Well, here we are again! Windows 7 is already 3 years old and Windows 8 was released in October 2012. Support for XP will cease in April 2014, just a little over a year from now. Say what you want about Microsoft, the fact that they have continued to provide support for this venerable operating system for going on thirteen years has been great for those of us who are gamers. I built a low-end computer just to house my old XP hard drive.

But, things change and move on, especially in technology. And, boy, did they move on this time with Windows 8. There are good things and bad things to say about this new operating system, but I also remember much gnashing of the teeth when the “horrible disaster called XP” was released. I refused to give up my Windows 98 for four years. All I can say is that Windows 8 is here and I don’t see Microsoft going back to the “old ways” anytime soon.

So with that said, I’ve been running Windows 8 for about 6 months off and on and for about 3 months full time with Windows 8 Pro. I will leave all the arguments about whether it’s good or bad or something in between to those who know far more than I do. What I care about is if it works for me and if I can continue my self-admitted gaming addiction in the new operating system.

I installed Windows 8 Pro in my good old system that I built in 2009, so it is running on 4 year old hardware. I will include my computer specs for reference. As you can see, they are far from “cutting edge.” But I use my computers until they no longer suit my purposes or croak beyond repair.

Processor - Intel Core Two Duo, Wolfdale E-8400, 3.0 Ghtz
Disk drive - 500 GB WD 32 MB cache
Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 video card, 896 MB
Creative SB X-Fi sound card
4 GB RAM

UPDATES
Processor - Ivy Bridge Core i5 @ 3.6 GHtz
Disk drive - 1 TB WD Velociraptor
Video Card - Nvidia Geforce GTX Overclocked 660Ti
Ram - 8 GB
Sound Card - Creative SB X-Fi

I've updated to Windows 8.1 and then to the Windows 8.1 Update with no effect on games.

I’m also running Windows 7 in the same system on a super fast solid state boot drive and another 500 GB data hard drive.

On to the reason for this post… games. As time permits, I’m testing all my games on Windows 8 Pro. Unless otherwise noted, these are all original CD or DVD versions of the games and I installed to the default location of C:\Program Files (x86). I have played each of the games to where I interact with inventory items by picking them up and using them, saving a game, exiting the game and loading a saved game. I’ve made sure dialogue trees work and the sound and video behave as they are intended. The list is short at this point, but I will add to it as I am able, so check this thread often. They include adventure, RPG, FPS, platformers, action and casual games. We welcome all other experiences on Windows 8 with your games. I'm concentrating on games pre-Windows 7 which was released in October 2009.

NOTE: You may see a message saying "Windows has protected your computer. SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting. Running this program might put your PC at risk." If you click OK, the window will close and nothing will happen. If you click on "More Information," you will be given the option to Run Anyway. I got this with the Squirt the Cat installers and I selected Run Anyway.

NOTE 2: GOG is now including Windows 8 on their game information. So, if you run into an old game that won't run on Windows 7 or Windows 8, you may be able to find it there. We will assume that if GOG says one of their games will run on Windows 8, there shouldn't be any problems.

GAMES THAT INSTALLED AND PLAYED WITH NO ISSUES OR ONLY MINOR TWEAKS

American McGee's Alice 2000

A Vampyre Story 2008

Barrow Hill 2006 NOTE: Had to go to the game folder to send a game shortcut to the desktop.

Big Fish Casual Games NOTE: I had two which would not play on the Windows 8 Release Preview. I notified Big Fish and when the official OS was released, I found both games now played. They told me they were going through their game catalogue and patching any games that had problems.

Bioshock 2007

Chains of Satinav 2012 Although this is a new game, there was a question about it in the Glitches forum, so I'm including it. Oldman played in on his Windows 8 with no problems.

Culpa Innata, Uncut Version 2007 Oldman installed the game, but got an "unable to process, error 1275" message. When he installed the updated Tages copy protection drivers, the game launched and played normally. You can get the Tages drivers here... make sure you get the correct version for your computer, 32-bit or 64-bit.

Tages Copy Protection Drivers

Dark Fall Lights Out 2004

Dark Fall The Journal 2002

Deus Ex 2000 After a rocky start, Diat60 was able to get this game installed and running. She initially got a large installation screen that she couldn't do anything with. She then tried some fixes from another website, but none of them worked. She then uninstalled everything including the game and tried again. This time when a message box from Windows offered to diagnose and correct problems, she let it run and after a couple of adjustments on Windows part, everything worked as it should.

Diablo II Lord of Destruction Expansion Pack 2000/2001 Had a notice that the game was not compatible and giving options for getting help on line or running it anyway. I right clicked the game icon, selected Properties and then opted to run it in XP SP3 mode. The game plays perfectly.

