Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-11-19, 17:16:

dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-11-19, 16:39:

Crazy! Gog sell's old games that do not run on old-pc's they were released for and also they don't work on new PC's...so where is the sweet-spot here....CRAP!

My experience with GOG releases has been as follows. DOS era games usually ship with DOSBox and can be installed on a modern PC without much hassle. After that, it's easy to copy over the folder containing the game to a real DOS machine and run it from there. Preferably, delete any files from the game folder which don't conform to the 8+3 naming convention beforehand, as they aren't needed on a real DOS system.

I would further add that things start getting fucky again during the era where DOS games started using CD audio. GOG compresses the audio tracks into ogg files, and I guess dosbox can mount them ok. But CD burning software and other mounting software can't. Or at least I don't know of any which does. Presumably you can convert it all back to regular cd audio, and burn the cd you need like that. But at that point I'd rather just buy the game off ebay if it's less than $20.

Namrok wrote on 2022-11-21, 14:23:

I would further add that things start getting fucky again during the era where DOS games started using CD audio. GOG compresses the audio tracks into ogg files, and I guess dosbox can mount them ok. But CD burning software and other mounting software can't. Or at least I don't know of any which does. Presumably you can convert it all back to regular cd audio, and burn the cd you need like that. But at that point I'd rather just buy the game off ebay if it's less than $20.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of them using .ogg files for storing CD audio tracks, since that's a lossy format. Had they gone with FLAC instead, it would have been easier to restore the music to its proper form.

But just like you say, that's often too much of a hassle, and I would also rather get a retail copy of such games.

For a retro-gamer on retro-machines you are far better with the retail-cd's and a crack rather than buying on GOG.

Phil just posted a video which shows how to run a bunch of GOG games on a retro system.

Among our things, he explains how to install missing codecs, remove wrappers, and undo fan made patches aimed at modern Windows. It's a lengthy video, but well worth watching.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-11-19, 17:16:

For Win9x era games,

The biggest reason I have found to bother with GOG, playing games I already own physical copies of on systems that cannot accommodate physical media. I never bother with DOS games because they use DOSBox anyway and I prefer loading those in other ways, but I like how Windows is point-and-click-to-start like it was back in the day, though it is no secret GOG stole fixes from fans (and have even been caught red-handed fishing from abandonware sites) to get them to work in the first place.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-08-29, 13:23:

Phil just posted a video which shows how to run a bunch of GOG games on a retro system.

Among our things, he explains how to install missing codecs, remove wrappers, and undo fan made patches aimed at modern Windows. It's a lengthy video, but well worth watching.

I cannot [officially] endorse the methodology, but there will always be relevance for copies of original directories and/or images of installation media and this is why. Still, hard to blame those selling for use on modern systems adapting them specifically for such.

I think GOG is great for games meant for XP or later. For Win9x I prefer to just buy physical disks on ebay. Most are fairly cheap. It can be annoying though to put the CD in before you can play. But, according to Phils video, you still have to do that with GOG games with CD audio.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-08-29, 22:53:

I think GOG is great for games meant for XP or later. For Win9x I prefer to just buy physical disks on ebay. Most are fairly cheap. It can be annoying though to put the CD in before you can play. But, according to Phils video, you still have to do that with GOG games with CD audio.

That's the most annoying part of it, because the fix for the cd-audio is mostly working on later windows-systems because the music-patch (OGG/MP3 etc.) relies on later middleware.

I also still prefer the original CD, which I'll create an iso of and put the CD away as backup.
Then I'll either apply a nocd crack or simply load the iso when playing a game.

The more popular games you can usually find a community patch to get running on a newer os if wanted and as mentioned game music will also work.
but some games I either cant get working or no patch exists. gog and the like make a good fallback in these cases.

gog is also useful if you don't actually own the game or unable to find the original media to purchase.

For Windows 9X you can generally make clean 1:1 copies of CDs with Alcohol 120% if you have the original game (and you can usually find them online) but with anything below a Pentium II, running Alcohol 120% images with CD audio is ... not ideal. It requires a lot of CPU power to emulate the CD audio and I find that in game the audio stutters a lot and general performance of the entire system is a LOT worse because of the overhead needed for the emulation of the CD audio. I think you ideally want a Pentium III system as a result if you go the emulation route like I did otherwise later Windows 9X games will struggle even more.

On the plus side, most Windows 9X games will work on a Windows XP system - I bought a very cheap IBM desktop from 2005 (Pentium IV) for €40, added a NVS 300 for €25 + Sound Blaster USB (with EAX support) for €30 and I was shocked to find that the huge bulk of Windows 9x games ran just fine, sometimes with a little bit of tinkering but ... shows you can get good retro system for relatively cheap.

Right, you just have to have sufficient slots for whatever hardware you fancy and do your homework on potential compatibility quirks but, in general, Windows XP is VERY friendly to Windows 9x games (and if all else fails the same system ought to accommodate Windows 98SE fine).