How Well Do These Old Games Work On Newer Computers?

I’m thinking of getting some older games, like:
Planescape Torment
Fallout 1 & 2

There might be more, but I don’t remember. But anyway, would they work on a 3-4 year old PC with Windows XP?
Oh, and any other reccomendations would be cool. They don’t have to be RPG’s.

Torment works fine on my XP system; I have a Compaq with a 2.0Gb Sempiron processor and a GeForce FX5200 video card.

I’ve been meaning to play it over again, but I’m afraid that I’ll lose track of the passing days (in reality)…

Those games should work fine.

LucasArts old adventure games run perfect too(Monkey Island 1&2, Indiana Jones games, Day of the Tentacle).

I’ve had perfect success with King’s quest 1-7 as well.

How old is old? You can probably run most newer games without any problems and some with compatibility mode set. I can only think of one or two games I have that won’t run under XP at all that were originally released with Win98 in mind.

If you go really old, get DosBox. Mahaloth is right that the old LucasArts adventure games run, but for me they run without sound (unless the game was designed for the PC speaker like Zak McCracken.) DosBox fixes that.

Or an old computer. I have a 266mHz P3 specifically for games that don’t work on my Athlon 1800+ or even my 450mHz P3.

Planescape: Torment has a LOT of issues on newer boxes.

Seriously? I musta dodged a bullet, then. Had no problems running it on my desktop, which was then about a 1GHz Athlon running 98SE and is now a … 2600+? 2800+? Something like that, it’s been awhile since the upgrade; in any case, it’s now running Win2K.

I don’t have a copy myself, but everyone I know who does has had issues.

Crashing out and losts saves and such.

Sam and Max Hit the Road is a bastard to get running properly. Too bad, because it’s still awesome.

I had problems with Grim Fandango, as well. Made it 2/3 through before they arose, unfortunately.

Of course, only now do I find that LucasArts came out with a patch that “Slows down a certain puzzle during the game which goes too fast for completion on processors higher than 400mhz.” Maybe I could have finished it after all.

Planescape: Torment and Fallout 2 both work fine on my WinXP system.

I’ve never been able to make the original Fallout work though.

(Not that you care, but I tried long and hard to get Realms of Arkania III: Shadows over Riva to work and failed miserably there too.)

Thanks, everybody.
I’ll get Fallout 2 and Planescape sometime. Anyone else tried the first Fallout?
If P:T doesn’t work on the computer, maybe my brother will let me play it on his laptop or something.

Re: The old Lucasarts games, I have good news! http://www.scummvm.org/

Not only do the old Lucasarts adventure games work, but the sound works too!
I think it’s legal, because you can’t run the games without the data files.

Heh, I remember this problem popping up when games designed for the 4.77MHz XT were unplayably fast after an 8MHz upgrade.

The solution was to turn off the TURBO switch.

Planescape and Fallout 2 run fine on my AMD Athlon 64 4000+ XP system. The original Fallout has an issue with newer large hard drives that you can get around by doing the smaller install option. (Haven’t been able to find a patch for it.) Fallout 2 had the same issue that was fixed with a patch.

I wish the DOS version of the Oregon Trail would work under Windows XP. It always crashes when I open it, even under different compatibility settings.

I’ll cast my vote also for Torment and Fallout 2 working without problems on my reasonably new machine running under XP. Torment actually has surprisingly steep hardware requirements, I’ve found - the computer I first played it on was a Pentium III 550, and it became unplayable/unstable in parts due to framerate hits.

I never got the first Fallout game to work on any system, old or new, so I guess that can be attributed to my own incompetence.

~ Isaac

Fallout 2 runs about nine hundred times too fast on the world map for me. Luckily there’s a fan-made patch for that available on http://nma-fallout.com.

Groovy.
Okay, I might as well ask this: How well have they aged? Will the low res graphics cause headaches, and gameplaywise do they hold up compared to the more recent ones? Baldur’s Gate 2 was nice that it had 800x600 resolution, and was fun.

Also, what is Planescape like? All of the screenshots I’ve seen seem to show it in dungeon-like places, and I hope it’s not a big dungeon crawl game. I like my RPGs to have more than combat- I didn’t like Dungeon Siege.

I’ve run Planescape: Torment on my 3-year-old computer just fine. It’s not a big dungeon crawl - there is a ton of character interaction, and finding out your amnesiac character’s past is your primary mission.