It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionHow well do GOG games scale to current systems?(12 posts)solved(12 posts)solved
(12 posts)solved
Pages:
1
This is my favourite topic
Posted February 12, 2018
Hi everyone, I am trying to transition back to PC gaming from console and exploring GOG (and others) for content.

The biggest issue I used to experience trying to play classic games (I still own my original copies of the War Craft, Heroes of Might and Magic, Might and Magic series) was the lack of scaling to faster PCs and updated operating systems, hardware, and/or drivers.

I love the idea of games being DRM free, but what are your thought and experiences GOG's approach vs Steam's?

Thanks for your input.
This question / problem has been solved by HereForTheBeerimage
Posted February 12, 2018
Re: scaling of speed. It depends on the game. Most of mine are just fine, but I will also be messing around with my recent installation of Privateer 2 (with the help of the subforum, of course) to help cure some speed problems. From what I can tell, it's usually stuff from the DOS / Win95 era that will cause speed problems. But even then, it has only been a small percentage of those I've tried.

Fortunately there are a bunch of folks in the game forums who have worked out many of the issues you might find with old games. Sometimes a community patch, sometimes some DOSBOX config tweaks, sometimes Windows settings.
Posted February 13, 2018
avatar
HereForTheBeer: Re: scaling of speed. It depends on the game. Most of mine are just fine, but I will also be messing around with my recent installation of Privateer 2 (with the help of the subforum, of course) to help cure some speed problems. From what I can tell, it's usually stuff from the DOS / Win95 era that will cause speed problems. But even then, it has only been a small percentage of those I've tried.

Fortunately there are a bunch of folks in the game forums who have worked out many of the issues you might find with old games. Sometimes a community patch, sometimes some DOSBOX config tweaks, sometimes Windows settings.
Thanks for the input. I am sure I will have a lot of questions for the community before it's over. LoL
Posted February 13, 2018
avatar
HereForTheBeer: Re: scaling of speed. It depends on the game. Most of mine are just fine, but I will also be messing around with my recent installation of Privateer 2 (with the help of the subforum, of course) to help cure some speed problems. From what I can tell, it's usually stuff from the DOS / Win95 era that will cause speed problems. But even then, it has only been a small percentage of those I've tried.

Fortunately there are a bunch of folks in the game forums who have worked out many of the issues you might find with old games. Sometimes a community patch, sometimes some DOSBOX config tweaks, sometimes Windows settings.
The only games with real speed problems are games whose display speeds are tied to your CPU cycles. As in X cycles per second. Games like Silver suffer from this with a certain bell rhythm puzzle being nearly impossible to complete.
Posted February 13, 2018
avatar
HereForTheBeer: Re: scaling of speed. It depends on the game. Most of mine are just fine, but I will also be messing around with my recent installation of Privateer 2 (with the help of the subforum, of course) to help cure some speed problems. From what I can tell, it's usually stuff from the DOS / Win95 era that will cause speed problems. But even then, it has only been a small percentage of those I've tried.

Fortunately there are a bunch of folks in the game forums who have worked out many of the issues you might find with old games. Sometimes a community patch, sometimes some DOSBOX config tweaks, sometimes Windows settings.
avatar
paladin181: The only games with real speed problems are games whose display speeds are tied to your CPU cycles. As in X cycles per second. Games like Silver suffer from this with a certain bell rhythm puzzle being nearly impossible to complete.
I'm pretty sure that HoMM3 had/has such an issue, basically after a few hours play it will crash if you have a CPU with multiple cores. It can be solved by forcing the game exe to only use one core (via Task Manager and Set Affinity). Not sure if GOG managed to solve this problem yet.
Posted February 13, 2018
GOG says it will run on said operating systems and specs that are posted, but a lot of the time there are little things you need to fix with cpu speed and resolution to texture fixing. I hate how gog does not fix this out the gate in the files. but eh DRM Free experience teaches you how to fix your games haha. <3

oh btw I have out of my 331 games I own here, around 48 of them needed to be fixed with patches and small edits to get running right or fixed booting issues.

Fun times.
Posted February 13, 2018
avatar
DreamedArtist: GOG says it will run on said operating systems and specs that are posted, but a lot of the time there are little things you need to fix with cpu speed and resolution to texture fixing. I hate how gog does not fix this out the gate in the files. but eh DRM Free experience teaches you how to fix your games haha. <3

oh btw I have out of my 331 games I own here, around 48 of them needed to be fixed with patches and small edits to get running right or fixed booting issues.