Dracula Resurrection 2000 NOTE: Another surprise. Initially the game didn’t install, but I right clicked the setup file on the disk and clicked on Run as Administrator. The setup asked me if I wanted to install DirectX 6.1 and I said yes. The game ran perfectly – I couldn’t run it in XP without selecting Windows 98 in Compatibility Mode. I did have to send a game shortcut icon to the desktop. The game installed to C:\Program Files.

Dracula The Last Sanctuary 2001

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 2001 Initially I got an error message that the disk was damaged or had bad sectors. Since I knew it didn't, I went to the Setup file (inside the Setup folder) on the disk, right clicked and selected Run as Administrator. The game installed and played perfectly. I played all the way through the first challenge with no problems at all.

Haunting at Cliffhouse 2012

Keepsake 2006

Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events 2004

Morrowind 2003

Myst Masterpiece Edition 2000 (original game was 1993) My biggest surprise so far. I could not get this game to play well at all on my Windows 7 unless I did some serious gyrations. Even the GOG version did not play well without a couple of tweaks. However, I installed it on Windows 8 with all the defaults and it plays perfectly. When asked if I wanted to install Quicktime 4, I said yes. When asked if I wanted to install DirectX 6.1, I said yes.

Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls IV 2006


Pandora's Box 1999 Bristol got this venerable old game to run on her Windows 8 computer by using the patch. Pandora's Box Patch

Penumbra Overture 2007

Prey 2006

Ratatouille 2007

Scratches 2006 NOTE: In Windows 7, it was necessary to access the Scratches game file and edit the Scream.cfg file… but not in Windows 8.

Syberia I – 2003 At the end of installation on disk 2, I got an error, but the game works perfectly. Error was DirectX 8.0a Object error; Unknown error.

Syberia II 2004

The Hobbit 2003 NOTE: Had to go to the game folder to send a game shortcut to the desktop.

The Lost Crown 2007

Tombraider Underworld 2008

Undying 2001 (Clive Barker's Undying)

Uru, Ages Beyond Myst 2003

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2004


GAMES THAT NEEDED SIGNIFICANT EXTRA STEPS TO INSTALL AND/OR PLAY

Bioshock 2 2010 Although this is a later game, I got an error message when installing it and the same error message when I tried to launch the game. The error referred to a missing .dll file in Windows Live. This is a Games for Windows Live game, so I opened up the GFWL client which said I needed to download an update. After I downloaded the update, the game runs perfectly.

Dracula Origin 2008 I could not get this game to install at all, even using compatibility mode - I suspect Windows 8 is blocking the Tages copy protection. However, Starcom got it to install and play using the NoCD fix. I'm going to double check it and hopefully this one can be added to the "plays" list. EDIT: Nope, didn't work for me. I cannot get the game to install at all. Starcom and I "seem" to have the same original 3 CD version, but it worked for him.

Grim Fandango 1998 I used the 3rd party installer and launcher and this game installed, launched and played perfectly. However, when I pressed F1 and saved the game, I lost all sound when I resumed the game. When I exited and then started it back up again, the sound was fine. I tried XP SP2 compatibility with no success. Then I tried Windows 98 compatibility and was able to save, resume, exit, reload etc. with no loss of sound. You will need the installer and the launcher which can be found at these two links.

Grim Fandando Installer
Grim Fandango Launcher

Shivers 2 1997 I was finally able to get this old Sierra game working by using the installer from Squirt the Cat. After I installed the game using the installer, I went to the game folder (C:\Program Files (x86)) and sent an application shortcut to the desktop. I also changed the icon to the one found in the game folder. The game ran perfectly after that. Squirt the Cat installers can be found here:

Squirt the Cat Installers


GAMES THAT WOULD NOT INSTALL OR PLAY

Amber Journeys Beyond

Riven, The Sequel to Myst

Shivers I

Silent Hill 2 The game installed fine, but I had to say NO to installing DirectX 8.1. If I said yes, the installation aborted. Game loaded and I played for about 1/2 hour. Unfortunately, I could not do a save. I believe the issue concerns the hard drive size. Message was it needed 32 KB space and free space was 99999999+ KB. Then it checked the hard drive and said the save was corrupted.

Zanzarah - I finally give up on this one. We found a work around in Windows 7 which involved importing a saved game from a computer running XP. But even that didn't work. The game installed and would load, but the cutscenes had flashing lights and the whole game ran in slo-mo. Shucks.

NEW CATEGORY: LIMBO!

Myst Exile 2001 The game installed and played. However, all the video flashed constantly. Once the video was done, then the game worked just fine. InlandAZ suggested missing codecs and I downloaded and installed the K-Lite codec package. No change. Tried some settings in my Nvidia Conrol Panel and finally gave up. Inland, however, installed the game in his Windows 8 running in a VMWare image and it installed and ran perfectly for him.

