc seems to fix this, isn't it?
I wonder what the underlying reason is....
I think I found something interesting here!
in a nutshell, Virtual PC seems be doing something that fixes ddraw...

(and yup, unload vpc completely and the speed is incorrect again... strange use for the program I guess, but as long as it works...)

now I found what really does the trick, and it's even easier;
same trick used for some games in Win98: disable directdraw acceleration. This can be done with dxdiag.
Apparantly virtual pc does something similar when it's started (allthough 3d still works then; dxdiag turns it off completely, but it can also be easily re-enabled)

[Neo-Zacar]

i couldn't run transport tycoon deluxe with my xp so win98 beats it

[Typhoon 01]

Originally Posted by Neo-Zacar

i couldn't run transport tycoon deluxe with my xp so win98 beats it

I ran Transport Tycoon Deluxe perfectly under WinXP and i also can play some older games like Settlers 2 Gold and some Larry games.

[cloudvii]

What about dos games ?
Win98 is the best

I have dosbox for that;
anyway, this thread isn't about win98 vs xp ;P

[cloudvii]

>>>I have dosbox for that;
anyway, this thread isn't about win98 vs xp ;P

DosBox is too "sources consuming" considering he is just running dos games

And I know this isn't XP vs 98 , but look at the title "improved game compatibility under XP?'' . I'm giving a better solution , instead of solving problems of XP , just use 98 ^_^

[n_w95482]

I have gotten a couple of DOS games to run under XP (Test Drive 1-3 are the only ones I can think of right now) and for the most part, they ran OK. TD 1 and 2 ran great but 3 ran way too fast, DOSbox fixed that though .

[KanedA]

I tried Resident Evil (pc) ... I know it's not that old but... it ran way too fast
anyway I'm going back to my Virtua Fighter 4 Evo, Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 4 and ect. [ps2 of course]

[Ghale0n]

Originally Posted by KanedA

I tried Resident Evil (pc) ... I know it's not that old but... it ran way too fast
anyway I'm going back to my Virtua Fighter 4 Evo, Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 4 and ect. [ps2 of course]

Resident Evil runs too fast for me and I have a sucky p2 450, it did when Had win98 too something is wrong with that game..

Originally Posted by cloudvii

>>>I have dosbox for that;
anyway, this thread isn't about win98 vs xp ;P

DosBox is too "sources consuming" considering he is just running dos games

yeah, but then again, you're using an older pc with win98; you ought to be able to run most stuff in dos anyways...

anyway, I found out now that disabling direct draw acceleration fixes a lot of older games that use software mode in XP. Same trick works in 98 btw, but with some different results.

The thing with Tempest 2000 for windows is; NONE of my 98 installs (on multiple pc's) could EVER run the game correctly in full screen mode, and XP can. Daytona USA, Sega Rally and NFS2 now also work flawlessly. Sonic R has a starting issue but I found a workaround and then it works without problems as well. Many games give some slight errors during installation but it's easy to get around those.
And it's my hobby to get stuff working ^_^

[Bgnome]

most of my favorite dos games were the lucasarts adventures so i end up using scummvm for those..