Fun times.
Are you sure GOG can fix everything? Sometimes things happen because of different hardware/software combinations that are impossible to reasonably predict.
Posted February 13, 2018
Horrible. Most Wind Tunnel machines won't even run DOS executable.
Posted February 13, 2018
avatar
DreamedArtist: GOG says it will run on said operating systems and specs that are posted, but a lot of the time there are little things you need to fix with cpu speed and resolution to texture fixing. I hate how gog does not fix this out the gate in the files. but eh DRM Free experience teaches you how to fix your games haha. <3

oh btw I have out of my 331 games I own here, around 48 of them needed to be fixed with patches and small edits to get running right or fixed booting issues.

Fun times.
avatar
tfishell: Are you sure GOG can fix everything? Sometimes things happen because of different hardware/software combinations that are impossible to reasonably predict.
I am sure things like Race Driver grid with the text document fix could be done on there end and packed up with the installer for people with higher resolution screens. Stuff like that but I know older stuff that you just cant fix is not easy to address. and plus they do once in a very short often while release games that just flat out don't work or have corrupt files like the jazz jackrabbit problem on launch missing levels. lol

Maybe I am just really lazy with fixing text in game documents to make it run on higher resolution or textures. sometimes I just like it to be seamless out the box you know?
Post edited February 13, 2018 by DreamedArtist
Posted February 13, 2018
avatar
DreamedArtist: I am sure things like Race Driver grid with the text document fix could be done on there end and packed up with the installer for people with higher resolution screens. Stuff like that but I know older stuff that you just cant fix is not easy to address. and plus they do once in a very short often while release games that just flat out don't work or have corrupt files like the jazz jackrabbit problem on launch missing levels. lol

Maybe I am just really lazy with fixing text in game documents to make it run on higher resolution or textures. sometimes I just like it to be seamless out the box you know?
Well, there are various launchers which you can use to streamline that.
Posted February 13, 2018
avatar
DreamedArtist: I am sure things like Race Driver grid with the text document fix could be done on there end and packed up with the installer for people with higher resolution screens. Stuff like that but I know older stuff that you just cant fix is not easy to address. and plus they do once in a very short often while release games that just flat out don't work or have corrupt files like the jazz jackrabbit problem on launch missing levels. lol

Maybe I am just really lazy with fixing text in game documents to make it run on higher resolution or textures. sometimes I just like it to be seamless out the box you know?
Race Driver is (was) a newer game, and GOG doesn't normally "fix" the newer games in the store by themselves. Most probably GOG isn't even allowed to do that, it is the publisher's job to fix the problem, and send the update to the GOG version. Since the game was removed from the store, that is not happening anymore either I guess. (I don't see the game on Steam store either (only the sequel with various add-ons), so was the game removed completely from all stores? A car licensing issue again?)

For those older games where GOG does apply its own fixes too, in some cases a change that would fix something for some people, might break the same thing for others, e.g. in a different OS or configuration. In such cases it is understandable that people may have to "fix" it themselves, if they are affected by the problem. Like that "text document fix" that you mentioned for Race Driver, are you sure it doesn't break things for some other users?

When GOG is applying fixes, they have to make sure it works in various different configurations, not just in your one specific configuration.

As for the Jazz the Jackrabbit problem, wasn't that fixed then? At least both Jazz 1 and 2 have received GOG updates later.
Post edited February 13, 2018 by timppu
Posted February 13, 2018
avatar
DreamedArtist: I am sure things like Race Driver grid with the text document fix could be done on there end and packed up with the installer for people with higher resolution screens. Stuff like that but I know older stuff that you just cant fix is not easy to address. and plus they do once in a very short often while release games that just flat out don't work or have corrupt files like the jazz jackrabbit problem on launch missing levels. lol

Maybe I am just really lazy with fixing text in game documents to make it run on higher resolution or textures. sometimes I just like it to be seamless out the box you know?
avatar
timppu: Race Driver is (was) a newer game, and GOG doesn't normally "fix" the newer games in the store by themselves. Most probably GOG isn't even allowed to do that, it is the publisher's job to fix the problem, and send the update to the GOG version. Since the game was removed from the store, that is not happening anymore either I guess. (I don't see the game on Steam store either (only the sequel with various add-ons), so was the game removed completely from all stores? A car licensing issue again?)

For those older games where GOG does apply its own fixes too, in some cases a change that would fix something for some people, might break the same thing for others, e.g. in a different OS or configuration. In such cases it is understandable that people may have to "fix" it themselves, if they are affected by the problem. Like that "text document fix" that you mentioned for Race Driver, are you sure it doesn't break things for some other users?

When GOG is applying fixes, they have to make sure it works in various different configurations, not just in your one specific configuration.

As for the Jazz the Jackrabbit problem, wasn't that fixed then? At least both Jazz 1 and 2 have received GOG updates later.
Not sure if it was fixed or not but I did not even bother with installing it yet. maybe in a few months when I get some free time I will try it out.
Pages:
1
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionHow well do GOG games scale to current systems?(12 posts)solved(12 posts)solved
(12 posts)solved