Some help with Windows 7 and games please?

The Game Room
1

I just got a new PC. Sweet! I said. I don’t have to be a console player anymore. I can play all kinds of PC games!

Except I can’t because they don’t work. Oh, it’s not as bad as Vista, which was the main reason I waited so long to upgrade from XP. But it’s still annoying.

I have a Steam account. I have about eight games on it and am afraid to buy more because so many of them a) don’t run or b) take a lot of tweaking to run.

Sacred 2: took a lot of tweaking to run, and in the end, my SO fixed it, not me. I gave up.
Right now I really want to play Portal 2. I re-downloaded it and tried to play it. NOPE. It keeps saying it can’t run more than one instance, but it’s not running. I tried most of the fixes online, like deleting the appcache folder, and verifying the game, etc. Nothing.

Older games give me trouble too. I tried installing Neverwinter Nights. The entire installation and both add-ons worked fine, including the patches and the updates. But the game just won’t run. I’ve tried compatibility mode, running it as an administrator. I haven’t tried uninstalling and reinstalling the whole thing. It took time to do, and I don’t have a lot of free time.

I don’t really have tons of time to try to fix these problems. I am in school and I work full-time. I have about 30 minutes or an hour each night that I allocate for video games. I just want to get on and play.

(In contrast, I can put a game into my console and play it immediately. I don’t have problems with patches or updates, it automatically patches and updates. I don’t play console games because of some sort of moral superiority, just because it’s easier. :frowning: )

Anyway, it’s really upsetting that my brand-new PC gives me so much trouble with games. Some work, randomly. Pirates of the Caribbean plays like a dream. I bought Battlefield 2: Bad Company and Botanicula. I haven’t tried to reinstall Portal 1. Torchlight II - no problems at all.

Any thoughts? Help? I want to play some luvverly games on my PC!

2

Without knowing what is exactly causing the problem, my first suggestion would be to not install them into a default directory (for example, I made a folder e:\program files(x86) and I install everything there, though in the past, I’ve also just done c:\games and installed them there.). Sometimes Windows security ‘features’, especially in the default program files folders, get in the way.

3

Are all of your games off of Steam? I only ask because Sacred 2 and NWN are both older titles and I know NWN 2 was pulled from Steam. I don’t know if the old version designed around Win98 and XP will work without a lot of tinkering. the Gamersgate page for Neverwinter Nights Complete says it won’t work on a 64-bit OS. The GOG version says it works with Win7 but I saw conflicting reports on it working with the 64-bit version.

The problem with old games, in console speak, is you’re trying to play PS1 games on a PS3. Unless the game was redesigned for the new system, you’re going to have problems.

4

I’ve played Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, Icewind Dale, NWN 1 & 2, and other old games on a 64-bit OS with no OS related issues…though, come to think of it, I may have had issues until I started changing the default installation directory. I learned that trick back with Vista 64-bit.

5

For NW Nights, I had to use XP mode.

6

No, NWN is off disc. I’ll try changing the default directory, that might help, but I thank you for your comments either way. :slight_smile: