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General discussionPreservation Program...What is the real point?(26 posts)(26 posts)
(26 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 02, 2025
I have to agree with Dawnsinger. As far as I can see, the Preservation Program was made for making sure games are able to keep running on modern systems. GOG has not mentioned anywhere that they would fix any underlying issues present in the game itself.

Also, I don't think many publishers would like their game being prepackaged with unofficial mods.
Posted March 02, 2025
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Hurricane0440: Also, I don't think many publishers would like their game being prepackaged with unofficial mods.
I don't think they care as long as they gave clauses in their contracts that modmaker or GOG on behalf of the modmaker can't come after them for cut of the profits. Strictly talking about vanilla enhancement mods, though.
Post edited March 02, 2025 by UnashamedWeeb
Posted March 02, 2025
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Plasticine879: Windows has by far the best backward compatibility. The fact that I can still play games after 20 years is no small feat. Linux [...] does not enjoy that[...]
Yeah it does. There are tools, barely changed from their 1980s, predating the inception of Linux that still run. There are entire suites of applications, utilities and terminal tools that still run to this day.

Not to mention the desktop suites and display server that spans back over 40 years.
Posted March 02, 2025
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Plasticine879: Windows has by far the best backward compatibility. The fact that I can still play games after 20 years is no small feat. Linux and MACOS do not enjoy that kind of backward compatibility.

WIth that said, even a few games I have from here have a custom directx wrapper that comes with them, to make the game run on modern systems. That GOG is even making an effort at making games compatible -- especially when the source code of these old games is most likely lost long ago -- I have to give GOG kudos for that.

Even still, I have a few games that will not run on my AMD system no matter what, but play fine on my intel system. Maintaining backward compatibility over such a wide berth of hardware, after decades, is not easy. At least GOG is trying. They have what, thousands of games in their library? That takes time to verify compatibility of them all.
I can run pretty much anything on Lutris & Steam, I would say it is even better than Windows for backward compatibility running windows games. I don't pay many modern or multiplayer games though as i have no interest and apparently the anti cheat DRM is a pain to run.
Post edited March 02, 2025 by TeleFan76
Posted March 02, 2025
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Plasticine879: Windows has by far the best backward compatibility. The fact that I can still play games after 20 years is no small feat. Linux and MACOS do not enjoy that kind of backward compatibility.

WIth that said, even a few games I have from here have a custom directx wrapper that comes with them, to make the game run on modern systems. That GOG is even making an effort at making games compatible -- especially when the source code of these old games is most likely lost long ago -- I have to give GOG kudos for that.

Even still, I have a few games that will not run on my AMD system no matter what, but play fine on my intel system. Maintaining backward compatibility over such a wide berth of hardware, after decades, is not easy. At least GOG is trying. They have what, thousands of games in their library? That takes time to verify compatibility of them all.
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TeleFan76: Have you even tried Linux ? I can run pretty much anything on Lutris & Steam, I would say it is even better than Windows for backward compatibility. I don't pay many modern/multiplayer games though as i have no interest and apparently the online anti cheat is a pain.
If you're talking about linux, that hasn't been my experience personally. I've used linux off and on since 2008. Downloaded older appimage programs that were no longer developed, for instance, and they just wouldn't run on newer versions. Tried with many distros too.

Edit: I wasn't talking about Steam, or even Wine. I was talking about older programs that are no longer in developement, and having to run an older distro to use it.
Post edited March 02, 2025 by Plasticine879
Posted March 02, 2025
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TeleFan76: Have you even tried Linux ? I can run pretty much anything on Lutris & Steam, I would say it is even better than Windows for backward compatibility. I don't pay many modern/multiplayer games though as i have no interest and apparently the online anti cheat is a pain.
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Plasticine879: If you're talking about linux, that hasn't been my experience personally. I've used linux off and on since 2008. Downloaded older appimage programs that were no longer developed, for instance, and they just wouldn't run on newer versions.
Linux Mint Cinnamon is the easiest to use for gaming. Lutris is a client you download in the software manager. It's very easy to use and runs pretty much everything i have tried.
Post edited March 02, 2025 by TeleFan76
Posted March 02, 2025
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Posted March 02, 2025
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Plasticine879: If you're talking about linux, that hasn't been my experience personally. I've used linux off and on since 2008. Downloaded older appimage programs that were no longer developed, for instance, and they just wouldn't run on newer versions. Tried with many distros too.
This is a known issue. Even native games that are no longer developed anymore will become incompatible with newer distro releases because they depend on older versions of system libraries like glibc.

On the other hand, Windows games running on Linux via Proton don't face that issue because Proton is an actively maintained project so it will always be updated to remain compatible with Linux. Since Proton provides mostly everything that games require to run in its simulated Windows environment, even older games run perfectly fine through it.

Fortunately, this issue is being fixed thanks to modern packaging formats like Flatpak and Snap since they also allow programs to run in a container without having to rely on system libraries.

https://www.howtogeek.com/749102/why-you-should-use-proton-instead-of-the-steam-linux-runtime/
Post edited March 02, 2025 by Hurricane0440
Posted March 02, 2025
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TeleFan76: Have you even tried Linux ? I can run pretty much anything on Lutris & Steam, I would say it is even better than Windows for backward compatibility. I don't pay many modern/multiplayer games though as i have no interest and apparently the online anti cheat is a pain.
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Plasticine879: If you're talking about linux, that hasn't been my experience personally. I've used linux off and on since 2008. Downloaded older appimage programs that were no longer developed, for instance, and they just wouldn't run on newer versions. Tried with many distros too.

Edit: I wasn't talking about Steam, or even Wine. I was talking about older programs that are no longer in developement, and having to run an older distro to use it.
Sorry i misread your post , i didn't realize you mean't native Linux software.
Posted March 02, 2025
There are a lot of games that have bugs and problems because of modern machines. So the point should not be to only make sure the games run on modern machines without fixing old bugs, but release old games that run properly on new systems/hardware...
Posted March 02, 2025
Like Alien vs. Predator, which last ran for me on Win 2k, but failed on XP and beyond (same machine). Never got to finish it due to this.
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General discussionPreservation Program...What is the real point?(26 posts)(26 posts)
(26 posts)