Draclvr thanks for the info. I appreciate it and I look forward to your list of playable games on W8.

Same here Draclvr, I now have Windows 8 64 bit Laptop (I had it for about a month now) and I appreciate the time and effort you take to test out the games.

As for Shivers II, did you try the installer from Squirt the Cat that you mentioned in your test for Win7 64 bit yet?
I no longer have the game so I can't test it here, but just curious.

By the way, thanks to your recommendations regarding programs like Stardock I absolutely love Win8, with Stardock you get the best of both worlds, Win7 at start-up and one simple click and you can test drive Win8, also thanks to InlandAZ, and others for testing out Win8 and giving us your feedbacks

I tried the Squirt the Cat installer with Shivers 2 last night, but it didn't work. I'm going to try again this morning with a couple of cups of coffee in me!

EDIT: Success this morning! I'll edit the post. I'm going to try the installer for Amber too, but I'm not holding my breath.

Thanx a bunch Draclvr! You R a Dear!

Just curious, why does it work when you send a shortcut to the desktop Drac ?

Dunn

It would work just fine to go to c:\Program Files (x86)\The Game File\application launcher. But I don't want to do that - I want to double click an icon on my desktop. The game installer just didn't put one there during installation.

Oh, Ok thanks,

Dunn

Thanks Drac

Thanx Draclvr, My old laptop just died and have had to get a new one needless to say it runs on Win 8 so fingers crossed

Big Thank You to Draclvr. I have very few of these games and don't have Windows 8 yet but I appreciate the effort you went to to record and share this.

Here's hoping I will get to personally try these games on Win8 soon.

Thanks, Bob. I'm plugging away at it as time permits. I'm hoping that people who have games that I don't will check them out so we can add them to the post.

Hi,
Just dropped by to say that I was able to play "Riven The sequel to Myst" from GOG on my Windows 8 64 bit Laptop, I just let GOG pretty much let it install by itself and do it’s setup, the only thing I changed was the “Install to destination” in which I choose to install it in my C:\Games folder and the game played without a hitch, crash or any hiccups.

That's good to know, Starcom! Does GOG advertise Riven as playable on Windows 8?

Yes they do Dralvr,
here is the link if others are interested:

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/riven_the_sequel_to_myst

take care
Ray

Is Windows 8 64-bit an asset or a problem when it comes to gaming?

In my opinion, it's an asset because you can use more than 4 MB of RAM in your computer for other things. For the few games that are 16-bit code and won't play on 64-bit operating systems, there are other alternatives.

If you have a higher end computer such as the one you were looking at earlier, then you should definitely get the 64-bit operating system, be it Windows 7 or Windows 8.

I put a 32-bit Windows 7 operating system on our computer we use at the American Legion because I only put 2 GB of RAM in it. That's all we need, so it made sense. But if you have more than 4 GB of RAM, then you need the 64-bit OS.

I am going to lend my Myst(the original) and Delaware St John #2 and Agon 1-3 to a friend.. Mom has win 7 and he has win 8.
Has anyone tried to play these.. and do I need to make a separate folder for them and keep them out of Program Files.
I am still using XP so I can not try them out.
thanks

Check in my Windows 7 and Games thread. It seems to me I could not get the Myst Masterpiece Edition to play without a lot of tweaking. I finally downloaded the GOG version and even it needed something to get it to run properly. I believe they have fixed that by now though. They list is as working on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.

I don't have the Delaware St. John game to test on Windows 8.1.

I don't remember if the Agon games were listed in the Windows 7 thread, so check there. For the most part, if a game played in Windows 7, it also played in Windows 8.

What I do with these games is to first try to install them normally. 99% of the time, that works. If there are issues, the next step is to try compatibility mode. If that works, then you're good to go. If none of that works, then I install in Documents.

If your Myst is the original Myst, I doubt it will work natively in Windows 7, but it's worth a try.

GOG has the Myst games for $5.99.

Thanks Drac..mine is the original.. I checked already in your list of games.. guess I will go over and just try to load them... with all the games I have I am bound to find one that will work. They are Big Fish gamers and want to step up .. :-)

Let me know how it goes!

thanks share

Gray Matter installed and played without a hitch in Win 8.

I'll add it to the list... Thanks, Cue!

Hi, hoping someone can help. I just managed to install from disc Simon the Sorcerer 4 on my Win8 laptop. Took some doing but got there in the end but when I tried to launch the game a message came up saying xul.dll missing. I downloaded and installed from the internet then another message came up saying mozjs.dll missing. I tried downloading and installing this. it seems to have downloaded ok but when I click install, the window showing the progress flashes momentarily then disappears therefore it is not installing. Can anyone help? ScummVM doesn't support this game. Also...simple terms please...I'm not a techie!